Pipbucks are… strange. On the one hoof, they can make our lives so much easier. They can organize our belongings. They can remind us of important dates and information. They can allow us to see when we otherwise could not. And, most important in my own line of work, they can help us focus on what matters.

And how to kill it.

On the other hoof, Pipbucks are cumbersome to those of us not used to them. They take time to learn how to use properly. They knock things over unless you remember you’re wearing a big steel tube on one hoof. They serve as a constant reminder of The Stable, like a shackle to obligation. If you’re not careful, the added weight on your leg will harm you more than any foe ever could.

When I was first assigned my own Pipbuck, it nearly threw my balance several times before I learned to compensate. It seemed like an easy enough thing to fix by wearing my knife and its sheathe on my other leg in order to equal out the weight. But the closer to perfect balance I thought I was, the more I found I had needlessly bloated my kit.

Your grandmother taught me long ago that for millennia The People believed balance to be the most sublime of all states. That it must permeate all things, and be known in all ways. I was horrible at that lesson. Even years after I mastered the balancing pole I never fully grasped what she had taught me. How could I? I was “Nadira,” after all. Even as my parents gave me a name they sealed my fate. I am, quite possibly, the worst zebra that has ever lived.

I don’t blame them. They wanted great things for their daughters. I simply had the misfortunes of being born second and being far too proud to accept my fate. When my sister invented recipes I improved them. When she beat me in a sparring match I pushed myself to be stronger and faster, and made sure she never won again. But no matter my skills, she was always better than me. She never made as grave an error as I did.

A tree cannot grow without its roots, but I abandoned my old family to begin my own. I lost my balance when I did that, and lived up to my name in the process. Girls… you should have learned your grandmother’s wisdom, and heard her riddles. You should have hunted with your grandfather as he stalked manticores for venom. You should have been exposed to so many things I could never teach you. So many things I could never say while living away from the open sky.

And, as much as it may hurt to hear, neither of you have balance either. You can blame your father and I for that, thought it was mostly my fault. Despite your father’s unquenchable thirst for knowledge, no pony can truly know the ways of The People. But neither do zebras fully understand ponies. There is wisdom to be gained from each, something I hope the two of you remember when you look upon each other.

As far as my Pipbuck was concerned… I found the perfect setup when your father helped me solder a blade to the casing and thicken the armor in the opposite leg of my cloak. A little more deadly, and a little more protected. Balance, girls. We must find it everywhere. Even when we look upon ourselves.

“She fucking cried herself to sleep…” Nohta’s shadow danced like a playful marionette along the barn’s wall in front of me as the open flame popped and snapped angrily. Beside it, Lily’s taller shadow showed my winged companion drinking from a bottle and gently unfurling a wing. As I lay on my side in my bedroll and stared blankly at the wall, I could scarcely feel the warmth of the fire on my back. It, like everything else, seemed miles away.

One shadow offered something to the other, and the sound of liquid splashing in a glass bottle preceded my sister’s voice. “Ugh, fuck. How do you drink that shit?”

“You get used to it.” The wild-maned shadow that belonged to the pegasus flailed a limb, and I heard Lily’s lighter snap shut after a weary exhalation. “I really didn’t think she’d react like that.”

They thought I was asleep, I realized. In a way I suppose I was sleeping, drifting on a turbulent sea of thought while the world passed me by like a stormy sky. Reality was like a dream, unbelievable in subject matter and vivid in intensity, but I could not summon the strength to rouse myself from my “slumber.” The waking world had become my nightmare, but far worse was the idea of drifting off to the world of my false goddess.

The mere thought of the hell waiting for me in Luna’s hooves was enough to keep my eyes wide and my mind racing. Yet every torturous second I spent awake was plagued by that singularly horrible realization: Mother and Father lied to me…

What do you value most about yourself? What is your greatest strength? If I were to hazard an approximation, I would posit the notion that you believe it is your loyalty to those whom you seek to protect. Even now, you seek to shelter them away from me due to your misplaced fear. You would strive to move the heavens themselves if it meant that no others came to harm, would you not? I can respect that, even if we both already know how this must end.

For my own part, I was a mare who valued her intelligence as her greatest asset, and that night all of my vaunted knowledge was cast in doubt. But even worse was the bitter betrayal from those whom I loved. Loyalty is among the greatest of virtues, and betrayal amongst the greatest of sins. Something I understand far too well…

All I could know for certain was the present moment and my immediate surroundings. With such thoughts plaguing my mind, I was in no hurry to trade the demons of the waking world for the ones in the world of dreams.

And I was in no rush to meet Luna in her sacred realm so soon after cursing her name.

Nohta’s shadow shook its head slowly, “She didn’t even cry like that when Dad died.” The fire popped as I stared ahead blankly, not caring to raise my head from my tear-soaked pillow. Nohta continued a moment later with a heavy sigh. “Everything must be hitting her all at once. I haven’t seen her this bad since Mom.”

Lily’s shadow made a shrugging gesture along the wall. “Not everyone reacts the same way to losing someone they care about.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Nohta’s voice was hard in the gloom, but softened considerably as she continued, “Shit, she’s been… She’s been unstable lately. Acting really weird and quiet around me. Around me! We don’t have secrets. Not from each other.” My brow furrowed as I recognized the pain in my sister’s voice, and my gut twisted as I recalled all the little things I was keeping from her.

“It’s like she hasn’t been herself lately,” Nohta continued. “I figured she was just stressed out after leaving The Stable, but after what just happened…” Nohta’s shadow shook its head. “This is bad. Real bad.”

“What I don’t get is why you’re not acting the same way.” Lily’s shadow scratched at its mane. “You lived down there too. And after seeing her reaction I didn’t even want to show you that orb. Why are you taking it so much better than her?”

Nohta snorted in disgust, “You don’t understand. I mean, this is totally fucked. I believed in Luna just as much as anyone else, and all this is… I don’t get it.” Nohta’s shadow slumped, and her next words were muffled by the hoof she dragged across her face. “But Candy? She lived for that shit.” Nohta’s shadow stilled as she whispered, “She wanted to be the next Priestess.”

I gasped quietly at the sound of the word, clutching my pillow a little tighter to my chest as the shadows broadcast how my two companions turned to gaze in my direction. I paid them no heed, staring forward as the echoes of memory whispered in my mind.

“Be a good girl,” Moonglow had told me. “Don’t make waves. Your path will be decided according to Luna’s will.” Every single word he had given me had been false… It was all a lie… How is a lady supposed to react to a revelation of that severity?

I resumed staring numbly at the wall as my thoughts raced down dark caverns. Nohta knew the truth now. That was good enough for me. I was far too emotionally spent to intuit how I should feel anymore. I had no precedent for this. How could I? I was simply making it up as I went. And once again, when faced with every option in the world, I was stalling—dumbfounded by an infinite number of forks in my road. I knew that I would have to make a choice soon, but the inevitability of that coming moment was as a storm on the horizon: both terrifying to behold and awe-inspiring to realize for what it was.

I must admit that part of me wanted to simply be swept away by the wind preceding that storm. I wanted to have the choice taken from my hooves. I did not yet know what I was capable of weathering.

Lily and Nohta’s shadows shuffled as they turned their attention back to the fire, apparently satisfied in their assumption that I was asleep. It was just as well, really. I was in no condition for speaking.

Lily’s shadow shook its head. “Uh… What’s a Priestess? Anything like a shaman?”

Nohta’s shadow shrugged as she whispered over the fire’s pops and snaps. “I never knew a Priestess in The Stable. We had Moonglow, but he was more like a temporary fill-in. We hadn’t had a proper Priest or Priestess of The Moon since before I was born.” The smaller shadow grew in height as my sister rose from the ground and paced alongside the fire. “The Priestess was like… the most powerful pony in 76. Not even The Overmare could overrule her. Not when each Priestess was supposed to be able to talk directly to Luna.”

Lily snorted, “I’ve heard of some fucked up stable experiments before, but never something like this. I mean, seriously? Luna’s dead.”

Nohta’s shadow stood still even as her voice rose. “If you’re expecting me to defend that brahminshit after I just found out the whole thing was a Goddess-damned lie then you’re pretty fucking stupid!” My breath hitched in my throat as I recognized in my sister’s voice all of the ugly hatred within my own heart. The shadows on the wall moved again as their owners glanced in my direction once more. I continued to lay still, and a few moments later Nohta’s voice fell to a disgusted whisper. “Doesn’t matter anyway. Nopony down there was gonna let a half-breed tell ‘em what to do.”

My thoughts bounced erratically in my skull just like the shadows that danced along the wall. Had I been strung along on purpose? Had my faith and aspirations been used against me? No… No, I reassured myself. In my grief and confusion I was simply rushing to place blame upon convenient targets. Moonglow had never been anything but kind, patient, and understanding. He had been a good pony. He had been a mentor to me, and a protector to Nohta. But his teachings had also warped our conceptions of the world.

One of my happiest memories was of the first time I was fortunate enough to attend midnight mass in the temple. It was a sacred time of night when all of The Stable’s lights were dimmed. The low hum of the choral hymns echoed through the halls—plainly audible in every room of The Stable when most of our aging electrical generators had been powered down—and lead the faithful to The Dark Mother’s statue. The dim glow of the candles lent a majestic and ethereal charm to Lady Luna’s stone likeness. The glow caught her outstretched wings, bounced off her polished surface, and made her appear as the moon itself—a lone holdout of guiding illumination surrounded by her faithful children. From that first reverent moment I was absolutely enthralled, and I treated my faith with all the zealous devotion that I would soon after employ with my medical training.

I devoured the texts of Selenism given to me by Moonglow, meditated nightly on the Three Truths at Luna’s hooves, and sought to live, always, by the creed of our faith. I found beneath her shadow acceptance, tolerance, and love. I had hoped to enkindle those feelings in my stablemates. But Moonglow… His advice was always the same. “Wait and see.”

Having learned the truth, I wanted so badly to place his memory firmly in the crosshairs of my wrath. Had Moonglow crushed my dreams quickly it would have been far less cruel than allowing me to fervently chase the impossible. But then… he hadn’t ever actually left The Stable, not with The Caravan. I would have found it so easy to despise Moonglow if not for one simple question for which I held no answer: was he ever even aware that he preached lies?

Had he read the books from the outside or just blindly fed them to the talisman within The Library’s restoration laboratory? Was he a willing conspirator or just a blind adherent following orders passed down to him from his predecessor? And the most important question of all: did his intentions or possible innocence even matter when his actions helped to orchestrate such anguish?

Lily’s next words brought me back to the conversation taking place between my two companions. “At least you’re not caught up in that fucking cult going around lately. Those folks creep me out.”

“What?”

“They call it ‘Unity.’ ” Lily’s shadow scratched at its wild mane before continuing, “Bunch of weird assholes preaching about togetherness and some sort of goddess.” The shadow raised its wings and bent its primary feathers as Lily quoted from memory. “A sisterhood of perfection that will bring an end to suffering through equality and harmony.” Lily spat her contempt on the ground before taking another drink. “As if something like that can exist in the wasteland.”

My brow furrowed against the pillow. The ponies of the wasteland had another goddess? Was that why the Steel Ranger had asked that odd question? The Star-Paladin had inquired, “Which goddess?” At the time I thought Sandalwood a fool. After realizing who the real fool was, I was left wondering how many immortals inhabited the world’s pantheon.

“Look Nohta, I’m sorry. I mean that. I really didn’t know what I was stirring up with all this, just that you two needed to know the truth.” Lily’s shadow laid its hat against the ground as she rubbed her eyes. “Fuck… You think she’s gonna be okay?” The drawn out sigh from my winged companion abated as an uncomfortable silence descended upon the room. Only the popping and cracking of the fire answered Lily’s query.

The silence ran on long enough to become awkward. Lily’s shadow shuffled before she asked again, “Nohta?”

“I don’t know.” My sister’s response was at once both curt and stern. And unnerving.

The thud of a nearly empty bottle against the soil resounded throughout the barn. “Damn it… She’s in no condition for bounty hunting. We should just play this safe and get you two back to Mareon. I can do this on my—”

“And Candy and I should do what? Sit on our asses, broke, in a town that hates us? No thanks.” Nohta’s shadow shook its head. “We’re close to The Caravan now, so we can at least take care of that. I don’t give a shit about most of the ponies that died there, but Dad…”

Father. Goddess, I hadn’t the faintest notion of how to feel regarding Father. Thinking of him was like trying to untie a knot without magic, except the knot was made of lead and strung around my heart.

Every quiet moment we had shared in study, in prayer, during meals… Why hadn’t he ever mentioned this? How hard could it have possibly been to simply take me aside and tell me the truth? Why had he kept it from me!?

Did he not trust me? Did he not think me capable of comprehending the truth? Surely he must have known that the more my faith grew the more painful the coming revelation would be. Had I disappointed him somehow? Had I failed some kind of test? Hadn’t he loved me enough to—

No! No! I knew Father. He was the only pony I knew whom I could safely say was smarter than myself. I refused to believe there wasn’t a perfectly logical reason why he chose to keep me ignorant of our home’s secret. Some lesson for me to learn on my own or even some stipulation of his station within The Stable. I would not trade an entire fillyhood of tender memories for one distorted interpretation of the best teacher I would ever have.

But… what good was a teacher if his lessons broke his student’s heart?

Lily’s voice cut through the silence. “You two are going through some heavy shit right now. You think Candy can handle that?” I clenched my eyes and my jaw tight as I squeezed the pillow even closer.

“Can’t fucking hurt. Not after everything else.” Nohta’s voice was exhausted and irritable. “And I don’t know what else we can do right now anyway.”

Liquid sloshed in a glass bottle before Lily asked, “And after? What then?”

I opened my eyes, focusing on the smaller shadow as I listened to my sister’s answer. “Stick with the plan and go for The Bard. We need caps, and those assholes tried to kill Margarita.” Nohta’s shadow displayed her profile as she turned back to gaze in my direction. “I’ll talk to Candy. She’ll listen to me.”

The smell of cigarette smoke wafted past my muzzle as Lily exhaled heavily. “You sure that’s smart? Forcing her to keep going like that?”

“Yeah.” Nohta’s shadow thinned as she turned back to the flickering flame. “I think it is.”

“I hope you’re right. I’m not so sure.”

Nohta’s voice was low as she whispered, “You haven’t seen the look she gets when she kills someone.”

“Uh… Yeah, I have. Outside Mareon. She was scared to death.”

Nohta’s shadow shook its head. “I saw her fight through our stable after the raiders got there. I saw her eyes when she pulled the trigger and killed The Pyro. And I remember what she told me that night about ‘curing a sickness.’ ” Nohta sighed as she added, “You’re right. She is afraid. But not of what you’re thinking.”

“I don’t follow.”

Nohta spat out her next words. “That’s because you don’t know shit about Candy.”

“I know she’s a friend, short-stack,” Lily insisted. “I’m trying to help her, but it’s like you’re fighting me every step of the way.”

Nohta scoffed. “Just because you got her drunk doesn’t mean you two are friends.”

Lily’s only response was to sigh and take another swig of her drink. The silence spanned minutes before Nohta asked a single question. “Why?”

“Huh?”

“Why do you think you two are friends?”

Lily snorted as her shadow flicked a wing out to the side. “Same reasons I think you and I could be if you’d just get off my flank for two seconds.” After a long exhalation, Lily chided my sister. “What’s your problem with me anyway? Candy told me that she thought we’d get along.”

“I don’t get what Candy and Margie think is so great about you. You’re not as good a fighter as you think you are.”

“Don’t let our little sparring match go to your head, kid. When I fight for real I don’t fight fair.”

“Whatever.” Nohta’s shadow flipped a hoof through the air. “You’re just another fuckin’ weirdo trying to sleep with my sister.”

“Wait… Seriously? That’s it?” Lily’s shadow jabbed an accusatory hoof in the air as she snickered. “Ha! You’re trying to protect her from me!”

“No shit, feather-brain. What’s so funny about that?”

Lily’s wings fluttered at her sides, blowing warm air from the fire across my mane. “Why the fuck do you think I took this job, Nohta?”

“I thought you wanted to help Margarita. You said you were here for blood.”

“Yeah, sure, and we’re gonna spill plenty of it before this is over. But you think that’s the only reason?” Lily’s whiskey bottle thunked against the ground before she continued, her shadow swaying much more than could be accounted for by the flickering flame alone. “Your sister… She’s good people. But she doesn’t know shit about how things work out here. And for that matter, neither do you.”

Lily’s shadow stretched a wing out at its side, bending one of her primary feathers down to start a list. “Raiders? Okay cool. We can kill a few raiders, no problem. But Psyker? Fuck, kid, she took out Margie’s whole crew by herself.” Lily’s hoof thudded against the ground as she braced herself against the alcohol. “Those weren’t a bunch of greenhorns, fledglings, and tenderhooves either. They were some of the best ponies I’ve ever known. Unless we get some serious back-up we are well and truly fucked.”

A second feather bent as Lily inhaled and exhaled more smoke. “Slavers? Shit… You better hope like hell that doesn’t mean who I think it means, because if he’s involved in all this then you two might as well give up right now. The only way you’re getting into Fillydelphia is in chains.”

A final feather fell when Lily continued a moment later, “And the griffin mercs? Griffins aren’t pushovers, Nohta. They’ve got no fucking honor at all, but they know how to fight. You two are fighting off way more than you can shoe.”

“I… what?”

“You two are like a couple little kitties trying to scratch and hiss at a pack of timberwolves. I’m here to make sure you don’t get torn to shreds.” Lily snorted, and her shadow shook its head as it folded its wing. “A doctor and her little sister on a fucking revenge quest against half the spirits-damned wasteland… Y’all are fucking crazy.”

“So… what?” Nohta’s shadow shrugged and shook its head. “You’re saying this is hopeless? If you don’t think we can do it then why are you here?”

“I guess I just like crazy.” Lily chuckled as her shadow leaned closer to Nohta. Her next words were a barely audible whisper, but carried the weight and conviction only a drunkard could achieve. “Revenge is something worth living for. Sometimes it’s even worth dying for. But it’s sure as hell worth killing for.

“That is wasteland justice, Nohta. That’s honor. Somepony did you wrong? Fine, it’s their choice. But you gotta make ‘em pay in blood.” Lily’s shadow straightened up before she finished off her cigarette and spat the nub into the flames. “Thunderhooves know a thing or two about what it’s like to crave revenge, and I know more than most Thunderhooves.”

Lily’s shadow inclined its head towards Nohta’s shadow. “You want to find the turkeys that killed your dad and your friend? Good. You should want that. And I can help you. Just make sure you’re damn good and ready to pay your own price after you collect your debt.”

Silence crept over the barn’s interior, broken only by the fitful snapping and crackling of the fire. In the wake of Lily’s whiskey-fueled vehemence, the quiet was like a comforting and protective blanket. It settled over the three of us, and I imagined that each of us was lost in our own thoughts. I, for one, couldn’t help but dwell on what Lily had said.

I had once considered revenge a “fringe benefit” to be acquired when solving a greater problem, but that was when I still judged the world with the moral compass of a Selenist. Without my faith to guide me, I held no barometer for what was right or decent anymore. Who was to say that any of the values I used to hold were worth keeping? Would I be forced to reevaluate every one of my beliefs? Should I simply forget the world and live solely for my sister and myself?

No. No, a purely logical existence driven by simple pragmatism was just too… heartless. That was not who I was. That was not who I would become. I was still a good mare! But… What if the world forced my hoof in another direction, as it had Nohta’s?

I still had desires and hopes. But those wants were in such a chaotic state of flux that I couldn’t even tell what I wished for anymore. Revenge? My stable had fed me nothing but lies! Why should I desire to avenge those who had perpetrated such a sham? Yet… not all of them were guilty of that betrayal…

I was weak and ignorant. Arrogant and hypocritical. I saw myself that night as if for the first time, in an entirely new light. As terrible as the imagery of that phrase was, it was also comforting. Change was coming, if only I could find the strength to make it so.

Ignorance can be confronted just like any other foe. It can be defeated, if only we seek the means to do so. By realizing my staggering weaknesses, I also discovered my greatest strength. I could change. I could adapt. I would learn the truth, no matter what horrors it held. Regardless of the cost, I would forge my own path in this world. I did not need Luna’s so-called holy orb to guide me through the darkness. The light of my horn would do just fine.

“Look…” Lily’s voice called my attention back to the shadows on the wall. “I didn’t mean to get all riled up, so I’ll tell you what. If it really bothers you that much then I’ll cool it with the flirting for a little while, okay?”

“You mean it?”

The winged shadow nodded. “Swear to Stormwalker.”

I shared my sister’s confusion as Nohta’s shadow shook its head. “Who?”

“She was my tribe’s… Ugh, nevermind. Yes, I promise.” Lily’s shadow up-ended a bottle as she made her vow, but her voice regained some of its assuredness as she continued speaking. “Candy’s too fucked in the head right now for anything like that anyway. And besides, when she’s ready, she’ll come onto me.”

“Are you asking for me to bash your head in?” If I hadn’t already been awake, Nohta’s outburst would have surely roused me from my slumber. “Candy’s not… Ugh! Fuck off, Lily!”

“Maybe you don’t know your sister like I do.” I didn’t need to see the smirk on Lily’s face. It was evident in her tone of voice.

“I swear to Luna if you—” Nohta’s outrage was cut short as she realized her own words. “Fuck… Can I even say that anymore?”

“Drink.” One shadow extended the bottle to the other.

“What?”

“Just drink.” The liquid splashed as Lily shoved the liquor into Nohta’s hooves. “I can’t say that I get what you guys are going through, but I am on your side here. You gotta start trusting me or else this job is gonna wind up with one or all of us dead.”

“We’ll see.” Nohta sipped the liquid as the fire began to die down, her detached voice the only sound in the encroaching dark.

Lily spoke again several minutes later. “So, what did they preach down there anyway?”

“Candy could explain it better than me.” Nohta’s vague shadow hoofed the bottle back before she sighed and shook her head.

Lily snorted, “Right, because I really want to ask your sister to explain something that drove her to try and blow my head off and then shout herself hoarse by screaming at the moon.” Lily lit another cigarette and inhaled before exclaiming, “Fuck, Nohta, I’m lucky enough that she healed my rib again after you broke it the second time. I don’t need to piss her off any more.”

“Just… get it from Candy” Exhaustion was seeping further into my sister’s voice. “Maybe it will help if you can tell her what’s really going on.”

“Don’t you want to know too?”

Nohta’s shadow waved Lily’s off with a hoof. “I’d rather just forget about all of it. We’ve got bigger problems than whether there used to be one princess or two.”

“Three.” Lily insisted.

“Whatever.”

Silence crept over the barn again. By the dying light of the fire I could make out Lily’s shadow extending and retracting one of its wings. After a few minutes of this, Lily spoke again in a strained whisper. “I don’t think she healed it all the way this time.”

“I’m pretty sure we’ve got some Med-X around here,” Nohta offered as her shadow rose to its hooves.

“Nah, you don’t wanna mix opiates and booze.” Lily’s shadow shook its head before she chuckled lightly. “I’ll be fine Short-Stack, just don’t beat me up for a few days, okay? We should probably try to get some sleep anyway.”

“No way ah c’n fleep righ’ now.” Nohta’s voice was muffled by something being carried in her mouth. A moment later, the flames resurged and cast renewed light against the interior of the structure. “How the hell am I supposed to sleep without a dream from Luna?”

“Looks like your sister managed just fine.” Lily’s shadow flared her good wing as she pointed in my direction. Nohta only snorted and sat beside the fire once more.

After the silence grew awkward once again, Lily’s shadow stretched its hooves while she yawned. “Well this pony needs her shut-eye. Wake me up when you get tired and I’ll take the next watch.”

Minutes passed by in near-silence as I lay on my side, watching my sister’s shadow waver against the wall while Lily’s breathing developed into snoring. I shut my eyes, wondering if it were possible to actually sleep after learning such an unspeakable truth. It wasn’t long before the sound of hooves shuffling through my packs caused my eyes to open.

“Candy,” Nohta’s voice was a quiet whisper. “I know you’re awake, Sis.” I flinched and swallowed the lump in my throat. It wouldn’t do to try and maintain the ruse any longer.

Taking a deep breath, I rolled over in my sleeping bag to find Nohta staring at a tiny bauble in her hooves: the little orb we had discovered in Luna’s statue. Firelight danced along the sphere’s edge, distorted and rippling as Nohta held it before the flames. From my perspective the little ball was silhouetted against the heart of the fire, and seemed to swallow the light around it. Its center was as black as jet. At least where the orb was concerned darkness was conquering the light, just like in the stories of my youth.

My head still lay against the pillow as I looked up to my sister’s face. Shadows and firelight danced over her features as the flames flickered. Her anxious expression mirrored my own, and it was exactly what I needed to see. In that moment, she and I were completely the same. We were at once both equal and opposite. Two halves of a whole.

Nothing in this world mattered more than her. For that one fleeting moment I understood how far I was willing to go, what I was willing to do, and all I was willing to give. Lily had been right when she told me, “This world doesn’t give a damn about us.” If the world didn’t care for us, why should we care for it?

I saw the world at large as callous, twisted, and repugnant. Yet throughout the bleak and uncaring void were sprinkled tiny islands of decency and warmth like stars in the night sky. I had not yet met many of them, and some were certainly more caring than others, but I knew there were individuals in this world worth fighting for.

The disease that has taken hold of Equestria has not yet infected all of her children. You and I would do well to remember that.

Nohta. Lily. Margarita. The Cheese Family. A portion of the Steel Ranger squad we had met in Coltsville. Doc Flannel. Half-Moon. Caramel, Pearl Grey, Spin Cycle, Pipe Sleeves… So many members of my stable whom I was certain were never exposed to the truth… Equestria may have been hidden from the night sky, but Luna’s glittering ceiling didn’t have a monopoly on beauty.

It felt fitting that—knowing the teachings were false—I now hoped to rip whatever wisdom I could from the body of Selenism. My stars were my friends. My night sky was the cold and unyielding world. As for the moon…

Looking back to that night in Mr. Belmont’s barn it’s easy to imagine that some might think Nohta and I callous for not inquiring about the other’s well being. But I believe that she and I both knew exactly how the other was holding up after having the proverbial anvil dropped on our heads. Nohta was never one to mince or waste words, and I did not begrudge her for failing to ask a pointless question.

Instead, she posited another of her impossibly difficult and deceptively simple queries. “Sis,” her lip quivered as her jaw fruitlessly labored to produce the words. Shaking her head, she swallowed the lump in her throat before asking, “What are we gonna do?”

I slowly reached a hoof towards her, beckoning for the tiny orb between her hooves. She placed it in my grasp without a word, but not without a questioning expression. The little ball looked so similar to one of Lily’s memory orbs…

I rolled onto my back, holding the little sphere above my eyes with my hooves, and answered Nohta with her own words. “We live ‘in a world of freedom and possibility,’ remember?” I had found my moon. I would follow its light as long as it pleased me. “We will do whatever we want.”

“Sis?” Worry filled her voice, “What’s that mean?”

Crimson flooded my vision as I lit my horn, bathing my hooves in the color of blood. “I want to bury my father.” It was only as I was about to reach out with my magic to grasp the orb that I realized there was something more important demanding my attention. Or rather, someone.

I lowered my hooves, resting the bauble against my chest as I turned my head to look Nohta in the eyes. A weary sigh left my lips as I made a painful admission. “But my judgement has been atrocious as of late. What do you want, sister?”

Her eyes hardened, but I knew better than to imagine I was the subject of her wrath. “You already know what I want, Candy.”

Perhaps my coming choice would be delayed after all. “Are you sure, Nohta? Knowing what we know now?”

“Yeah.” She nodded once, setting me with her determined gaze. “I’m sure.”

It didn’t take long for my sister to fall asleep. She would never admit it, stubborn as she was, but the night’s events had taken their toll on her as well. She refused to leave me alone at first, but a warm fire and a few sips of liquor are a powerful combination. I only needed to bide my time in silence, and soon enough her eyes closed on their own. My magic tucked her in as I strapped my pistol to my leg and stepped outside the barn.

I sat down outside the door and stared eastward, waiting. Now that the clouds were thick in the sky the moon’s glow could not reach me. The night was dark, and the wind was cool. I was alone, and grateful for it. I needed the solitude. I needed the time to think.

There was something I needed to see for myself, lying just underneath the horizon. I needed to know. I needed to feel the warmth on my own face. Father had spoken of it before, but I quickly learned that pressing him for more information on the matter was a futile endeavour. Few Selenists ever spoke of the sunrise. Fewer still were those members of The Caravan whom had ever seen it. And to my knowledge, only one of us has ever prayed for it.

I closed my eyes as the breeze swept my mane back, and offered a whisper to the wind. “Celestia,” I murmured, barely feeling the breath leave my lips. The name felt… wrong. But not half as wrong as what I saw in the memory orb.

If the teachings were all lies, then I’d be forced to look in all directions for the truth. When I was still wrapped in a veil of ignorance, I considered myself lucky to gaze upon the moon. Now that my eyes were open, I wanted to see what Father had in the light. It might have been blasphemy. It might have been arrogance or spite… But I didn’t care. I needed to look upon the sun.

Unfortunately, my Pipbuck was telling me that the sunrise was still half an hour away. The little orb from Luna’s statue rolled back and forth in my hooves as I sat there, wondering how much worse the night could possibly become. As my horn lit up, I found an answer to that question.

When I used the memory orb in the barn, the connection was instant and unexpected. All that I needed to do was brush my magic against its surface, and I was whisked away. But now, even though I was focusing all of my magic on the bauble in my hooves, nothing was happening.

My brow furrowed with my concentration. Was the orb defective? I pursed my lips and tried again. Was I doing something wrong? I stared at the tiny ball, noticing how its core remained jet-black despite the scarlet aura enveloping it. Nothing that I tried worked. My failed attempts were as frustrating as they were futile.

I cut my magic off, huffing in disgust and disappointment. The orb fell to the soil at my hooves with a dull thud as my eyes returned to the east. Blue-grey light was seeping into the sky, tainting the night with… No. No, I’d have to stop thinking that way. But how? How would I ever shake off ideas that had been instilled in me since my fillyhood?

And, perhaps more importantly, should I even try to completely forget Selenism? Surely there was something to be gleaned from the teachings. Even if they were fundamentally flawed, they had inspired goodness of a sort…

And Selenism was more than just a faith. It was my very culture! My world-view! The foundation of my life! To alter my perception of the world would take years! Had the moon lost its beauty simply because I no longer associated it with The Dark Mother? Would the shadows that I had learned to love no longer bring more comfort than the harsh and abrasive light of morning? Had the ideals of Loyalty, Honesty, and Laughter lost all of their intrinsic value because a faith based upon them was false? Of course not.

I had left my stable behind, but its memory would walk beside me wherever I went. The shadow of my faith would follow me until the end of my nights. I was raised as a Selenist. One does not simply forget their upbringing.

Goddess, I tried to change that part of myself, but… Well, there you go. That was a perfect example. The very manner in which I speak has been forever tainted by a lie. It doesn’t matter how many deities there are or have been; I don’t think I’ll ever stop using that word. Goddess… The truth is that some habits are simply too hard to break.

I shook my head and sighed heavily. My world may have been shattered by Lily, but it was up to me to put the pieces back together. If I knew nothing, then I would have to learn. I only hoped that I would be up to the task.

Lies… I needed to discover exactly where they ended and truth began. There was one place I had found that specialized in lies. Perhaps their wisdom would prove useful. My magic twisted and prodded the dials, knobs, and buttons of my Pipbuck as I selected the next file in my little list.

It wasn’t long before a zebra’s voice spoke in a hushed, conspiratorial tone. “I saw Luna in my dreams not long ago.”

Goddess, would I never be free of the twisting knife that came with her name?

A teacup clinked against a saucer, and a pony responded. “Oh? Is that right, Mizani?”

“Yes. Only, she wasn’t quite… right.” The zebra’s voice was troubled. I could almost see him rubbing his chin as he contemplated his next words. “She was more smoke and mist than physical equine. Almost as if she were passing through my dream to move on to something far more interesting. A bit of midnight window shopping, if you will.”

The pony murmured his assent. “Hmm. That would have been the perfect opportunity to communicate your concerns to her directly.”

“Oh, yes. And believe me, Lexicon, I tried. But it was almost as if there were some… interference with the dream. As if she were incapable of peering fully into my mind, no matter how badly I wished to let her in.” A discontented sigh sounded through my Pipbuck before Mizani admitted, “I’m afraid that my message, if indeed I was able to convey anything at all, was quite garbled.”

Lexicon’s tone was skeptical. “I can’t imagine Princess Luna having any difficulty at all with a dream. That’s one of her areas of expertise, after all. Are you sure that you weren’t subconsciously trying to keep her out of your head?”

“I’d like nothing more than to sit down with her face-to-face. No… I don’t believe that was it, but I do have a theory.” Mizani paused, and then spoke slowly, as if the subject he wished to broach were an uncomfortable one. “Perhaps… pony minds don’t work quite like zebra minds do? Maybe she doesn’t know how to delve into our dreams as well as she can yours?”

“Careful old friend, you’re beginning to sound a little racist.” Lexicon’s warning would have been harsh were it not for the mirth in his voice.

Mizani gave a quick bark of laughter, and was quick to apologize. “Hah! A thousand pardons! It was not my intent to offend you.” Mizani exhaled harshly before forging on. “But something about that dream certainly wasn’t right, and the reason for which is a baffling mystery to me.”

The two shared a moment of silence, sipping their tea as I watched the clouds on the eastern horizon grow thin and wispy above the mountains. Minutes passed before Lexicon asked, “Why would you assume a difference between pony and zebra minds?”

I could imagine Mizani shaking his head and scowling as he spoke. “Hmm… It was just a hunch, and I don’t really have any evidence to back it up, but… It feels right. Sometimes you just have to trust your intuition.”

This zebra might have been able to trust his intuition, but what had mine accomplished? I was mere minutes away from committing heresy, and I hadn’t the faintest notion of why I was doing so. The sunrise had better be worth it, I mused.

“I can certainly agree with that,” Lexicon snickered. “In fact, I gave my nephew that exact bit of advice just three days ago.”

Both Lexicon and Mizani seemed eager to change the subject to something more cheerful. Mizani latched onto the opportunity with gusto. “Oh? And how is Midnight faring in his new place of employment? Or is that classified?”

“Highly classified, I’m afraid. Even as he sought my advice he was being exceptionally vague. Though if I had to venture a guess…” Lexicon chuckled knowingly, “I’d say he is having filly problems.”

“Ha! The last time I saw little Midnight Oil he was barely taller than my knees and warning me of the dangers of ‘cooties!’ ” The two friends shared a moment of genuine laughter before Mizani spoke up. “They grow up quickly, don’t they?”

My lips pursed as I was dragged along for their pointless drivel. I was beginning to lose interest in their conversation, and the sky was becoming brighter every second. I didn’t want to waste my opportunity to follow in Father’s hoofsteps. He must have had a reason for lying to us! He must have had a reason for lying to me! My hoof was only inches away from cutting off the audio before Lexicon spoke again.

“That they do,” he agreed. “I can only hope that Twilight lets him down easy. She’s one of most important ponies alive, the greatest mage this world has seen since Starswirl the Bearded, and far too busy with her ministry to concern herself with such matters.”

My hoof stopped still as my jaw dropped. That was a name I was familiar with! A name I nearly idolized. Luna’s greatest arcane student: Starswirl the Bearded. Who was this Twilight, and what had she done to merit mentioning her name in the same sentence as Starswirl? Swiveling my ears towards my Pipbuck, I resigned myself to listening to the rest of the audio log.

I could hear the playful smirk on Mizani’s face as he chided his friend. “ ‘Greatest mage since Starswirl?’ Forgive my striped pride, friend, but I know a few Bokors that could still teach her a thing or two.”

Bokor… Half-Moon had used that word before. Ugh! Why couldn’t these two fools have skipped the pleasantries and simply dispensed with the facts! The sun was about to rise and I needed answers, not gossip!

“You’ve spoken of these individuals previously,” Lexicon questioned. “What does that word mean, exactly?” I squirmed uncomfortably, rolling my hoof through the air in a futile gesture to encourage the conversation along.

“Translation is difficult; Equestrian is a brutish language that lacks finesse, just like your music.” I ran out of time while the zebra took the opportunity to verbally jab at his friend. I lifted my face to the east, and the wind parted my mane. I’d have to listen while watching for the sun. Mizani finally gave an answer, just in time for the clouds to part fully. “The closest I can approximate would be ‘She who walks both paths.’ ”

Light raked the sky as the sun clawed its way above the mountains. The illumination pierced and obliterated what little darkness remained, forcing its clarity upon the desert. My heart and mind raced as I stared forward in stark terror, and realized that lucidity had been inflicted upon me as well.

“Walk both paths…” I whispered through quivering lips. Was that what I would have to do? Was that why I had been drawn outside to witness the sunrise? I had no reason to distrust the wisdom of zebras, which was more than I could say for Selenism. But… both the moon and the sun?

The unholy orb reached for the heavens, and my wide eyes drank in its image. I tried to fight through it, but… the sun was too bright. Tears rolled down my face before I was forced to shut my eyes from the pain, and a terrifying moment of uncertainty passed as the profane image of the sun remained in my vision. But as I held my lids tight and the afterimage slowly faded, I finally felt what I came for.

The light was warm upon my face. It was not harsh, nor burning, nor evil. It simply was. I knew in my heart that sometime, long ago, Father had done this as well. What had he learned by facing the sun?

Still, I couldn’t shake my fear. Despite all the evidence staring me in the face, a lifetime of conditioning left me convinced that the sun was an abominable horror. Surely this wasn’t what I was meant to do…

“Twilight has the right name for a Bokor,” Mizani continued. “And I cannot deny her talent. But I doubt she has the right temperament.”

“For my nephew or for your brand of magic?” Lexicon questioned.

A wry chuckle escaped the zebra before he answered, “Neither.”

Lexicon’s voice was oddly defensive. “Well it doesn’t matter; she’s too old for him.”

“There’s nothing wrong with having high hopes, Lexicon. Or for seeking a lover with… shall we say, experience?” I continued to take in the zebra’s words as the sun climbed fully over the mountains, but his wisdom was mixed with a healthy dose of mischievousness. “And from what I hear that mare could use a little stress relief.”

“Knowing those two, I’d say that would entail nothing more than reading by the light of my nephew’s namesake,” Lexicon countered.

Mizani breathed in, and announced in a clear voice, “How we choose to enjoy ourselves is not as important a detail as the fact that we do cherish our time in this world.”

The warmth of the light mingled pleasantly with the cool wind tugging gently at my mane. Reddish-brown desert stretched out before me underneath an unending blanket of crimson-gold cloud. Dry grasses, stubborn little bushes, proud cacti, and thin trees dotted the landscape. Massive winged beasts circled above the mountains, looking no larger than gnats due to my distance from them. The world was waking up, and were it not for my recent revelation, I might have found it beautiful.

A hoof tapped against a wooden table, breaking me from my reverie. “More philosophical zebra-isms?”

“I prefer to think of it as common sense.” The zebra sighed, and the conversation abruptly took a more somber tone. “And speaking of such… Did you do as I asked?”

Lexicon cleared his throat. “I did. My own personal arcane safe. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t take the time to venture out into the desert.”

“And you’re certain that no one will find it?” Mizani asked.

“The only other soul that I have told of its existence is my assistant.”

“Can Star Bright be trusted, Lexicon?”

“I trust her with matters of the utmost importance every day,” Lexicon insisted. “And even then, only I know the passcode.”

Mizani sighed heavily. “I know it’s not enough, but I appreciate that you tried, old friend.”

“Mizani?” I could just detect a hint of hurt in the pony’s voice as he tried to assure his friend. “I assure you that no one will ever lay their hooves on that tome.”

“It’s okay, Lexicon. If I truly believed that we could change the future so easily then I would be doing much more to alter our fate.” Now it was Mizani’s turn to reassure his friend. “Still, I am deeply appreciative that you tried. It means much to me that I still have loyal friends in this life.”

A chair creaked through my Pipbuck, and the zebra’s voice grew weary and pensive. “Free will is an illusion, my friend. Everything that happens now is out of our hooves. We are but one tiny piece in a far, far larger puzzle. And seeing those pieces fall into place is more than I can bear.” The recording ended, leaving me alone with the sun as I contemplated the words of a buck who died centuries before I was born.

It really was out of our hooves, I realized. All of those things that had happened to Nohta and I in the last few weeks were done to us. We weren’t to blame for The Caravan, or The Stable, or Mareon, or Bright Eyes, or… or anything. We hadn’t done anything!

Perhaps that was the problem then. We were only reacting to what the world was doing. Maybe it was time for us to stop trying to put fires out, and instead light one of our own.

Spursburg was nothing more than a blur on the horizon, and within it dwelt The Bard. According to the mare in the other recordings, he was supposed to tell me something. According to Mareon, he was responsible for the deaths of many. And according to Lily, his gang was comprised of ponies that could barely fight back.

I knew what I needed to do. I think… I think that I knew all along. Nohta was right and Lily, for all her faults, seemed to understand as well. I was fighting myself over my own decisions, never committing to one path for fear of losing the other. But perhaps I could walk them both. If that was what it took to understand the world, to understand the divine, to understand myself… Then that was what I would do.

I cast my gaze to the sun as it crept up towards the sky, and became a heretic. “Celestia,” I whispered, “Give me what Luna will not.” I swallowed the lump in my throat before I continued. “Make me strong. Strong enough to walk in your light.” My little pistol floated before my eyes as I asked for unspeakable horror. “Let me bring that light to all who have wronged me, and I will do my best to understand your teachings as well as I know your sister’s.”

I lowered my horn, floating the pistol back to my holster, and raised my eyes to the sun. “Give me the knowledge that my father kept from me. Even if you can only burn me with the truth, know that I will still seek it.”

I craned my neck back to the barn, spotting Nohta stirring underneath her covers. “I, too, am the eldest sister. I would do anything for Nohta, but I will not remain ignorant.” Looking back to the sun, I made sure my intentions were clear. “I am no longer content to hide in shadow.” My eyes narrowed as the sky brightened, but not because of the light.

My ears lay flat against my mane as my voice shook. My last bit of prayer sounded bitter, but the words tasted sweet on my lips. “And if neither you nor Luna can hear me, then the both of you can continue to do nothing.” The clouds drifted back into place, blocking off the sun as I spat out a promise. “I’m not asking anymore. I’m going to take what this world owes me.”

I shambled forward like a zombie, one listless hoof at a time. The world was dull and distant, save for the blurred shapes directly to our north. They held my attention, at least. They had meaning. Even if that meaning was only a vague hope born of desperation.

Each tiny fissure in the dry earth, lonely tumbleweed rolling in the breeze, or wind-worn rock upon the soil was ignored. I gave them no more attention than the distant cracks of small-arms fire coming from the east. Spursburg was still leagues away, barely more than a greyish-green blob on the horizon, but the sounds of battle emanating from the city were easily heard above the wind.

Nohta’s ears swiveled with each distant report, but Lily seemed to be paying the distant fighting as little attention as I was. These things were to be expected in the wasteland, and much like how my nose had become accustomed to and summarily forgotten the scent of parched earth and soft wind, so too did my other senses become inundated to the world around me. Only my thoughts remained, haunted as they were.

Occasionally, far away explosions would rumble like thunder, bringing a second or two of silence to the desert. Those short-lived moments were as quiet islands in a sea of turmoil, but rather than providing serene paradise they only gave me time to anxiously ruminate over what lay ahead. Never for too long though. No attack would go unanswered that day, and the distant reports of rifles were becoming as normal and easy to disregard as the monotone droning of just another early morning stable broadcast.

The Stable’s broadcasts however, humdrum as they were, usually involved less of a lightshow. During one particularly heated session of gunfire a single spear of thinning pink energy lanced above and across our path and ascended towards the sky to my west. The magic dispersed as it struck the cloud layer, diffusing into a pink bloom of magical light above our heads. Whatever trouble was brewing in Spursburg was getting worse by the hour, but my attention was locked on the outlines of wagons and carts on the horizon.

My goal lay directly ahead, plainly visible on the flat expanse of soil, and it was easy to follow my sister’s lead. Nohta walked alongside me, her hooded eyes never leaving the ambush site before us. Neither she nor I said a word, pressing on in determined and anxious silence.

Lily, for her part, was being uncharacteristically quiet. It was as if the immense gravitas of the occasion had mercifully subdued her frivolity. She walked ahead of us, her ear bobbing and her head swiveling as she constantly scanned the desert. Every so often her eyes would briefly meet my own, but she would always grimace and turn away immediately afterward, chewing another Mintal as she did so. The only time I heard her speak she was too quiet for me to discern whether it was a hushed apology or a harried conversation with “Grumpy.” I was beginning to believe she had spent too much time in the heat—or perhaps more likely, too much time under the influence of certain substances—and managed to develop an imaginary friend.

That day’s breakfast passed in silence. Nohta and Lily consumed their meals with gusto, but I could only bring myself to stare at the brightening sky. I had no appetite, not even for the snack cakes and Sparkle-Cola at my hooves. Nohta’s hoof upon my shoulder and the anxious look in Lily’s eyes were the only things communicated between the three of us that morning.

I could have told Lily that she needn’t worry, that I didn’t hold her accountable for my pain. I could have told her that some small part of me was actually grateful that she had shown me the orb. I could have—and should have—apologized for how I acted the night before, but my lack of sleep combined with my emotional and mental exhaustion rendered me completely useless. After all that had taken place the night before I was lucky enough to still be trudging forward, never mind holding any sort of meaningful conversation.

Every time Lily swallowed another chem I wondered if it was her way of avoiding conversation or if she was attempting to give me time to digest all she had shown me. At any rate, she had vastly increased her consumption compared to the days prior. She had taken nearly an entire tin of the little pills before we reached what remained of The Caravan. What we saw there was not what I had believed we would find.

I had expected the charred and blackened remains of our wagons and carts. My imagination had conjured horrifyingly grotesque imagery of bodies left to rot for weeks in the desert heat. I feared that carrion fowl and other scavengers would be picking the skeletons of my stablemates clean, leaving nothing but ashes, bones, bullet casings, and dried blood. Instead, what lay before me only raised more questions.

The wagons and carts were mostly intact. Many of them still stood upright, their goods safely stored away just as they were weeks ago. Several of the tarps and cloth coverings had been ripped, true, but other than some minor wear and tear and a few bullet holes the majority of the carriages were still very much salvageable. Unfortunately, it appeared that all of the wheels had been smashed to pieces. Not even the best maintenance ponies from my stable could have fixed that.

The wagons that had fared the worst either lay on their sides or in loosely gathered chunks of debris. The food cart had been ripped apart by the explosive weaponry of the griffins, lying in a ruined heap of ripped cloth, splintered wood, and twisted metal. Unopened bottles of water and cans of food lay scattered about the ambush site, collecting dust that had blown in from the desert winds.

The only noises we heard were those of cloth flapping in the breeze and the incessant gunfire to the east. Lily finally broke the near-silence when she stopped and stretched out her good wing to block my path. “Hold up… I don’t like this.” Nohta and I both regarded the bladed feathers extended protectively in front of my chest before I lifted my gaze to Lily’s eyes. She whispered back to me as the swirls on her face twisted in a grimace, “Wait here, okay? Let me check this out first.”

She lowered her head to the ground, almost like a dog sniffing for the scent of its prey, and flicked her ear before standing and extending her wings. With a deep breath and a quiet grunt, Lily kicked off to fly above the abandoned wagons. She cradled her rifle in her hooves as she surveyed the area, the trigger-bit never more than a few inches from her mouth.

“Sis,” Nohta’s incredulous voice caught me off guard. “Where are all the bodies?”

My eyes widened as I realized what she had said. She was right. Not even the bodies of the ponies I had witnessed die were left. My jaw worked in silent confusion as I failed spectacularly to comprehend what I was seeing. There should have been dozens of corpses! What had the griffins done to my stablemates?

Lily touched down in front of us, favoring her right wing as she landed. “Looks clear, but there’s something you should see over there.” Lily turned to point a hoof behind her, gesturing at a single cart separated from its fellows. With the same hoof she adjusted her hat, and furrowed her brow as she winced. “You, uh… You might want to brace yourself. It’s bad.” A million horrifying possibilities raced through my mind at those words, each one more terrible than the last.

I swallowed, nodded, and began plodding forward. As the three of us crept toward the abandoned caravan, our hooves tread over the scattered splinters blown from the wagons. The gunfire to our east rose in intensity, conjuring up the memory of the attack. The present faded as the past resurfaced in my mind.

“Candy? Where are you going?” I ignored Lily’s confused question.

“Sis?” Nohta’s query fell on disinterested ears.

Memory guided my steps, and before I knew where they were leading me I stood before a familiar tarp sporting an ugly reddish-brown smear. There was no mistaking it. All that was missing was the blood. My hooves found the grooves they had dug into the earth weeks ago as I reflected on how those weeks now felt like years.

I stared numbly at where he had stood, my lips moving before I could stop them. “This is where Spicy Salsa died.” I didn’t know to whom I spoke, or for what purpose. I only understood that I needed to lend these thoughts my voice. Perhaps it was folly or pointless, but I didn’t care. For whatever reason I believed it important. Perhaps all I could manage was to simply reaffirm the truth to myself.

My voice shared qualities with the fighting to our east, being uneven in both pace and volume. “It was only one shot. Then his blood splashed across my face. He was dead before his body slumped against the wagon.” I could almost see him before me, wearing a handsome grin set underneath a pair of apologetic eyes and a lightly tousled mane.

I turned, meeting Nohta’s curious gaze with my own dead stare. “He was apologizing to me, sister.” She needed to know that opinions could change. Even long-held ones. “He meant every word. I know it.”

Lily stepped forward, furrowing her brow and shrugging her wings. “Candy? You okay? You haven’t said a word all day.”

My lip quivered, and my breath quickened. “He was trying to tell me that… That he…” The sharp crack of a rifle echoed off the landscape, bringing me back to that dreadful moment. Goddess, the memory was so clear… I saw how Spicy’s posture kept shifting from side to side as he addressed me, how his eyes never seemed to stay on mine for more than a fleeting moment, how he constantly struggled to keep his lips from leaping into a bashful smile between every word he spoke.

But in those moments I could tell he was not the cocky schoolcolt I once knew, but somepony who'd grown immeasurably and learned some hard truths. Maybe it was how I saved his life, or maybe it was from the derision he faced from his peers in the aftermath of that day. I didn’t know what influenced him so, but something had given him a new perspective. Something drove him to volunteer for The Caravan. I’d have never believed him capable of such courage or altruism if I hadn’t seen his signature on the sign-up sheet in the cafeteria. It had been just under my name…

Why had he done that? It was all so much to consider. Moon and stars, what was he about to say!? Did he feel he owed a debt in my favor? Was he just sorry for the abrasive behavior of his youth? Another distant gunshot. Another flash and I saw his eyes, green like the peppers on his flank. Could he have…

Did he love me?

Coming with us, and trying to speak with me, had been the worst decision he ever made, but it was an innocent mistake on his part. When he bared his heart he made himself vulnerable. But the wasteland didn’t care. It only saw an easy target.

Spicy had been awful to me, but he hadn’t deserved his fate. To have his life cut short just as he finally mustered the courage to repent was cruel beyond imagining. At the very least he deserved to hear my response, even if I still didn’t know what I would have told him.

My gaze fell, and my eyes caught the channels carved through the earth. Placing one hoof in front of the others, I retraced my steps through The Caravan, heedless of the scattered items kicked aside by my passing. “The shooting started after he died. I didn’t know what to do, or where to go. I found Dust, and then Nohta joined us.”

Nohta took her place at my side, pulling her hood back to reveal squinting eyes. She looked over my back to Lily, and offered her own take of events. “I heard that first shot, and then I heard Dust yelling. We had only just gotten the wagons close together when I spotted Candy and ran over.” She pursed her lips and scowled as she added, “Dad and Dust had both told me how loud gunfire would be, but they never said anything about the way the bullets hiss when they fly past your head.”

“Adrenaline’s a hell of a rush, huh?” Lily trotted past us, flaring her wings as she inquired, “What happened next?”

Nohta continued speaking as I walked in silence. “Dust passed out the rifles and ammunition before—”

“Wait,” Lily interjected. “You guys didn’t carry your own weapons?”

Nohta shook her head, “Most of us had a pistol or something. A couple ponies had those saddles that hooked up to their guns, but we were hauling a lot of shit and we weren’t looking for a fight, so we kept the rest of the guns on the weapons cart.”

Lily’s eyes squinted as she scratched at her chin with a hoof. “Okay. Go on.”

My hooves carried me to the point where Seven Card slipped away from me. A caravan regular, he had been a notorious gambler perpetually seeking ever-increasing payouts by venturing outside his home. He never even kept his winnings, they all went to The Caravan. Seven just liked the thrill of the game.

In fact, he enjoyed thrill-seeking so much that he had volunteered for every caravan trip for as long as I could remember. He had spent more nights outside The Stable than some of the colts and fillies in 76 had been alive. That meant that he must have known the truth, yet he kept the secret quiet. Not even when we were outside of The Stable had anypony said anything about Selenism… But why not? Did they fear The Overmare’s punishment? Divine retribution? Did they believe they were protecting The Stable? Or perhaps some greater ideal? What had they known that stilled their tongues so perfectly?

I knelt down where the spark of life left his body, swallowing back the memory of the pain we both suffered with his passing. I couldn’t help but wonder what he might have told me, had he lived. Would one more pony have been enough to stave off the griffin attack?

Nohta continued to explain what had transpired, “Candy was running around healing ponies. I was trying to help, but one of the griffins came after us.”

Lily shook her head, holding up a hoof. “Wait, one of the griffins ‘came after’ you? Like, with her claws?”

“She had a shotgun. And a pair of knives. That’s where this scar came from.” Nohta held her hoof to her face. “I killed her. After that, the griffins started using rockets, and Dad told us to run.”

Lily nodded. “I see…” Reaching underneath her hat, she removed another tin of Mintals and popped one of the tablets into her mouth. After chewing, she looked around herself and asked, “You sure you killed her?”

Nohta stomped a hoof on the ground and snarled. “Of course I did!” I stood, walked to Nohta’s side, and placed a hoof on her shoulder. Her eyes flashed viciously in my direction before widening in surprise. She quickly averted her gaze and made an effort to calm her breathing.

With my hoof still resting on my sister’s shoulder, I turned to our winged companion and sighed helplessly. “Lily, you’re a mercenary. What can you tell us about what happened here?”

She regarded me for a moment before grimacing and tilting her head to the side. “This way. You two need to see this.”

We picked our way past the scattered supplies as the soiled fabric draped over the carts fluttered in the breeze. Lily was guiding us towards one lonely cart partially propped up on a single intact wheel, sitting far to the side of the rest of The Caravan. When I recognized the pink and yellow cases hanging from its frame, my hooves took over again. Lily only just barely managed to get out of my way as I abruptly galloped past her.

My eyes darted over mounds of medicine as I slid to a stop in front of the medical supplies cart. How was it still intact!? A shaking hoof undid the latch on the nearest case, revealing thousands of caps worth of medicine and equipment that should have been nothing more than ash.

My jaw dropped before I stammered, “I… I saw the smoke. I saw it as Nohta and I fled!” That shade of green had stuck out like a sore hoof amidst all this reddish brown! I shook my head, refusing to believe what was right before my eyes. “All of the medical supplies were destroyed in the fire set by the griffins! There’s no other explanation for why the smoke took on that color!” But no matter how I protested the truth, it didn’t change. The supplies were safe and sound in the heavy case, intact and abandoned for whoever might find and claim them.

Healing potions, Hydra, Med-X, Buck, antiseptics, antibacterials, anaesthetics, Rad-X, RadAway, forceps, blood packs, scalpels, I.V. bags of saline solution… Everything Father, Pearl, and I had packed in preparation for the trip was there. With the exception of everything having drifted to the lowest side of the tilted wagon, nothing was even out of place. It was just as I had left it that morning.

Nohta took a seat beside me, her perplexed eyes wandering over the cart. She and I shared a bewildered glance before she breathed out, “Sis…” She never finished the question. Silence overtook us both as we sat side-by-side, shaking our heads in consternation.

Lily walked behind us, moving past the cart as she removed her hat and held it to her chest. “This is what you need to see.”

The warm air blew little puffs of dust from the earth past us, tugging at my mane gently to beckon my attention past Lily. As I raised my head to gaze beyond her, the wind carried a disgusting fetor past my muzzle. It was an odor much too familiar for my liking. Curiosity urged me onward, but when I reached Lily’s side my hooves froze in their tracks.

Lily lifted her nose and sniffed at the air, extending her wings as she stepped forward. “You smell that? Flamer fuel.” My hoof rose to my mouth as my hind legs gave out. My breath hitched in my throat as I sat on the earth, horror-stricken. The sight before me robbed me of what little strength I had left.

A blackened mound of ash lay just beyond the medical cart, growing smaller by the minute as gusts of wind stole away what remained of the ponies of The Caravan. Some of the bodies hadn’t been completely consumed by the flames, and were being exposed by the wind as the layer of ash receded. Their charred limbs had wrapped around each other, as if they had died in each other’s hooves.

Lily whispered so quietly that I almost didn’t hear her over the wind. “I’m sorry.”

I had known, of course, what to expect when coming back to The Caravan. I had tried to prepare myself as best I could for the inevitable. But it wasn’t until I actually saw the ash pile that I accepted the truth. And even worse, it was only then that I realized how desperate I had been to fool myself into rejecting what I already knew to be true. Somewhere in what was left of that crude pyre lay the last mortal remains of Father.

I felt Nohta’s hoof clutch my shoulder, but couldn’t bring myself to look away from the ashes. I reached over to grasp her hoof as my chest heaved, allowing the tears to build in my eyes. Nohta’s other hoof wrapped around my back, and she pulled me tightly into her chest.

“Goddess-damn it, Dad…” Her words were a whisper hissed through grit teeth, and her voice wavered as she shook.

We had failed utterly. Neither The Stable nor The Caravan had been spared. Nohta and I were the sole survivors of Stable 76. My hooves wrapped around my sister as I sobbed into her cloak. “I’m s-sorry, Father.”

My past had either been stolen or burned to ash. My future was impossible to see through all my tears. All that was left was the present. Nothing else mattered. Certainly not to me, anyway. I held Nohta close as the sun began its descent behind the mountain to our west. A new night was coming, and it was time for answers.

I wiped my eyes with a hoof, and steeled myself as I pulled away from my sister. My voice was icy as I turned to Lily. “Is there anything you can tell us about the griffins?”

“Yeah, but it’s nothing you want to hear.” She sat down to light a cigarette, inhaling deeply before looking all around us and sighing. “You sure you want to hear this?” I could only nod in response, remembering my promise to the sun.

“This,” Lily licked her lips and swallowed, “is sloppy. The supplies are still here and the wagons are intact.” Shaking her head, she sneered and grumbled sullenly. “We’re dealing with a bunch of fuckin’ amateurs.”

Nohta raised an eyebrow, “What do you mean?”

Lily indicated the evidence she saw with a wing, explaining her reasoning to Nohta and me between puffs of her cigarette. “Bandits would have stolen the supplies along with the wagons, but they’d leave the bodies. Raiders would have taken what they wanted and burned everything else to the ground for fun. A pack of ghouls wouldn’t have set anything on fire, but you’d see body parts and blood all over the place. So it had to be griffins, just like you guys said.”

She put her hat back on as she continued, brushing locks of her mane underneath the stetson with a hoof. “Now, proper Talons would have burned the wagons in order to frame the raiders and cover their tracks. But these assholes must have been in a hurry. That’s gotta be the only reason you two are still breathing.” My eyes narrowed at the slight, but I stilled my tongue in favor of hearing her explanation.

She took a long drag from her smoke before staring me in the eye, “Talons are never in a hurry. They’re too cold and professional for that. So we’re dealing with amateur griffin mercs.” She waggled a wing in the air and shook her head lightly, muttering to herself as much as to us. “Private company, most likely. Maybe a splinter group, but definitely small-time. Might even be one of the crews from up north that I know.”

“You know who did this?” Nohta’s ear twitched as she stood up.

Lily shrugged noncommittally. “Maybe. I’ve flown with a lot of crews. I prefer the solo gig, but having backup is useful every now and then. Still, griffins are all about caps. Always have been, from what I hear. That’s not my thing.”

She nodded her head in the direction of the ashes, “Based off what I’ve seen so far, this looks like Garrotte’s crew to me. Slideshow is too focused on her pissing match with Vapor right now, and Sweetpea knows better than to edge in on Margie’s turf. Could have been Nitro or Cobbler, but… fuck, I thought they were out of the game.” She had to know that neither of us would recognize any of the names, but I wasn’t about to stop her from speaking her thoughts out loud.

Lily scratched at her chin as the ember at the end of her smoke glowed brightly. “I don’t think Gawd would pull shit like this, and this is really out of the way for her, but if the caps were good enough…” She shook her head abruptly, recanting her previous statement. “No… nevermind. This isn’t her style. And she’s too busy with that cushy security gig anyway. This wasn’t her.”

Nohta took a step toward Lily, furrowing her brow. “So… Garrotte? Who is—”

“Hold on.” Lily held one hoof up to tell Nohta to wait, and positioned the other close to the ground with the pad of her hoof turned upward. Nohta and I exchanged a confused and irritated glance while Lily brought her hoof next to the bone pierced through her ear. Lily’s eyes scanned the ground before her eyebrows rose in comprehension. “Grumpy found something.”

Nohta shook her head, swishing her tail behind her. “What? Grumpy? Who are—”

“Over here.” Lily cantered back to the medical cart, forcing Nohta and I to hurry to catch up. Nohta’s grumbling was loud enough that I was surprised Lily didn’t respond.

“Shit. Shit, shit, shit…” Fanning her wings at the ground underneath the cart, Lily blew away weeks of wind-blown sand and dust before stepping aside and gesturing with a hoof. “Guys… look.”

The gusts from Lily’s flapping exposed a single olive-drab canister—just a little larger than my hoof—that rolled out from beneath the cart. Faded white letters on its side read, “Marking Signal-Smoke: Green.” I massaged my temple with a hoof, unsure of what this foretold or why Lily believed it so important.

“I’m gonna take a shot in the park here, but I’m guessing the smoke was green?” When I nodded in response, Lily cursed and revealed what I never would have guessed. “Fuck. This was an inside job.” Lily clenched her jaw, meeting my shocked expression with her own look of righteous animosity. “Somepony in your caravan sold you guys out. They must have signalled the griffins with that.”

“What?” Nohta’s tail swished past my own as she balked at Lily’s accusation. “No, it… That doesn’t make sense!”

“Shit… look. I didn’t want to say anything, but… None of this ever made sense to me.” Lily breathed in the last of her cigarette, spitting the nub to the ground before grimacing at my sister. “I couldn’t figure it out. Griffins don’t just let their targets escape, Nohta. No one gets away from a griffin merc squad once they’ve got you in their sights.” Jabbing an indigo hoof in our direction, Lily repeated her earlier sentiment. “You should both be dead right now.”

“Well we got away,” Nohta insisted, stomping a hoof on the dry earth. “So you’re obviously wrong!”

Lily inclined her head, speaking to my sister in a placating tone. “Nohta, think about it. Two mares, just days out of a stable, survive an ambush by fucking griffins?” Shaking her head, she continued, “Amateurs or no, these are trained killers we’re talking about: with long-ass rifles, enough wingpower to outmaneuver all but the fastest pegasi, and scopes accurate enough to take the wings off a bloatsprite half a mile away. They do a job, and then they get paid. Nothing else matters to griffins.” Lily emphasized her words by stamping her hoof on the snub of her cigarette. “You can’t chalk this up to luck, Nohta! The only reason you two survived the attack is because whoever made the deal wanted you to escape.”

My eyes narrowed as I gawked at her. How could she make such an outrageous accusation!? “You’re making an awful lot of assumptions, Lily.”

“I’m a hunter. You asked me to track your prey, so I’m doing it,” She retorted, shrugging her wings. “I’m not gonna question you when it comes to medicine, Candy. So don’t second-guess me when I talk about killing for caps. You had a traitor in your group.” I might have responded to Lily’s stubbornness, had my sister’s reaction not stolen my focus away.

Nohta’s hoof was grinding noisily into the rocky soil as her eyes widened. Her gaze darted aimlessly over the cracked earth at her hooves to match her hastening breath. ”But… But then…” Little ripples played along her cloak, belying her shaking form as her voice quaked. “That means Dad’s only dead because somepony…” Her quivering lips—a sight wholly unexpected from my typically stalwart little sister—peeled back in a vicious snarl.

We had reached a turning point. I saw what was coming, and knew the reaction to expect, yet… I had no desire to stop her. Nohta believed Lily’s explanation, and unlike my own paltry displays of indignant anger, she had no qualms about unleashing all of her emotion upon the object nearest her. Lily and I were only lucky that Nohta’s wrath fell upon the medical cart.

Nohta threw her hooves forward, bracing against the ground as her profanity left her mouth in a sharp, guttural scream. “Fuck!” The gritty dust and rocks underneath her hooves crunched as she twisted her body and bucked out against the exposed underside of the wagon, screaming. I gasped and backed away as the wooden cart jumped sideways, causing the medical cargo to shift and send the cart toppling over onto its side with a thunderous clatter. Potions, chems, and tools scattered over the loose soil as Nohta stood, shaking with her rage.

“They betrayed us, Candy!” Her burning amethyst eyes locked with mine. In that moment, more so than any other time, I could understand why a storm graced her flank. “Somepony in The Caravan sold out Dad!” Her voice oozed venom. It was saturated with such vitriolic hatred that I couldn’t help but shy away from her. Goddess, it felt merciful when she finally lowered her gaze to the soil at her hooves.

Lily gently tread closer, examining Nohta’s anguished expression. “Betraying kin is the worst thing anypony can possibly do. But I imagine that your Luna cult probably taught you that.” I bristled at the offensive c-word and the offhoof way in which she uttered The Goddess’ name, but Lily continued before I could even clear my throat to speak. Her voice simmered with barely suppressed fury, like a boiling pot only just removed from the heat. “You have one hell of a debt to collect, Nohta.”

“I’ll kill them…” Nohta uttered in a hushed breath, her eyes locked in rigid focus. “I’ll kill everyone that took part in this…” The harshness of her tone was disconcerting, as was the slight tremble in her lips and in her stance. What moved me most of all, however, were the tears sliding down her striped cheeks. Eyes are the windows to the soul, and Nohta’s were finally spilling over with the grief she had tried to keep hidden.

She couldn’t do this alone, and neither could I. We needed each other, and as much as I had relied upon her in the past few weeks I would have been remiss had I not returned the favor when she needed me most.

I edged closer, slowly, and slipped a hoof over her shoulders. She recoiled from the touch at first, but allowed herself to lean into the embrace when she realized I wasn’t letting go. She was already wiping her eyes and turning away from Lily when I whispered in her ear.

”Together, Nohta,” I promised. “We will do this together.” Her only response was to nod against my neck.

In nearly the same spot that my life had changed before, I once more found it altered. Where I had previously resolved myself to flee in order to keep my sister safe, I realized that I would henceforth be doing exactly the opposite. I had once gazed up at the moon and made a promise to both my sister and Luna. If I had any desire at all to right the wrongs committed upon good people, then how better to start than combating the injustice suffered by Nohta and myself?

Selenism insisted on Luna being the only goddess, but Selenism also taught that loyalty to family was of paramount importance. Those teachings were supposed to be the holy words of Luna herself. I couldn’t help but wonder if Celestia felt the same way. I couldn’t help but wonder… which sister had most often found herself protecting the other?

In the middle of the desert, with Nohta sobbing in my hooves and innumerable unanswered questions on my mind, I could only grasp one simple truth: I needed answers. So when Lily asked another question, I paid her very close attention.

“Just gotta figure one more thing out.” Her wings flared, pointing both at the wagons and at us. “Who would have wanted your caravan dead, and you alive?”

Lily’s wings returned to her sides as she furrowed her brow. “Was there anypony in the group that you didn’t trust?” Her eyes darted between wagons before returning to me. “Maybe somepony that had a grudge or could have been bought off?”

“Why would we have sheltered anypony like that? Selenism preached loyalty! It was the greatest of virtues! We were all—” My words died in my throat, swallowed up by a painful realization. “Oh Goddess,” The name left my lips before I could reel in the old habit, and I grimaced as I caught Nohta’s troubled expression. My hoof rose to my temple as I relayed my epiphany. “Somepony that knew the truth about Selenism might have had no love for the teachings.”

Nohta’s eyes narrowed as she nodded, still sniffling in my hooves. “It had to be one of The Caravan regulars.”

“We’re getting closer.” Lily’s ear bobbed up and down as she scratched her chin. “How many ponies are we talking about?”

“The regulars?” I searched my memory. “A few dozen, at least. The Caravan was eagerly anticipated by many in The Stable.”

“Did they all buy into your religious thing? Any of them that might not have followed your shamans?” At my puzzled and irritated expression, Lily shook her head and tried again. “Or your preacher? Priest? Whatever you had?”

“Of course not! We were all born into Selenism. We were all loyal to—” My lips stilled mid-sentence as I understood the fallaciousness of my words.

Another memory dredged up all the proof I needed. “Yep, he was born and raised outside. Learned to fend for himself… …if anypony knows what they’re doing out here…”

“All of us were born in The Stable…” My hoof covered my mouth as I gasped and stared at my sister. “All of us except for Dust.”

“What!? No! Candy!?” She pushed me away, her cloak whirling out behind her to catch the wind as she stomped a hoof on the ground. “Why would Dust spend so much time teaching me how to fight if he was gonna turn around and kill the whole Caravan?”

I swallowed and averted my gaze from Nohta’s shocked face, incapable of looking her in the eye. “Who else could it have been, sister?”

“Fucking anypony else! He wouldn’t have done that! He was trying to organize the defense during the ambush!” Her shouting was loud enough to drown out the sounds of battle to our east.

I raised my hoof, opting to stare at my Pipbuck rather than face her. “But Nohta, everypony else was devoted to The Caravan and The Stable!”

“And he wasn’t!? He was teaching me how to fight just because Dad asked him to! He was the Goddess-damned Caravan Leader, Sis!”

Lily stepped beside us, tilting her head and arching an eyebrow. ”Then why would he choose this route through the desert? Taking you guys in this direction makes no sense. In order to go north you need to follow the river, and if you were going east then you would have gone past Spursburg.” Lily shook her head as her wings flared upwards. “He put you in the middle of a wide open deathtrap! Flat terrain with no natural cover that’s almost equal distance from Mareon, Spursburg, and Fancy Lick? It’s the perfect spot for an airborne attack!”

Nohta raised a hoof to her chest, scowling. “Then why let us live? Why would he care about us if he was gonna kill the rest of The Caravan?”

“Nohta…” I shook my head, trying to reason with her even as I dared to hope. “Maybe he didn’t kill all of The Caravan. We were spared. Perhaps others were as well?” I reached out to her, placing a hoof on her shoulder as I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Slavers attacked our stable. What if the griffins were simply the prelude to another band of slavers? What if… What if Father is still alive?”

“Sis…” Nohta sighed, shaking her head. “We still don’t know that Dust did anything! And we both know that Dad is de—”

“Don’t tell me you’re just going to give up!” I shook her with my hoof, silencing her with a shout. “And don’t you dare suggest that I’m letting my emotions cloud my judgement, either! If there is any chance at all that Father is still alive then we must pursue it!”

Lily removed her tin of mints and chewed another one before speaking quickly. “The only way to do that is to keep going forward. Whoever sold you guys out didn’t do it alone. Everypony looking for mercs in this desert gets directed to Margie. No exceptions. She worked her flank off pushing the competition out of Mareon, and there’s no way she’d just let someone else waltz in on her turf, especially not the kind of mercs that’d attack trading caravans.

“If your guy was looking for mercs to do his dirty work then he needed a line of communication that Mareon wouldn’t know about. That means The Bard’s spy network. And that means Psyker is involved.” Lily removed her hat, scratching at the back of her mane as she furrowed her brow and scrunched up her face in thought. “But if Psyker is in on this… No, that doesn’t work either. There’s no reason for her to let you guys live. She’d just take whatever it was that your traitor promised as payment and tell the griffins to go fuck themselves. Why would she want you alive?”

“Oh Goddess…” A dread possibility entered my mind. My eyes found my sister’s once more as I whispered, “Nohta… the recording we found in Coltsville.” Nohta’s eyes widened in realization before narrowing in contemplation. I turned to our new companion as I prodded at the dials and knobs on my Pipbuck. “Lily, perhaps you should hear this.”

“Seventeen days. Seventeen fucking days…” Lily’s eyes locked onto my hoof as the recording played, her features lighting up in recognition as the croaking voice droned on in its tired, blasé tone. I skipped through the quiet sections of scavenging, and turned the volume of my Pipbuck up when I reached the pertinent portions.

“...Even if I have to drag your broken body halfway across Equestria, you will give me what I want.” I cut the recording off, not wishing to listen to that mare’s arrogant voice any longer than was necessary. Turning to Lily, I waited for her response.

She scratched at her chin in silence, staring anxiously at the ground while her ear bobbed up and down. Furrowing her brow, she sighed and dug through her packs, uttering a single dismayed word. “Shit…” Reluctantly plucking a small device from her bags, she sat the recorder on the dirt and hoofed the play button.

Hurried hoofsteps thumped over a howling wind, and a lone voice began a frightened monologue. “They had to die. All of them. There wasn’t any way around it. They would have tried to stop me, but I’m the only one with vision! Why can’t anypony else see!?” It was the same voice as from my recording, only… vibrant. It lacked the exhaustion and the weathered huskiness, instead being possessed of a youthful and panicked vivacity. The mare—if indeed she even was a fully grown mare in the recording—rushed through her words quickly, as if the message she conveyed would lose its meaning had she bothered to pause too often for breath.

“I have to do everything myself now. It’s fucking pathetic! Whatever, I knew this was coming. Can’t fight it. Can’t ever fight it. But why did I have to… Why her?”

The voice snorted contemptuously. “It’s her own Goddess-damned fault for not opening her eyes.”

The wind in the recording picked up as the voice hurried along. “All that matters is ahead of me. I can’t let anything slow us down. Not even her. We’re running out of time, and if she’s too fucking slow then everything falls apart. I need a way to speed her up. Something to force her to keep going. Some...one?”

The hoofsteps slowed and then stopped as the mare in the recording stood still. “Can I do this at will? Is there a trick to it? Do I just—”

The tinkling sound of magic obliterated the howl of the wind playing through the audio log, continuing for a good minute as Nohta and I glanced at each other. Lily adjusted her hat and lit another cigarette, staring at nothing in particular as the voice abruptly continued in an abrasive and haughty tone.

“You… You’re new. Lily Belle… That isn’t a Thunderhooves name. Whatever, you’ll play your part just like everypony else.”

The mare’s voice was cruel and blunt, as if pleasantness was a completely alien concept to her mind. “Before I change your life, let’s get one thing straight. You are beneath me. The very idea that anything this important depends on a hedonistic, narcissistic, ignorant savage like you makes me sick. You are a tool, something to be used as we see fit and then discarded when you eventually break.”

A quick bark of wry laughter preceded her declaration. “So let’s put you to use.” The mare in the recording resumed walking, her hoofsteps falling heavily upon dry earth as the howls of the wind died away.

“I know how you can find the stallion you’re looking for.” Lily’s wings flapped once at her sides before she spat on the ground. The voice continued, amused and arrogant. “Didn’t expect that, did you girl? Maybe if you had remembered your tribe’s roots then you would have asked a raider for help as soon as you came into my desert. I was much more agreeable when I recorded this.” The mare was toying with Lily, just like she was toying with me. How many ponies in this desert had been contacted by her?

Before I could ask, the voice continued. “You have a choice to make. You can come after me with your friend and the rest of her pathetic little crew, or you can find the prey you’ve been chasing all your life. If you want to live long enough to track down your quarry, then fly east when the travelers from the south come to Mareon. Your path to vengeance begins in the hills.”

I looked up to Lily, taking note of her rigid posture and clenching teeth. She was barely able to suppress her rage. I chose to stay quiet, and listened intently to the message she was playing for us.

“And just in case you’d rather join Margarita’s little self-righteous lynch mob than take my offer, know this: everypony that attacks me will die. I will make certain of that.” The mare’s hooves rang against hollow metal as she continued. “My eyes are open. I’m watching you now, Lily Belle. You’d do well to remember that.” I could hear the mare’s smirk through the recording. “I am always watching.”

A resounding metal clang played through the recorder as the voice reverted to its earlier neutral tones. “Okay, that’s good enough. Now how the hell do I get into this damn tow—”

The recording stopped with an audible click, and Lily affirmed what I had already begun to suspect. “That’s Psyker. She knew just what to say to get me to…” Lily paused, licking her lips, and snorted with a scowl, “Fuck… It doesn’t matter anyway. She lied. Margie’s still alive and I didn’t find shit.”

“That’s why you left so quickly,” I mused. When Lily’s brow arched upwards I was quick to elucidate. “Doctor Flannel’s Clinic. A few days before the attack on Mareon. You were sleeping in one of the beds when I helped him with his patients.” A small blush crept into my cheeks as I realized it was the same bed I had slept in days later. Was that why the pillow had carried the faint scent of flowers?

I shook my head to ward off such groundless ponderings, and continued to explain. “Doctor Flannel seemed to believe that Psyker was likely to be behind this, but I didn’t understand her motivations.”

“The Pyro was talking about her too,” Nohta chimed in. “Just before the fire in the laundry room. That’s how we found out she negotiated with the slavers.”

“Psyker. Everything in this desert is coming back to Psyker!” Lily exhaled sharply, blowing a plume of smoke above our heads before turning away and pacing. “She sets up the ambush with some griffin crew through The Bard. She sends me off on a wild moose chase just when Margie’s crew goes after her. Then she works out a deal with slavers.” Stopping to look me in the eye, her ears perked straight up as she jabbed a hoof in my direction. “There’s the payoff. That many slaves, and their Pipbucks, would be worth a shit-load of caps.”

Money. All of this was about money? Then… why were Nohta and I spared? No… no, that didn’t make sense. And now that Nohta had reminded me of them, The Pyro’s final words didn’t sit well on my mind either. This was something greater. Something more sinister.

Or was it? Lily’s recording continued a theme I had noticed in Psyker’s audio logs. She first spoke to me of saving lives. Then she seemed, for her at least, regretful for having killed somepony else in Lily’s recording. All of the evidence was pointing towards her being something more than a simple psychopath. The notion that Nohta and I stood opposed to a practiced killer with detailed plans for myself, a singularly cunning mind with which to employ them, and terrifyingly accurate prophetic visions made my skin crawl. Even more disconcerting, however, was how very self-assured—not only of her capability, but also in the righteousness and necessity of her cause—Psyker was. What were her plans? And why had she asked for my secrecy? Shivers ran down my back as Lily continued to pace back and forth, ruminating on the subject aloud.

“She does all that, and afterwards she sics The Pyro on what’s left of your stable because… Fuck, I don’t know. Kill off the survivors so they don’t go after her?” Lily paused to shrug her wings before craning her neck back to question us over her shoulder. “How many of that crew did you kill, anyway?”

I chewed gently on my bottom lip as I tried to remember. “I believe there were around thirty of them at The Stable. We found a few more of them already dispatched when we arrived at their headquarters in Coltsville.”

“That’s… “ Lily rubbed her hooves against her temples. I could almost hear the wheels turning underneath her chaotic mane. “Shit, that sounds right. Some of The Pyro’s crew goes for your stable, and the rest of them attack Mareon with support from the other gangs.” Her eyes searched the ground as she continued to brainstorm ideas. “The hell is Psyker doing? Trying to kill the whole fucking desert?”

I made up my mind. Even if they didn’t know the whole story, I’d be a fool not to tell Nohta and Lily at least a little of what had transpired the previous night. Taking a deep breath to steady my nerves, I offered up a portion of the truth. “Psyker was in the orchard last night.”

“What!?” Lily’s wings and eyebrows rocketed upwards as the remainder of her cigarette plummeted, forgotten, from her lips. “What’d she do!?”

“Nothing!” I shook my head, unprepared for the vehement outburst. “She just… watched.”

“Why didn’t you say anything, Sis!?” Both Nohta and Lily were staring slack-jawed at me, as if neither of them could comprehend that more dire problems were weighing on my mind at the time!

My face contorted in a hurt scowl as I tried to defend myself. “I didn’t know who she was!”

“How the fuck could you not!? Her face is plastered all over Mareon’s bounty board! Five-fucking-thousand caps!” Lily’s wings were flapping so rapidly that she nearly achieved lift-off. “Do you have any idea how dangerous she is? She killed Margie’s entire crew—”

“All by herself,” Nohta nodded. “We know, Lily.”

I had to make them understand! “I didn’t know what she looked like! I had only ever heard her voice through recordings! And she never offered her name!”

I wasn't sure Lily had even heard me. Her eyes were wild as she barked another battery of questions my way, "Have you seen her at all before or since then? Fuck! Is she following us right now!?" She snapped her wings downward and took to the air with enough force to blow the dust against the wind. Her rifle was out just as quickly, making a slow rotation all around us but taking particular care to examine our route since that morning. Then she made another revolution. Her caution—veering so close to the realm of panic—was more alarming, by far, than all of her shouting.

I looked over to Nohta, but she was following Lily’s lead, checking under and around the derelict wagons with her knife in her teeth. Lily landed behind me and clicked the safety back on her rifle. She did not breathe a sigh of relief, but had calmed enough to glare at me.

At least they weren’t yelling anymore, I mused.

Despite how disgusted they were with me, I couldn’t let it die. I needed their opinions. Lifting a hoof to my heart, I poked at the sleeping yao guai. “Psyker’s notes said that she wanted to speak with me.”

Lily stared sideways through one stern eye. “You do understand that, if you’re dumb enough to actually do it, trying to talk to her will probably be the last mistake you’ll ever make, right?”

I nodded. “I… Yes. But…” Scanning the scene all around us, with the ashes of friends and coworkers drifting by on the breeze and the livelihood of an extinct people left abandoned in the heat, I knew for certain that I would never understand the wasteland.

How wrong I was…

Warmth flooded my cheeks as a familiar strength came back to me. I found that I could in fact meet Lily’s glare head on, so long as I held my little ember of rage close to my heart. My brow wrinkled as I shook my head, “Why would Psyker do all of this? Why are Nohta and I still alive? Did anyone else make it? She has all the answers and I have none!” I shook my head unapologetically. I had already decided my fate. I finally had a name and a face—a target—for my wrath. “Lily, I have to know.”

What would happen afterwards was never in question. Like Lily had said, we had a debt to collect, and I fully intended to be reimbursed one way or another. But before that I simply wanted to hear the why directly from her lips. And then I wanted to hear that arrogant voice beg for my mercy.

But more pressing than that, was an old promise. “Regardless of what they did or didn’t do, or even my feelings towards them, I swore to Father that I would warn The Stable.” My eyes met Nohta’s as I finished. “It’s too late for that now, but I can’t run away from an obligation that great. Not when I know it gets us both what we want, sister.”

Nohta nodded, “I say we go ask her, then. When we find Psyker, we find whoever betrayed us.”

“Well,” Lily smirked, lighting another cigarette. “At least I’m not the only crazy one here.”

“Geez, Candy,” Lily chuckled, poking at one of the bulbous bags hanging from my side. “You think you packed enough junk?”

Brandishing a tiny plastic device in my magic, I quickened my step to avoid the prodding. “Oh, well we’ll see who gets the last laugh when you’re absolutely desperate to perform an emergency cricothyroidotomy, but you realize you didn’t bring a tracheostomy tube!” That ought to show her! My muzzle rose primly in the air as I trotted past her with a final, “Hmph!”

“Uh…” Lily, no doubt stunned by a few words with more than three syllables, could only stare slack-jawed as I took point.

“Do I really have to carry all of this shit myself?” The sounds of clinking metal and glass emanated from Nohta’s bulging packs as she lagged behind Lily and I. “You two could help, you know!”

Lily shook the confusion from her thick skull a moment later. “Hey, I don’t steal from angry spirits,” She replied, looking back over her shoulder. “And the spirits back there were pretty pissed off.”

“The fuck are you talking about now?” Nohta snapped.

“Some places have good spirits, and some places have bad spirits. Back there we had innocent and angry spirits.” Lily faced forward again with a look of great concentration, raising a hoof to forage underneath her hat while her tongue protruded from her lips. “You two can scavenge from those wagons all you want, it’s rightfully yours anyway, but I’m not touching it.”

“There’s no reason to let all this shit go to waste,” Nohta decried. “Candy? Little help here?”

“Nohta, we were already in possession of more than enough food for the duration of our journey, there was no need for you to grab any more.” Being prepared was all well and good, but honestly, we needed to focus on other things at the moment. I rolled my eyes as I continued plodding forward. “And I am already carrying as many healing potions as I can,” I retorted, adjusting the straps biting into my coat. “Not to mention a full repertoire of accoutrements for more involved medical procedures.”

“I meant with her,” Nohta objected. “Our crazy-spirit-lady.”

“I only have one spirit!” Lily claimed the prize hidden within the depths of her mane and took a quick pull off of the small bottle of whiskey. I pursed my lips at the reckless behavior. She was quick to roll her eyes and groan. “Okay, maybe two. Three I guess if you count my own, but that’s it!”

Nohta’s snide comment couldn’t have matched my own thoughts any more perfectly. “Sounds like you have stupid spirits.” Lily smirked and blew a raspberry back at my sister before stuffing the bottle back underneath her hat.

What little remained of our trail—because calling such an irredeemably devastated stretch of concrete and asphalt a road was laughable—lead northeast. Nohta and I had once again set hoof further from The Stable than either of us had ever been, and I was glad for it. It felt much better to be chasing a goal, however lofty it might be, than to backtrack and retrace every one of our steps over again.

The Macintosh Hills to our immediate east and southeast were quickly fading from view as the night closed in around us. The memories of hiding from griffins and tumbling down sinkholes disappeared along with the scenery as the darkness fully enveloped us. It was only due to Lily’s map, my Pipbuck, and Nohta’s eyes that we had any clue of where we were or in which direction we were going.

It wasn’t long before we came upon a set of grooves in the dirt. Four marks scratched into the soil were leading us directly to the dilapidated heap of an old motorwagon. That first wrecked vehicle leapt out of the darkness like an exhausted, lumbering beast as my Pipbuck’s light washed over it. The broken headlights and malformed grill resembled a tired, anguished face. Even more so if one could imagine the many horizontal cracks splayed across its windshield to be worry lines on a forehead. Liver spots of rust decorated the motorwagon’s teal hood, and the tires had several slashes in their white sidewalls. Somepony had crudely graffitied a perplexing message across its doors in silver spray paint, “We do not trust wheels!”

The desiccated body of the driver was still seated behind the steering wheel, his jaw set in an eternally shocked rictus stare. His dead glare told a tale all its own—one of nightmares made real. Perhaps whatever he saw in those final moments was the reason why he pulled his vehicle over to the side of the road. Perhaps he was trying to make peace with the inevitable in the only way he could comprehend. Perhaps he simply understood there was no chance of escape, and wished for one last quiet moment in his life. It was impossible to tell, but I suspected that watching a crushing wall of green flame roll across the desert like a tidal wave of death might drive a pony to any number of odd behaviors. Feeling helpless in the face of inescapable calamity was certainly something I could sympathize with.

We found similar wrecks with increasing regularity as we continued our trek. Many of the vehicles lay heaped against each other, their bumpers, doors, and windows left bent, crunched, and shattered from that moment when the multitude of frightened drivers panicked all at once. I could only imagine the chaos that must have rippled away from the brilliant flash upon the mountain as ponies realized the end had come.

Nohta and Lily were unfazed by the scene, even stopping occasionally to pilfer some small trinket or useful item from dashboards and consoles. I could understand Nohta’s reasoning for scavenging a box of pistol ammunition, but I could only roll my eyes at Lily’s positively gleeful expression as she extracted her own prize: a small, bobbing statuette of a pretty dancing mare wearing a grass skirt and lei. It seemed to me that, once again, I was the only one present with any respect whatsoever for the dead.

Many of the ponies had undoubtedly died in the ensuing hysteria of the bomb’s blast, crushed as other more selfish drivers fled from reason and mashed their accelerators to the floor. Those panicking ponies had been heedless of those whom they might harm in their attempts to flee, and their victims’ bones lay scattered underneath wheels and splayed over engine hoods. Those that died quickly were surely the lucky ones. But the unlucky ones…

A tiny filly’s cracked hooves were scratching at the window separating her from the rest of the carnage. Just like patches of her mane and skin, her lips and eyelids had long-since rotted away, exposing yellowed teeth and eyes set in a monstrous, twisted visage. Lacking the strength needed to break out of her vehicular prison, or the mental faculties required to disengage the foal-safety locks, the small ghoul had been trapped—doomed to spend the entirety of her undeath rampaging ineffectually against seat cushions and what remained of her parents. I held a hoof against the glass, aligning it with the tiny limb scratching and pounding at the other side. My own heartbroken expression was reflected back at me, superimposed over the ghoul’s snarling and gnashing face.

“This is what Mother’s people wrought upon the world.” The words came freely, hampered only by a quivering lip and aching throat. “Why did we do this to each other?”

A tiny light flared in the corner of the glass, and the smell of tobacco preceded Lily as she joined me at the window. “The zebras hated Luna about as much as anyone could. They thought she was still Nightmare Moon.”

That got my attention. I turned my head towards Lily as I considered her words. “Who?”

“You’re killing me, Candy…” She rubbed her hoof over the dark lines on the left side of her face and groaned, blowing the smell of tobacco smoke across my muzzle. “That’s one of the most important events in Equestrian history.”

“There’s so much that I’m still ignorant of…” My chin dipped toward my chest, but not before I caught Nohta’s encouraging gesture out of the corner of my eye.

Lily’s eyes darted away from my sister when she caught my confused look. “Well…” She stepped forward, placing her own hoof against the window. “Let me, uh… Let me take care of the ghoul and I’ll tell you what I know.”

“Wait! I…” The filly’s eyes were wild and hateful without their lids. But there was something else there. I was sure of it. “I need a moment, Lily.”

“What for?” Her feathers bristled as she squinted.

“I need to think,” I said.

Lily was insistent. “About what?”

I nodded at the filly. “Her.” The ghoul answered by bashing her face against the window and growling. The small body lacked the strength to even crack the glass.

“That thing is a ghoul, Candy,” Lily admonished me as she rapped on the glass. “There’s nothing you need to think about!”

“But she’s just a filly! She shouldn’t have been made to…” My hoof shoved Lily’s away from the glass as I leaned against the vehicle, staring at the little ghoul.

The ghoul’s yellowed eyes and snapping teeth made my skin crawl, and I felt my shoulder tense reflexively as she snarled. “She’s been in there since The Last Day,” I pondered aloud. “No food. No water… If ghouls don’t need to eat or drink, then what sustains them?”

A gust of wind blew my mane and tail to the side before Lily landed on top of the motorwagon, staring down at me as the rusty metal groaned underneath her weight. Shrugging, she chided me, “It never seemed important to ask. I’m usually too busy trying to kill them before they, y’know, tear my throat out or something.”

I ignored the flippancy of her response. “How do they live so long?”

Lily snorted, “Usually by not running into me.” I raised my gaze, and an eyebrow, to see Lily standing over me with pursed lips and hard eyes. “What?” She snorted, spreading her wings at her sides. “If you really want to know this shit then go talk to Half-Moon.”

“Why Half-Moon?” Nohta asked as she sidled up beside me, her hood pulled back to expose her purple eyes. In the gloom, her irises almost seemed to… No. It was surely just sleep deprivation. I shook my head and refocused on the ghoul.

“He’s a zebra,” Lily stated matter-of-factly.

Nohta’s hoof darted out as she yelled, “What’s that supposed to mean!?” Her kick dented the side of the motorwagon, rocking the vehicle back and forth. The ghoul toppled into the floorboard behind the driver’s seat.

“You think Equestria had ghouls before we got bombed all to hell?” Lily leapt into the air and hovered, holding her cigarette with a hoof so she could poke her tongue out at my sister. “Zebra magic did this, squirt. Your best bet is to ask the zebra shaman.”

“Zebra magic,” I whispered, ignoring the sounds of Lily and Nohta’s bickering. “Just like…” My eyes glanced back to my armored flank.

Inspiration and curiosity were cruel bedfellows that night, but I needed to know. My horn flickered to life, and a bubble of scarlet wrapped around the ghoul. She was too small to even fight against that, flailing her limbs in a bid to flee before I dragged her closer to the window.

Was this a pony or a monster? Was she the same as the nightmare that ripped a mouthful of flesh from my body? I dragged her closer, watching her eyes underneath the reflection of my inquisitive expression. “The eyes are the windows to the soul,” Mizani had claimed. “Shaman, medicine mares, witch doctors, and necromancers.” Half-Moon had advised. I saw something in the filly’s eyes, but I needed to be certain. Zebra magic had done this. It didn’t take a genius to realize which branch of magic was responsible.

And… If what Half-Moon said was true… Then I…

My magic shifted. I closed my eyes, partly to focus, and partly to wall myself off from the world. The telekinesis died as the bubble sank into her body, and I braced myself for what was to come.

There was no pain. I felt the phantom movements of the ghoul’s snarling mouth in my jaw. I felt the hideous moaning that climbed through my throat. I felt the lesion on my fetlock, the absence of lids over my eyes, the cracked shin bone, the still heart, the empty belly, but… There was no pain. I should have been shrieking in agony, yet the only discomfort I felt was mental.

The body was deceased… mostly. The brain functioned, but I couldn’t fathom how. I peered through the glass. “Can you understand me?” The ghoul backed away, hissing and arching her back. “Please say something, if you can.”

“Candy…” Indigo hooves pawed at my shoulders, but I shrugged them off. “Candy, it’s a feral ghoul. They’re less than animals.”

“Can you hear me, little one?” I could see something in her eyes. I knew it to be true! It wasn’t just an illusion or some trick of the light! She still wasn’t responding.

The scarlet bubble gripped her neck this time. I clenched my teeth. Why wasn’t there any reaction!?

“Are you truly dead?” I asked the ghoul, my magic dragging her back to the window as she growled and thrashed. “Why haven’t you decomposed by now?” My head tilted as I squinted my eyes. “You don’t eat, but… do you breathe?” I felt another hoof on my shoulder, but I brushed it aside. “No, no… your blood has already congealed. There’d be no point.” I shook my head. I was a doctor for Luna’s sake! There had to be an explanation for this abomination’s existence! Dead bodies do not simply… Ugh!

My eyes darted across the glass, caught my reflection, and stared back at me. If I couldn’t explain this, then who could!? “This doesn’t make sense.” I tapped the glass, “You don’t make sense.” The ghoul squirmed in my magic, refusing to respond in any other way.

“Candy,” Lily’s hoof found my chin, turning my face to her eyes. “It’s a zombie.” She stated plainly, raising her eyebrow and nodding as if she were communicating a basic concept to a simpleton. “You don’t need any explanation other than magic.” Her brow furrowed in a look of genuine concern. “Look, it’s getting late. We’re almost to the spark station. Let’s just kill the ghoul and get a move on.”

I shook my head, thinking aloud, “Tests. Sensory tests.” My ears perked up as I brushed my hoof across my lips.

My hoof tilted, waving the light of my Pipbuck lamp over the ghoul’s eyes. “Your pupils still dilate and contract,” I told her, making note of how her eyes followed my own as I spoke.

I looked to my side, spotting Lily’s bewildered and anxious face behind a lit cigarette. My magic plucked the nub of burning tobacco from her lips.

“Hey! I was smoking that!”

I ignored her. I was on the cusp of scientific discovery, and that was more important than her silly habit.

“Sis…”

I spied the window’s mechanism through the glass, and depressed it. Nothing. Of course it was dead… Why wouldn’t it be? “Nohta? Can you break this glass for me?”

“Sis… What the fuck are you doing?” No help from my sister then. She was probably bored. But she didn’t have such a pivotal question resting on this tiny ghoul in the backseat of a motorwagon. She wasn’t panicking at the connection between Half-Moon’s words, the end of the world, and her cutie-mark. No no no… She didn’t understand.

My shotgun levitated out of my packs and, heedless of all the alarmed shouts, smashed through the glass. The little filly screeched and flung herself toward freedom, only to fall short and eviscerate herself on the broken shards stuck in the window. As the ghoul clambered over the glass, grey and red intestines spilled out of her gut, stretching out behind the ghoul to tangle in her legs. In her haste she tripped over her own organs, leaving her kidneys and liver behind when they were ripped from her body. The smell of death and decay was… pungent.

There was no pain. I kept my spell active the whole time, waiting for the agony. I felt nothing.

My magic yanked on the ghoul’s neck and mane, pinning her to the ground. Little blobs of congealed blood trailed behind her as I dragged her along the asphalt and levitated the cigarette underneath her muzzle. The tiny limbs thrashed wildly to escape the new odor assaulting my nostrils. “You can still smell things,” I explained, shaking my head.

“Subject responds to auditory, visual, and olfactory stimuli, but fails to show any response to somatosensory stimulus. Despite suffering wounds that are assuredly fatal, subject lacks any and all response to pain.” There was an answer here somewhere. There had to be! “Blood has thoroughly congealed, yet subject is still capable of locomotion despite lack of cellular respiration…”

“Candy…” A voice to my left, as close to me as it was inconsequential.

“Even for all of my medical expertise, you are a mystery to me,” I told the abomination under my hooves. “You’re not entirely dead, but neither are you alive. You shouldn’t exist…”

A hoof on my shoulder. “Candy… You need to stop.” No… No, if I wanted to understand then I just needed to look in a different direction…

“Necrotic-Meta-Equines,” My voice shook as I recited a lesson Father taught me during one of our target-practice sessions. “Colloquially referred to as ‘ghouls,’ are a direct result of the unholy light that ravaged the earth on The Last Day.

“Distrustful of Luna’s divine will, and jealous of those sheltered by her wings, the zebras chose to forever abandon the moon. Using foul, forbidden magics, they loosed the wrath of the sun upon the world. Their hatred killed many, and their avarice corrupted more.

“When the light fell upon the earth, it twisted the bodies and minds of those who did not die. Some of them were more susceptible than others. They sought out the light, rather than the shade.

“That is why ghouls are forsaken in Luna’s eyes.

“So,” I continued, standing over what was left of the tiny body. “If radiation turned you into what you are, and you’ve been trapped here ever since, then where is your light now? Why isn’t my Pipbuck clicking for exposure to it?” The ghoul clawed at the bubble of magic tightening around its neck.

“No answer? I know you have one in there somewhere.” A scalpel slid out of my packs, hovering over the ghoul’s yellowed eye. “Maybe,” I told her, “maybe I just need to keep cutting until I find it…”

A blue blur hurled itself into my side. She rammed me against the motorwagon as my breath exploded from my lungs and my magic imploded on itself. Lily’s fetlock snaked behind my head and kept it from slamming against the metal, but that only brought her enraged face closer to my own. Her shouts were deafening.

“Nohta, get the ghoul!” She turned to me, shrieking inches from my face. “What the fuck are you doing!?”

“Get off of me!” My hooves beat at her chest and neck as ineffectually as the ghoul’s savage thrashing of the window. She pinned my hooves to the motorwagon as I continued to yell, “Stop! I need to know!”

“The hell, Candy? What’s gotten into you? Snap out of it!”

I struggled fruitlessly against her strength. “I’ll kill it! I don’t believe him! That’s not what I’m supposed to…” That abomination was not what my mark stood for! It wasn’t! “I am a doctor! Father wouldn’t have… Mother wouldn’t…”

Lily’s wings stretched forward, closing off the rest of the world. It wasn’t Luna’s shade, but it was shade nonetheless. Her scarlet eyes dominated my vision before I hung my head in shame. It didn’t matter what she saw in my eyes, I only knew that I hated the worry I saw in hers.

She released me, and I cradled my head in my hooves. “I c-can’t… don’t want t-to be a…” The sickening sounds of Nohta caving the ghoul’s skull in reverberated off the motorwagons, each calm and somber blow like another nail hammered into a coffin.

My shouting weakened to frail and sputtering protests. “I’m a doctor, not a… N-Not that! I didn’t make…”

Lily’s head rose out of the little dome of feathers and turned to the side before she asked, “You still think we should keep going?”

The silence from Nohta was louder and more clear than any response. My heart broke when I comprehended what that really meant, and how she must have felt about her older sister. The sad truth was that my companions were aware of what was happening before even I was. They knew, and yet none of us were capable of saying it aloud.

I was slipping. And none of us understood just how far I would fall.

“Goddess…” I cried beneath Lily’s wings. “Lies… All lies…”

“She’s losing it.”

“She’ll be fine.”

“You didn’t think so earlier.”

“Whatever. We need to keep going.”

They were talking about me again. Of course they were talking about me… They probably thought me insane.

“You sister is seven different kinds of fucked in the head, and you want to keep going?”

Well, at least one of them did…

“You’re one to talk, Lily.”

A short burst of distant assault rifle fire perforated the otherwise silent night. Lily continued, unperturbed. “Yeah, but I’m cool with my crazy. Candy can’t even function like this.”

I had been sitting next to an empty bits register for the last hour, staring out the wide, cracked windows of the “Sunrise Spark Station and Soda Stop.” Shadows and firelight danced along the walls as Nohta and Lily huddled over an open flame they had built inside the store. But its warmth never reached me. I had laid my bedroll out behind the counter to avoid their worried and judgemental eyes.

“We’re going back, Nohta. We can’t take a chance with her acting like this.”

“We’ll be fine—”

“No. We won’t. Candy is gonna go off on another one of her little episodes in the middle of a firefight and get someone killed.” I heard Lily’s lighter snap shut as she exhaled. “We’re going back to Mareon before that happens. End of discussion.”

Nohta’s voice was cold and low. “If you actually think you can boss me around then you’re dumber than you look.”

Two small explosions preceded one much louder detonation. I recognized the third’s sound as a motorwagon’s spark cells erupting in a voluminous plume of rainbow-light. The promise of such a fantastic sight was almost enough to uproot me from my perch, but I couldn’t muster the energy to drag myself closer to the window and peer outside. Instead, I remained at my limited vantage point by the counter, staring over the low windowsill at the area covered by the spark station’s wide service canopy. Soft lavender light brushed against the jagged glass with a soft ethereal glow, and cast deep shadows across the underside of the canopy.

A gentle breeze was drifting through the broken windows. It swayed the curls of my mane back and forth, doing the same to the dead pony outside. She swung limply underneath the station’s canopy, suspended by the dangling electrical wires that had been fashioned into an improvised noose around her neck.

Strapped to her hooves was a tattered cardboard sign splashed with the same red that pooled beneath her bruised body. The sign bore a simple ultimatum. “Pyros and Bards: fuck off or die.” Her body had been left as a macabre warning to the undesirables of The San Palomino.

“Nohta, Candy isn’t giving us any choice here. First thing tomorrow, we’re heading back to Mareon.”

“No way! This is the first time I’ve had any good info on what happened to The Caravan! I’m not giving up on that!”

I had still been shaking when I first saw the dead raider, and I was too distraught to ponder why the sight of her armor was more unnerving than the sight of her broken body. The familiar motif of traffic signs and cookware being used as patchwork barding conjured up images of bloody hallways and the smell of charred flesh. That line of thinking led to remembering the heft of a knife in my magic, and the slick feeling of fresh blood streaming down my face.

I caught myself wetting my lips, and wondered just what I was developing a taste for. More gunfire sounded from Coltsville: assault rifles and SMGs. I couldn’t remember when I learned how to tell the difference.

“Kid, look, I’m—”

“Fuck off, Lily!” Nohta spat. “I’m not a kid! Don’t treat me like a foal.”

“—doing this to keep your sister safe!” Lily pleaded. “It’s more important that you two not get hurt than it is to kill The Bard!”

“She just…” Nohta paused, sighing heavily. “She just needs time, is all.”

Time… I shook my head and swallowed. If only they had heard the message Psyker had left for me in the storm shelter. It was quickly becoming evident that any time I possessed had already been doled out by the hooves of a madmare. I was living off of her scraps… And growing increasingly sick to my stomach.

Psyker held all the answers, of that much I was certain. But I didn’t believe she was as all-powerful as others made her out to be. If she was, then why would she allow her underlings to kill each other?

The message in the dead raider’s hooves coupled with the savage wounds torn through her hide made it perfectly clear who had executed her. She had been killed by The Outcasts. Even amongst raiders, it seemed, those that didn’t fit in didn’t last long. I shut my eyes as I pondered what that said about the lives my sister and I could have expected in The Stable had our home not been ransacked by cannibals.

Nothing good, I reasoned.

“Can’t you hear the fighting out there? We’re just a couple hours away from Spursburg. There isn’t any time left.”

“I’m doing my best, okay?”

“I… What?” Lily wasn’t the only one surprised by Nohta’s admission. My ears perked upward, swiveling to better catch Nohta’s words as she continued.

What her voice lacked in confidence, it made up for in earnestness. “I don’t… I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, alright? Candy’s the one that always dealt with this stuff. I don’t know how to make her feel any less like shit.” I heard the faint sound of paper rustling as Nohta turned a page in Mother’s book. “If I see a problem, I just fix it. But I can’t fix her. Not by myself.”

“Nohta,” Lily tried to seize her opportunity, “that’s why we need to go back to Mareon.”

Nohta’s voice wavered. “No… I can’t help her. But… Fuck, I can’t believe I’m actually asking you for help.” I edged closer to the end of the counter to better hear my sister’s request.

“You’ve gotten between her and some crazy shit twice now. You calmed her down when she was about to lose it.” I heard Mother’s book snap shut as Nohta sighed. “I can push her buttons. I can piss her off. I can get her up and force her to keep going. But I can’t make her feel like she’s safe.” My hoof rose to my lips as I realized what my sister was saying.

“You can do that,” she revealed, “and I can’t, because she sees you as an equal. I’m just her little sister. To her, I’m the one that needs protecting.”

My gaze drifted over the miscellaneous items behind the counter as I pondered her words. She was right, of course. Simply being the younger sibling didn’t preclude Nohta from bouts of wisdom or perceptiveness. After all, hadn’t Luna been the younger sister?

“So what are you saying?” Lily’s voice was cautiously optimistic.

The fire popped in the quiet room as Nohta gathered her thoughts. “If you really want to help her, then you and I need to push her forward.”

The stink of cigarette smoke followed a long exhalation from Lily. Warily, she inquired, “So you’re finally trusting me, now?”

“Fuck no,” Nohta snapped. “But Candy does. I’ll die before I let her drown in this, even if it means asking you for help.” Goddess, she was that worried about me? What was I doing?

I was forced to lean closer to the corner as Nohta’s voice died down to a soft whisper. “Spursburg will force her to move on. She needs something to focus on now. That’s the only thing that worked for her when Mom died.”

“What do you mean?”

“You never thought she was a little young to be a doctor? Fuck, Lily…” Nohta grumbled as she explained. “It usually takes years and years to learn all that shit. She hardly did anything but study medicine after Mom died. The only real breaks she took were to pray in The Temple.”

“So… what, like… no coltfriends or…” Lily trailed off.

“Seriously?” Nohta’s voiced oozed with incredulity.

“That… would explain a few things,” Lily admitted.

“No shit.” Nohta scoffed. “She’s about as naive as a Goddess-damned puppy.”

Just beyond the hanged mare lay the twin spark chargers that once supplied thousands of motorwagons with magical energy. Their glittering talisman arrays and charging coils were ensconced behind protective domes of lavender light, safeguarding them away from the harsh wasteland. Hundreds of years had still failed to exhaust the energy of their security barriers. They were safe and sound… And sheltered.

I could sympathize.

“So,” Lily continued. “She just threw herself into one thing and shut the world out? That’s not dealing with your problem. That’s just running from it.”

A hoof clanged against the tile. “I swear to Luna, if you say that to her I will rip out your tongue!”

Lily’s voice cried out in surprise, “Whoa, whoa… what?”

“She’s already got it in her head that we’ve been running from shit since we got out here! I don’t want her thinking that she’s a coward, okay? We ran because we were ordered to, and then because we had no other choice. There’s nothing wrong with that!” I wasn’t sure if Nohta was trying to convince Lily or herself.

“Didn’t you want me to push her?” Lily countered.

My sister’s voice quieted, dying down to a soft grumble. “Just… don’t say that to her. It would only upset her.”

“I think she needs to hear it. It’ll save her a lot of regret later on.” My ears perked at Lily’s words. She continued a moment later when my sister failed to respond. “Nohta, she’s hardly talking, and when she does it’s mostly to herself. She’s not dealing with this. She’s running.”

“That’s how you see it.” Nohta insisted. “I see it differently.”

A hint of annoyance crept into Lily’s voice as she asked, “And how do you think she sees it?”

Goddess, was that what I was doing? Was that how they saw me? Running… always running and never doing.

Scarlet light flooded the shelves and ceiling panels as I opened my packs. Several thick books paraded past my eyes as I sorted them. “The Big Book of Arcane Sciences” and “Bean’s Electronics” quickly made up a very small pile of untainted text, while the rest of my collection made a much larger stack beside it. How much time had I wasted studying lies?

“Wait,” Lily cautioned. “Is she… Candy?”

“Sis?”

I rose, stacking my beloved copies of “Starswirl The Bearded: The Lady’s First Protégé,” “The Equestrian War of Tribal Unification,” “The Rock Farmer’s Almanac (complete with Lunar turning charts!),” and finally, “Wane and Wax: Equestrian Science and Culture Before and After Moonrise” in a pile on my back. The teleportation tome and the garnet from The Stable’s library followed me around the counter in a bubble of magic soon after. I’d need them for my little test.

Lily was gawking at me, the half-smoked cigarette just barely clinging to her bottom lip. Nohta could only stare at Mother’s journal in her hooves, a hint of red between the stripes on her cheeks. I gave them both a cursory glance before seating myself by the fire and floating the teleportation book between my eyes and the flame.

The pages of the opened book stood stiffly upward before the garnet weighed them down. All eyes were focused on the little gem as it activated, floating above the paper and glowing. Lines of text leapt away from the quickly turning pages to fly into the red stone, only to be spat back upon the same pages with tiny modifications. Leftover ink was expelled to the sides, splattering across the tile like evidence at a murder scene.

When the talisman finished with the book, it deactivated, setting itself gently upon the back cover. When I re-opened the book and placed the gem back on the pages, nothing happened. I had enough evidence to form a hypothesis. All that was left to do was test them.

I spoke to Nohta as I sat the spell book at my hooves. “When we were in Coltsville’s library, Holly said that the three-diamond symbol on the doors had something to do with propaganda.” She glanced at me, hugging Mother’s book to her chest.

“I never would have imagined that our library would have been involved with censorship. But before last night I couldn’t have imagined a lot of things…” My magic focused, and Nohta’s knife slid out of its sheath.

She reached for the bit, but was too slow to grasp it. “Whoa! Candy—”

The blade dipped into the ink on the floor, gathering a drop on the tip. The spell book flipped back open, and I scratched an ugly and splotchy word in one of the margins: Celestia.

The ink was swallowed up by the gem before it sank fully into the paper, and half of it was once again vomited to the side as a much more elegant script replaced my own. The bloated splatter that I had barely been able to inscribe was transformed into an entirely different name: Luna.

It was at that point that I caught myself grinding my teeth and gripping the knife a little too tightly.

“Candy, can I have my knife back?” Nohta didn’t so much ask as she demanded.

My voice left my lips, cold and numb. “We are going to Spursburg.”

“W-What?” Lily coughed out a cloud of smoke.

I floated the blade back to my sister as I closed the spellbook and set it aside. “You were right. I can’t run from my problems anymore.” Nohta paused halfway through sheathing her knife to fix Lily with an icy glare, but said nothing. My eyes drifted to the four books my parents had given me years ago.

Starswirl’s biography was the first to meet the little garnet, which had no effect. It had already been altered. To what degree I wasn’t sure, but it couldn’t be trusted. It was time to stop running. I had to act.

Nohta and Lily stared in silence as I laid the book on the fire. “I can’t afford to cling to lies anymore.” The historical account of how Luna brought the three pony tribes together met a similar fate after the gem failed to budge from atop the paper. The book’s pages curled in the flame, baring their text one final time before being consumed. “These are only weighing me down.” I didn’t even test the last two books with the garnet before throwing them atop the fire. Why should I have even bothered? “The most we can hope for is that these keep us warm for the night.”

Lifting my eyes over the brightening flames, I spied Mother’s journal in Nohta’s hooves. She caught my gaze, and scooted away from the fire with the book clutched tightly to her chest. Shaking her head, she scrunched up her brow and covered the book with her cloak. “No, Sis. Not this one.”

“They lied to us, Nohta.” I heard the exhaustion in my own voice as I tried to reason with her. “There’s no point in me carrying that book around with—”

“Then I’ll keep it,” She insisted.

“Nohta, the sooner we rid ourselves of those false ideas the sooner we can move on,” I pleaded.

Nohta’s chest was heaving erratically as she stared me down over the flames. Little bits of charred paper flew upwards from the fire, their edges still bright orange. It felt like hours passed before she whispered, “No. I’m keeping this one.”

“Nohta… We should just burn it and be done with—”

Her eyes narrowed. “Fuck off, Sis.”

My jaw dropped. She… She hadn’t ever spoken to me like that! She might as well have slapped me!

We scowled at each other over the flames, neither of us speaking. Only after Lily had made an uncomfortable coughing noise did I remember we were not alone. “Fine,” I conceded. “Be that way.”

I pursed my lips as I rose, sidestepped the discarded blobs of ink, and walked over to Lily to ask, “Can I speak with you?” I glared at Nohta out of one eye as my tail swished behind me. “Outside?” Nohta turned her back to me, still clutching the book in her grasp.

“Err… yeah,” Lily snuffed out her cigarette and nodded. “Sure.”

Crimson light nearly tore the flimsy front door from its hinges as I strode outside, fuming. The canopy, hanged mare, and spark chargers passed through my vision as I walked to the edge of the purple light’s reach. There, on the rim of the darkness, I seethed in silence.

How could she have said that!? I was only trying to do what she wanted! I was only trying to act when it was appropriate! What was so wrong with that!? My hooves ground against gravel as I hung my head and waited for Lily.

Minutes passed as I studied my shadow and tried to calm my breathing. No matter how infuriating or nonsensical Nohta was being, I did not need to transfer my anger onto Lily. More time passed as I tried to figure out what I would tell her.

In the end, what calmed me the most was just how exhausted I felt. Two days of continuous walking, emotional outbursts, and thorough introspection had robbed me of every iota of strength I held. The only course I saw before me was honesty.

By the time I heard the door’s hinges creak open and soft hoofsteps crunching the gravel behind me, I had worked up a little speech. I saw Lily’s wild-maned shadow approach my own, and I heard her sit down behind me. She didn’t say anything. I took that as an invitation to speak my piece.

I took a deep breath, and stared out over the darkened desert as I spoke softly. “When I was a filly, I used to be afraid of the dark.” My gaze lowered, bringing the lavender light into view as I offered a weak chuckle. “That’s about the silliest thing a Selenist can be afraid of. But Father said I shouldn’t worry.” I could still see his face as he brushed my mane from my eyes…

“ ‘It is only dark because you are in the shade of Luna’s wings,’ he told me.” I shook my head, sighing. “I believed that. Every day I found comfort in that. I could face the darkness or the light so long as I thought she was with me.” Goddess, it’d be a miracle if I made it through this without tears…

“With The Goddess watching over me, how could I possibly feel unsafe?” I swallowed the rising lump in my throat, and turned to see Lily’s quizzical expression. A single hoof weakly accused her as my ears lay back against my mane, “You stole that from me, Lily.” She raised her eyebrows as I continued. “I could have died happily having never known just how wrong I was. Now I don’t believe that I’ll ever feel safe again. With a single name you toppled my entire worldview,” I shut my eyes, unable to meet hers, and tried my best to say what I truly needed to convey. “And I reacted in the worst possible way.

“I… I’m afraid, Lily. Of so many things. Ever since Nohta and I joined Father in The Caravan, everything has been new and exciting. But…” I opened my eyes. I needed to meet her gaze as I said this. Blood red eyes stared at me as I confessed, “After meeting you… ‘new’ has become ‘unimaginable,’ and ‘exciting’ has become ‘terrifying.’ ”

I continued before she could respond, worried that I wouldn’t be able to force the words out if I didn’t keep going. “It wasn’t enough for you to introduce me to Half-Moon and what he knew of my glyph-mark. You had to show me that accursed little bauble…” I wrinkled my nose as I spoke the name, “Celestia. Even knowing the truth, the word stings and burns my throat.”

My hoof pointed at her again, more forcefully this time. “You stole that from me, Lily.” My lip quivered as I made the painful admission. “All I have left is fear. I’m that little filly that’s scared of the dark all over again. And now there are much worse things lurking in the shadows.”

She rose to her hooves, standing a full head taller than me. “Are you afraid of me?” It was a simple question, but one I didn’t want to answer.

“I…” My ears drooped as I recoiled at the query.

“Good.” She stepped closer, forcing me to look up to meet her fierce gaze. “Because I’m the baddest motherfucker out here.” My head dipped as I failed to maintain eye contact, but her hoof caught the underside of my chin, stopping the motion as quickly as it started. Rather than force my face all the way back up, she instead lowered her own to meet me halfway, raising her eyebrows in an expression of purest sincerity. “But I’m not here to hurt you.”

She let go of me, standing at her full height again and whispering softly, “Don’t shoot at me again.” The implied threat hung in the air as I sat back on my haunches.

“I’m sorry!” Shaking my head, I desperately searched for the right words. What spilled out of my mouth was more than I wanted to admit. “I dragged you into all of this! I didn’t really care about your reasons for joining us, only that you would help. And then when you did try to help me… Lily, I almost killed you.” Wetness was welling in my eyes as I stared at the ground. “I can’t believe that I… I’m so sorry!”

Why wasn’t she speaking? Did she want me to keep talking? Did she just want to stare at me? I had to say something. Lifting my eyes, I begged, “Is… Is there any way you can forgive me?”

Her face contorted in that salacious smirk of hers. “Asking me for Forgiveness is a dangerous move, sugar.”

Ice fell into the pit of my stomach. “I-I didn’t—”

“And I’ve killed ponies for a lot less than what you did back in the barn.” She flared her wings behind her, losing the smirk in the process. A jolt of fear ran down my spine at those words. Staring into her eyes, I was as a sheep beside a hungry timberwolf.

“But I’m still here, aren’t I?” She shrugged and folded her wings, and a broad smile engulfed her face as she let out a single bark of laughter. “Heh. It’s not the first time I’ve been shot at, babe. Wasn’t even the first time a friend pulled a piece on me.”

I caught my breath, wondering when I had lost it, and shook my head. “How can you call me ‘friend?’ ”

The smile turned into a smirk. “What? You want to be more than just friends?” She held a hoof to her big dumb forehead as she gasped in mock surprise. “Candy! You’re so forward!”

“You… Ugh!” I stamped on the ground, wondering if I’d be within my rights to smack her. “I’m trying to have a serious conversation, Lily! I’m trying to apologize!”

“That’s why,” she spoke through her grin, poking a hoof towards my face.

“W-What?” My head cocked as I furrowed my brow.

“Remember a few nights ago? In the saloon? What you said to me?” Honestly, my memory of that night was riddled with more holes than the raider swinging from the canopy. I had to wait for her next words for proper context. “The last time I saw blue eyes burn like that…” A wistful smile crept over her face as I realized what she was talking about: revenge.

“Sorry. Times change.” Lifting her hoof to her mane, she produced a small bottle of clear liquid and took a sip before whispering, “Sometimes ponies can too.

“You didn’t call me out here just to apologize, sugar. And I’m guessing you probably heard what Short-Stack had to say.” She offered the bottle to me and sighed. “Why don’t you tell me why Luna having a sister is such a big deal.”

I briefly considered divulging the entire backstory to her for context. But to be perfectly honest, there wasn’t enough time left in the night to go into that much detail. I’d have to be concise.

I waved off the liquor, much to Lily’s disappointment, and took a deep breath. “To make a long story very very short,” I began, “Selenists believe that Luna is the very best pony that has ever lived. The moon, her sacred orb and the seat of her power, is venerated as holy. The sun, being in direct opposition to the moon, is reviled as evil incarnate.” Lily raised a skeptical eyebrow, but I was determined to continue.

Despite knowing the truth, I couldn’t help but feel a swell of pride as I described The Goddess. “Lady Luna was the physical manifestation of the moon’s essence, a being of such grace, beauty, wisdom, and power that only heathens, fools, and villains would dare stand against her. She was the only alicorn: born of the moon’s sympathy for all the creatures of Equestria subjected to the ravaging light of the sun. But the sun was incapable of such mercy, and kept her form whole rather than walk amongst the ponies. That’s why the moon’s light is more dim than the sun’s.”

I gestured with my hooves for emphasis. “Where the moon’s light brings us guidance when we cannot see the path, the sun’s light can only blind and burn. Every foal in The Stable was taught that, were it not for the clouds blanketing the land, nopony leaving The Stable would have been able to see due to the sunlight causing extreme eye damage.”

A small measure of strength filled my breast as I continued. This was what I knew better than any. None were my equal in this regard.

“Aeons ago when the earth and the sea were washed in light and heat, it was Princess Luna that ended the tyranny of the sun, and brought respite to those of us who dwelt below. The Goddess brought the holy Eclipse, and scattered the might of the sun amongst the heavens. The stars are pieces of the sun, purified by the Lady’s wrath so that they might shine at night.”

Condensing my entire religion into so few words left me with a terribly sick feeling in my stomach, as if it were imperative that I divulged the whole story, rather than just the cliff notes. “There are… so many details that I’m glossing over. But suffice to say that to see another princess, another alicorn, another goddess…” I shook my head, still trying to wrap my head around the truth. “And to see that her cutie-mark was the sun, of all things, was world-shattering.

“To witness my goddess bow her head to that pony was unthinkable heresy. To hear The Dark Mother call Celestia ‘sister’ was atrocious. And to actually see and hear the love in her eyes and in her voice as she addressed her elder sibling was…” I trailed off, utterly incapable of fully conveying the tragedy of the memory I had witnessed.

Luckily, Lily had a suggestion. “Bad?” She offered.

My hoof found my temple as I shook my head. “Unbelievably so.”

“So you came out here and found that things aren’t exactly lining up with how you thought they would.” She shrugged her wings, taking another drink before asking, “That is what caused your little breakdown? Life sucks sometimes, Candy. You just gotta deal with it.”

“Disregarding the fact that any expectations I once had stemmed from an entire lifetime of pious service in the name of The Dark Mother,” I parried, feeling my brow furrow even as I tried to keep my cool. “That’s not the whole story.”

I stared her down, letting all the pain of that awful realization seep into my voice. “Lily… This is something that anyone who had been to the surface would have known. My stable has been open for decades. We traded with the outside world regularly via The Caravan. But not all of The Caravan crew were regulars. The ponies that left The Stable changed every year.” My eyes drifted out to the dark once more as I recounted all the betrayals, each one more infuriating than the last. “The Overmare knew. Half of my teachers probably knew. Certainly all of the scribes in The Library knew!” My hoof found my face as I shook my head again, my ire bubbling up to the surface. “Friends, neighbors, coworkers… Lily, they all lied to me!”

I couldn’t help it any more. Rising to my hooves, I yelled into the night. “Mother and Father lied to Nohta and me our entire lives!”

Glaring at the spark station, I shouted at the top of my lungs, hoping my sister was listening. “For all I know, Nohta and I might have been the only ones in The Stable that didn’t know the truth! And for what!?” I raised a hoof, accusing the darkened land all around us as my tail whipped behind me. “What possible reason could any of that have served!?” Rounding on Lily, I felt my ears lay against my mane as I stomped toward her. “Imagine, just for a moment, the lengths you would have to go to in order to keep such a colossal secret safe from any number of The Stable’s inhabitants!”

“Candy…” Lily’s wings had flared during my tirade. As I advanced on her, she lowered her body and pawed at the ground. I recognised the stance as her ‘takeoff’ pose. Something certainly had her spooked, but I couldn’t tell what the matter was.

I halted, grinding my teeth as I felt a familiar pressure building behind my eyes. “And how many ponies would that even be?” I shouted, disregarding the crimson light pulsing all around us. “Two? Twenty? Two hundred? Two thousand!?” My chest heaved as my breath quickened. “Let’s not forget… This has been going on for decades! Possibly centuries! Maybe even millennia!” My hoof lifted a little higher with each estimation before finally slamming down as I grit my teeth and glared at the sky.

“Calm down, Candy.” She raised her head and a hoof in a placating gesture, but kept her voice low and even.

“The fact is I don’t have a clue about anything because the only person from The Stable I can trust has been lied to all her life as well!” An incessant ache was spreading through my horn due to the magic building within it. “And now Nohta wants to protect those… Those…” I stamped a hoof, throwing my head back to yell even as I felt the magical pressure release. “UGH!” My world disappeared entirely in a flash of bright scarlet, and reappeared with Lily’s surprised face inches from my own.

“GAH! FUCK!”

A blurry, blue, and exceptionally hard object slammed into my jaw, snapping my head to the side as stars exploded through my vision. I lost my balance, and landed on my side on the hard ground. The rocks bit into my coat as I blinked back tears and rubbed my throbbing cheek, dumbfounded.

“Shit! Shit shit shit…” Gravel crunched underneath Lily’s hooves as she rushed over. “Candy! You scared the shit out of me!”

I pulled my hoof away from my face, seeing a spot of red. “Buh… whazzappened?”

“Fuck, I’m sorry!” Hooves wrapped around my shoulders, pulling me up. “But a little warning would be nice next time!”

“Yuh… You hit me,” I mumbled through my groggy haze.

Lily stood in front of me, producing a rag from her bushy mane and soaking it with her bottle of liquor. “Well you kinda teleported right in my face. And with the way you were acting…”

“I… I did?” My lips cracked in a small smile before the sting of a busted lip reminded me to keep my expression neutral. My hoof returned to my lip. “I did.” That had been easy. I hadn’t even been concentrating. Why couldn’t I have done that earlier?

“Here. Hold on a sec.” She held the rag close to my face and sighed. “You really don’t want an infection out here, babe.” Raising an eyebrow in question, she waited for me to pull my hoof away from my lip.

A barely familiar scent met my nose as she dabbed the cloth to my face. I winced as the liquor-soaked cloth met my lip. Her left ear was bobbing up and down at an absurd rate as she cringed at me. “Fucking hell… Papa Thunderhooves would string me up by my primaries if he found out about this.”

Her inexpert ministrations were endearing, true, but also frustrating. I sat down and raised an eyebrow as I mumbled through the cloth, “Tequila, Lily? Really? You understand that I can do this better myself, right?”

Her look was absolutely pitiful as she pulled the rag away. “Err, right.”

“It’s only a split lip. I’ve been dealing with worse since I was a filly.” Her face was bathed in red light as my face tingled. “Though,” I offered dejectedly, “I suppose I owed you that one, didn’t I?”

Offering up the little bottle, she grinned apologetically, “Who says violence never solves anything?”

I opened my mouth to respond, but memories stilled my tongue. “Heh…” Taking the bottle in my magic, I raised it to my lips, enjoying the oddly satisfying sound of the last few swallows of liquor sloshing in the bottle. I sighed as I answered, “I used to.” I only sipped the liquid, having no desire for a repeat of my last encounter with alcohol. It burned on the way down, like a fire in my belly.

My shoulders slumped as I asked, “Have you ever believed in something so fully that the very idea you might be wrong never entered your thoughts? I feel as if I might next discover that gravity is just a ruse.”

Her answer caught me completely off guard. “I thought I loved a girl once,” she said before downing the rest of her bottle. “Does that count?”

I contemplated her question, but without any context I wasn’t sure. “What did you do?”

She pursed her lips and held her fetlocks against her barrel indignantly. “Why do you assume that I did anything wrong?”

I recoiled at the rebuke, “Err, my apologies. Poor word choice.” Clearing my throat, I amended my question, “I meant, afterward. What did you do after, ah… she did something?” That particular idea was going to take some getting used to…

Lily paused as she inspected the ground at our hooves, only answering after mulling her thoughts over for an exorbitant amount of time: “Screamed.”

The blunt nature of the confession left little doubt as to the veracity of her statement, but it turned out she was more than willing to indulge my curiosity even further. “I stripped off everything but my blades, Forgiveness, two inhalers of Dash, and a belt of ammo. Then I flew straight into the closest raider camp I knew about and killed everypony I saw.”

I felt my lips slipping open, and had to remind myself to keep my mouth shut. She had been more than willing to hear me out. What kind of friend would that make me if I didn’t return the favor?

I could tell by her tense posture and scowling expression that she was fighting back a more physical display of her frustration. Her eyes were hard as she recounted the experience. “I just wanted… to break things. To get some kinda release, y’know?” She looked up to me, as if she were seeking understanding in my eyes, but I could only offer a sympathetic ear.

Her wings gave a single irritated flap as she continued. “Smashing empty liquor bottles against the buildings in Manehattan wasn’t cutting it anymore.” Her ears lay flat against her wild mane as her voice grew thick with emotion. “I couldn’t forget her face. I still can’t. I didn’t want to hurt her, but I needed to hurt something. I needed…” Shaking her head, she threw her hooves up in defeat. “Fuck, I guess I just needed to do something.” It was the first time I had seen those blood-red eyes mist over. Goddess, if only it had been the last…

“Came out of that one pretty dinged up,” she confessed, a melancholy smile distorting the lines on her face. “I couldn’t even tell whether the blood was mine or not, and one of my wings was so fucked up that I could barely hover.” Her wings each stretched out behind her in turn as she grinned at them. “Yep, ol’ Flappy McGillicutty and Beats McCleave got a workout that night.”

I stared in exasperation, unsure of what to say or even if she was being serious at all anymore.

“I woulda bought the rock farm right then and there if I hadn’t run into a traveling cheese trader with all my fresh loot to trade for a potion.” She grinned and shook her head. “And trust me, I know what you’re thinking…”

I scowled, calling her out on her nonsense. “That naming your wings is completely ridicul—”

“Who the hell sells cheese in the wasteland!?” She cut me off, flaring her wings for effect. “Am I right? Of course I am.” She nodded with a smug grin. “Monterey-fucking-Jack, that’s who!” Cocking her head to the side, she tapped her chin pensively, “Dumb son-of-a-bitch almost shot me, too. Life is weird, sometimes.”

I gave up, and tried my best to at least appear sincere. “Knowing now what transpired,” I asked, “would you have done anything differently?”

She shook her head slowly, smirking. “Not one damn thing.”

My eyes peered into hers. “Then would you deny me the same thing?”

“Huh?” That certainly wiped the smirk off her face!

I began slowly, picking my words carefully. “I’ve loved three mares in my life, The Goddess, Mother, and Nohta. I lost Mother a long time ago, and I just discovered that The Goddess wasn’t at all what I believed. But Nohta is right. Up until now we haven’t heard so much as a whisper regarding what happened to The Caravan. We can’t back away from the only lead we have.” Every word that came was easier than the last. My argument made too much sense. She had to see that!

“Now,” I continued, gaining steam, “despite a lifetime of pious devotion, most of what I have been taught is meaningless. All I truly know for certain is what I can see in front of me. I can trust my sister. I can trust my medical knowledge. I can, and should, have trusted you…

“I need to act, Lily! I need to go to Spursburg, instead of running back to Mareon with my tail between my legs!” Sometimes, we just have to ask for what we want. Perhaps I would no longer beg anything of Luna or Celestia, but that didn’t mean I could forsake my friend. In the end, every bit of my speech came down to a simple and genuine request. “Don’t take that from me. Please.”

Even then, with Spursburg so close at hoof, I don’t really think I fully understood what I was asking of her. But then, I wasn’t really asking for anything save for an opportunity to do good works, was I? After all, what sort of doctor would let a sickness go untreated?

Raising an eyebrow, she poked at my chest with a hoof. “You think killing raiders will help you sort yourself out?”

“After last night, I’m not entirely sure if anything ever will.” My own hoof found the tuft of fur Lily had ruffled and proceeded to smooth it out. “Honestly, I keep hoping that The Goddess is simply testing me. That she’ll send me a sign any moment now. Or that she only wishes for me to realize some deeper truth to our faith.” Looking back to Lily’s blood-colored eyes, I narrowed my own. “But after I’ve had the opportunity to turn some despicable fiend to pink ash I’ll let you know whether it was for Luna, or for myself.”

“Heh.” She let out a single bark of mirth as she regarded me, and then nodded her head in agreement.

Lifting her hooves to my shoulders, she held me at leg’s length and stared into my eyes. “Alright. You really want to keep going? Fine. Both of you are against me on this one.” That smirk of hers twisted her features as she admitted, “And I’m not gonna lie, I’m rarin’ for a good fight at this point.”

She inclined her head as she asked me, “I can’t exactly force you to see reason, but if we’re gonna do this then I’ve got some conditions, you dig?” She raised her eyebrows in question, and I was quick to agree.

Each ultimatum came with a little shake, courtesy of her hooves on my shoulders. “If I tell you to get down, you duck.” Shake. “If I tell you to get behind cover, you find the nearest wall and stay put.” Shake shake. “And if I tell you to run… I don’t give a shit what you think about it. You fucking do it.” Her hooves convulsed so violently that I wasn’t entirely sure if my eyes were literally rolling in their sockets or if she had simply made me dizzy. With both Lilys swimming through my vision, it was rather difficult to tell.

Sighing, she released me, and stuck a cigarette between her lips. “I’ve buried too many friends that thought they could handle themselves in a fight. Prove to me you’re smarter than them and follow my orders when the shit starts to hit the pan.”

“I…” The flubbed idiom and dizziness caused me to falter for a moment. But all was well when I realized that my friend was still with me. “Okay,” I agreed, feeling a smile creep across my face.

She smiled as well, and lit her cigarette. “You want some free advice?”

I nodded.

“You said it yourself: Luna’s not what you thought, and your mom is gone, but you still have your sister. The other day you told me not to let her stew over something for too long.” She inhaled deeply, blowing a plume of smoke to our sides. “Keep your mom’s book. One day you’ll look back at when you tried to burn it and hate yourself for even thinking about it.”

Smiling warmly, she whispered softly as we turned to walk back inside. “When your folks are gone, they’re gone, babe. You gotta hold onto whoever you care about for as long as you can.”

Sleep finally found me that night, but my dreams were far from comforting. My hooves carried me quickly through darkened halls, turning down whatever passage I found most interesting. Ancient spellbooks, historical scrolls, and portraits of friends and family sat on shelves along the walls. They called out to me, their voices like peals of laughter echoing through The Stable’s halls. I reached for them without thinking, remembering cherished memories as I drifted peacefully through the dark.

A wave of light rippled through my hallway, blinding in intensity, and laid bare all that I had accomplished.

Without fail, everything I touched was left stained with blood, despite my pristinely white hooves. Disgust twisted my gut as I turned and ran, unwilling to witness what I left in my wake. But no matter how far I traveled, I could not see my end destination. The light pulsed ahead of me again, beckoning with a taboo yet alluring mystery. But I was not yet ready to gallop toward it. There had to be another way.

I turned back to glimpse from where I had come and saw a pony-shaped shadow. It was… familiar, somehow. Opening the mist that passed for his mouth, he spoke…

“Scream, and you die.”

My eyes shot open as soon as I felt the cold steel upon my neck, just above the carotid artery. A stallion’s face was mere inches from my own, dominating my vision with his ugly red snout and bloodshot, yellowed eyes. His horn glowed with a faint ice-blue aura, holding the machete parallel to my jawline.

“No magic,” he growled.

I was still too groggy to fully grasp what was happening, but some—surely more primal—part of my mind understood. My chest rose quickly with a sharp inhalation, and my nose wrinkled at the reeking body odor of the pony standing over me. The blade pressed a little more firmly against my neck, forcing me to lay my cheek back against my pillow.

My capacity for higher thought was finally spurred to action as I realized the dire circumstances I had woken up to. A strangely dressed, hostile, and filthy stallion was holding a blade to my throat, his every stinking breath causing the pink strands of my mane to flutter beside my eyes. His heavy barding encased his torso in thick black plates that bore several scratches and scuff-marks, as well as a small scarlet emblem: a single red eye.

I kept my head down, but scanned the room as best I could. Past my captor’s scruffy fetlock, I watched several more ponies pile into the spark station, each of them wearing armor identical to the stallion above me. They fanned out quickly, not bothering to be quiet as they swarmed the short aisles and took up firing positions by the windows.

A taller earth-stallion, this one a deep chocolate-brown, was speaking into a hoof-held radio as he walked into the middle of the room. “Copy that. We got two. A pegasus for the pits, and one…” His eyes met mine, narrowing as he paused to appraise my face. “And a unicorn for Unity,” he finished.

Two? They had found Lily? As if The Goddesses had conspired to deliver some cruel joke, I heard a whinny and a loud snore behind me. I turned my head as much as the blade at my throat would allow, and found that Lily had slept right through our entrapment. A chill ran down my spine as I pursed my lips and tried to think. Nohta must have eluded them, but why hadn’t she woken us up?

The brown stallion strode closer, staring down at my face as I glared in his direction. When he was so close that I could only see his hooves, he finally spoke. “Congratulations, young miss, today is your lucky day. You have the opportunity to leave your worthless life behind and become a cog in a much greater machine, living for a much greater purpose…”

I could hear the smirk on his face as he finished, “Making me a lot of money.” His hooves moved out of my field of vision as he walked around my pillow. “Now keep being a good girl, and I’ll go easy on you and your friend.”

I wasn’t thinking, and spoke too quickly. “What do you want?”

Pain exploded through my ribs as a hoof slammed into my side. I curled up on my sleeping bag, gasping for air. Pulling his leg away from my coat, the red unicorn growled, “Speak when spoken to, bitch.” His reeking breath wasn’t making it any easier to breathe…

The chocolate stallion’s voice drawled behind me. “Wake her up.”

I heard a sharp cracking sound behind me before a mare’s voice sneered. “Get up, you fucking turkey!”

“Owww!” Lily’s pained outcry preceded the wild flapping of her wings as she finally woke up. “What the… Uh…” The rustling, scraping, and grunting behind me left little doubt as to what had happened to my friend, but another quick glance—this one forcing the blade to draw a trickle of blood out of my neck—confirmed that Lily was now being held upright by two ponies at her sides. I could understand her not being in top form so early in the morning, but that didn’t make our situation any better.

She groaned, finishing her question lamely. “Uh… Fuck?”

The stallion, whom I was assuming was the leader of this little band, scoffed at Lily’s words. “As eloquent a response as could be expected from Thunderhooves filth.”

Lily gave an amused murmur that almost passed for a bark of laughter. “Heh… that’s funny.” Her voice was thick and groggy, but was growing into her usual self-assuredness. “ ‘Filth?’ You’re talking to a pegasus, dipshit. Not some mudpony bitch.”

Another sharp crack preceded the unseen mare’s voice. In a smug tone, she gave Lily a warning. “Watch your tongue.”

I heard Lily spit. Something thick and wet smacked against the tile. “Oh, baby… What is this, foreplay?” Ahh… There she was. My friend was awake now. “Can you ruffle my feathers for me too?”

The stallion didn’t bother to keep the smug contempt out of his voice. “We’ll see if you’re in such a jovial mood when you’re wearing a bomb collar.”

Lily erupted in raucous laughter. “HAHAHA!” I could hear her wings flapping excitedly as she mocked him. “You’re about the stupidest son of a bitch I’ve ever met! Do you have any idea whose territory you’re in? Or what The Outcasts do to slavers?”

Slavers? My brow raised as all sorts of imaginary horrors dashed through my mind. Unfortunately, none of them were as awful as what was revealed by the stallion’s next words.

“Whatever pathetic excuse for a leader that pretends to rule this land is irrelevant.” The slaver’s voice was tired and practiced as he orated, droning on as if he had done this a hundred times before. “Mareon will submit and give tribute. This is Red Eye’s territory now.”

Lily chuckled derisively, “Red Eye’s land? Pfft… Sure it is, cupcake. Why don’t you sip your juice-box and let me talk to daddy, okay?” A dull thud sounded behind me before Lily snickered. “Fuck, kid, my pet squirrel hits harder than you. And he’s dead!”

The mare couldn’t keep the outrage out of her voice. “Do you want to join him!?”

“It’d be more fun than hanging around this horned bitch all day.” Wait… did Lily mean me? My jaw dropped. So much for her considering me a friend…

Lily continued, “I mean, seriously. Day in and day out it’s all the same. ‘Oh! I’m a big smart doctor! I’m more important than anypony! I know all sorts of sciency things! Protect me from the big bad meanies, won’t you, mercenary?” My eyes narrowed as I listened to her ranting. “Pfft… I thought this job was gonna be fun. But she’s the only company I’ve had for five days and I can hardly stand the needy bitch.” What? That wasn’t right… What about Nohta?

“A doctor?” The stallion snorted. “Let her up.”

The blade floated away from my throat, but only by a few inches. The tip rose and fell above my eyes as the stinking unicorn above me snarled. “Up.”

I stood slowly, measuring each movement carefully so that the blade wouldn’t slice my face open. Rising to my hooves, I finally had the opportunity to get a good look at my surroundings. No less than fifteen mares and stallions wearing identical black armor, most of them earth ponies, were scattered about the room. Five weapons were trained on my head, and most of the remainder were pointed towards the wide windows of the spark station. The brown stallion stood in the middle of the room, with a bright-yellow unicorn mare close at his side. Nohta was nowhere to be seen, but Lily…

I gasped when I caught sight of her. Two earth ponies flanked her, each one holding one of her forelegs captive in order to keep her still. Lily’s right eye was already swollen shut. Blood from her muzzle flowed freely down her face, collecting underneath her chin to slowly drip against her chest. Goddess, I couldn’t believe it, but despite it all she was still wearing that irredeemably smug grin. Her left eye darted toward me for just a moment before she winked.

I shook my head in bewilderment. Was she out of her little pony mind!?

“Is that true?” The chocolate stallion asked me. “Are you a doctor?”

I swallowed, staring down the barrel of one of the pistols aimed at my head. It was close enough that I could just make out the spiraled rifling on the inside of the metal tube. “I am.”

“Good. You’ll sell for more,” he smirked. Cocking his head, he asked, “But before I can market that, I need to be sure you really are a doctor. So why don’t you show us what you can do?”

Goddess, I never should have asked… “Err… how?”

Gesturing with a hoof towards Lily, he grinned. “By healing your friend, of course.”

Before I even had time to fully register the stallion’s words, the mare at his side drew her pistol and fired. The round tore through Lily’s lower abdomen, spattering blood against the shelves as she gasped and beat her wings furiously against the earth ponies at her side.

Her eyes bulged just as the ponies released her. She fell forward, clutching her stomach and wincing. “Fuck! My liver! I think I need that!”

“Lily!” I screamed and started forward, only for the machete to block my path.

The red stallion’s hoof snaked around my shoulders as he leaned closer to gloat into my ear. “So you two do care about each other, huh?” The slavers laughed as I fought to free myself from the disgusting red pony, but no matter how I struggled, his grip was too strong. It was only when the brown stallion nodded that my captor released me.

The blade left my throat as I dashed over to Lily’s thoroughly blood-soaked form. I had to fight against her beating wing and push her hooves out of the way in order to see the wound. Blood was already pooling on the floor underneath her flank by the time I activated my spell. Pain ripped through my body as I felt the aftermath of the unicorn mare’s shot.

As she squirmed beneath me, I felt Lily’s words leave my throat. “Candy! They shot me in the liver! It’s the hardest working liver in the wasteland, and now it has a hole in it!” I felt an intense rush of cold wash over my body as she shivered and spasmed. When the sensation passed she was left kneading her hooves against the tile, going cross-eyed as she groaned, “Oh, I shouldn’t have said that. Fucking waves always come at the worst time…”

“Lily, stay quiet! I need to concentrate!” The bullet had passed through her body, tearing a bloody swath through several organs in the process. The pain—along with the unholy reek of a punctured intestine—was nearly enough to turn my stomach as I knelt over her. Scarlet tendrils dug into her body as I desperately knit flesh back together while fighting back the urge to gag.

I had mended the internal wounds quickly but she had lost too much blood, and she would go septic if I couldn’t clean the wound in time. I had no way of undoing that damage. In my panic, I turned to the brown stallion and screamed. “I-I need a potion!”

The slaver leader only mocked us, “Don’t you have one, girl?” His soldiers stomped their hooves on the tile as they laughed raucously.

My lip quivered as I stared, dumbfounded, into his merciless eyes. How… How dare he!? A layer of overglow coated the room scarlet as my magic gripped the medical supplies by my bedroll. Well over fifty pounds of medical equipment spilled out of my packs, skidding across the floor in a blanket of red energy.

Luna—or more likely, luck—was on my side. Several potions slid right up to my hooves, just in time. I didn’t feel the awful stretching sensation just yet, but Lily’s vision was already going grey by the time I rolled her over onto her back and held her head in my hooves. Lily’s eyelids were heavy and closing by the time the Hydra hit her tongue. I breathed a sigh of relief as I felt the sensation of life slowly flow back into her failing body.

*Click*

In my panic, I hadn’t noticed the magical aura just under my chin. Reaching a hoof upward, I probed at the tight metal band that had found its way around my neck. Something beeped just underneath my ear…

Lily’s leg darted upward, yanking my hoof away from the collar constricting my airflow. Her eye stared into mine as she whispered, “Don’t. Bomb.” Those two words were all she had the strength to say before her right cheek fell against the tile.

The slavers laughed again as their leader addressed me, waving a small electronic contraption in his hooves. “You’ll want to listen to your friend. Be a good dog and wear your leash.” I bristled at the comment. He brushed off my glare, and gestured to the medical equipment I had revealed. “Oh, and thank you for the supplies.”

Lily’s pierced ear bobbed up and down as she lie at my hooves, but a discordant thumping rhythm throbbed in our right ears. I couldn’t tell what it was, it certainly didn’t match her heartbeat…

The unicorn mare held an open band of metal, electronics, and explosives in front of me. “Put this on her.”

I stared at the bomb collar, my jaw going slack. She… She couldn’t be serious… “What? No, p-please…”

The unicorn’s magic lifted her pistol to my eyes, pulling the hammer back until it clicked. Her eyes narrowed as a thin smile crept over her lips. “I’m not asking.” Goddess, the slavers were enjoying this… I had never felt so powerless. Or so… used.

My hoof trembled as I took the collar from her, and my chest heaved as I lowered it to Lily’s throat. And then I hesitated. The pistol jutted up against my temple, causing me to yelp and shut my eyes. The tears that had welled up in my eyes spilled over onto Lily’s cheek. I felt her open her eyes, and I felt her clumsily mouth the words. “Do… it. S’okay.”

I was a blubbering mess by the time I managed to fit the collar around her throat, but Lily didn’t mind. In fact, she was grinning. The thumping I felt in our right ears grew stronger when I laid her head back on the cool tile, but for the life of me I could not detect any other problems with her health. Hydra was well named; it felt like a monster in her veins. But the rampaging beast crashing through her heart was not what was causing the rumble in her ear.

“Good girl.” The unicorn smirked at me, wearing that same infuriating look The Pyro had given me just before I blew her head off. I was only lucky Lily’s wing extended against my chest, holding me back. I was beginning to think that killing was about to get easy again.

And it certainly wasn’t going to be for Luna’s sake.

The stallion grinned, twisting a knob on the side of the little device in his hooves. “I imagine that Red Eye might like to keep a Thunderhooves pegasus for his pit.” Lily’s own smile widened as the slaver mocked us. I had no idea what she thought was so comedic about our situation. Snorting in derision, the slaver twisted the proverbial knife a little further. “Raider filth like you aren’t good for anything else.”

My ears drooped against the sides of my head as I eyed Lily’s maniacal grinning. Had he just said… Thunderhooves were raiders!? Goddess, how could I have trusted her!? She… She was… No wonder she was so unhinged!

No, wait… Lily wasn’t one of those ponies! She was… She was a little odd but surely she wasn’t…

But it made sense, didn’t it? The wild hedonism, the bloodlust, the insanity… How hadn’t I seen it before!? Goddess, how oblivious was I?

The chocolate stallion was taking every opportunity to relish his little victory. His eyes gleamed as he raised a brow in question, “Finally run of out of jokes, tribal?”

Lily’s words came slow and quiet. “Red Eye? Heh, red eyes, blue eyes, green eyes, Bright Eyes… They all close in the end.” Wait… what? Did she just say… Oh Goddess, the thumping in her ear was—

Lily lifted her head from the floor, grinning wickedly, “I hope you fuckers brought enough bullets…”

A mare by the windows shouted, “Sir! Movement on the road!” All eyes turned to her as she leveled her rifles towards the outside. “Feral ghouls coming in quick!”

A shiver ran down my spine, even before I heard the hissing and growling. How many ghouls did it take to make that Goddess-awful rumble!?

The brown stallion shouted as he pointed at us, “Tie these two up! Now! And make sure the unicorn doesn’t cast any fucking magic!”

I was thrown to the floor by rough hooves, and held against Lily’s wings. The yellow unicorn mare lit her horn, and golden-yellow chains of light lashed around our bodies, tying Lily’s back against my own. Another chain wrapped itself around my horn, floating just above the spiral fluting before it locked itself in place. And then it started to burn…

My eyes went wide. Hot… Fear gripped my heart. Hotter… The world around me became a little more vague and a little less important with every second. I couldn’t help but relinquish control as the pain forced me to mentally retreat inward, and before long I succumbed to the panic engulfing my mind. The last thing I remember clearly before being consumed by the fire was the very foremost of Luna’s teachings: light can only blind… And burn.

Then I screamed. A lot.

The light seared against my mind, blazing a hole through my brain and obliterating my capacity for thought. I could feel, faintly, Lily squirming against my back. But as my legs kicked and my teeth gnashed and my eyes bulged and every vulgar, blasphemous, insane promise of retribution poured out of my mouth I could only see one thing: the vicious grin of a bright yellow mare as she stared down at me.

I felt a head bang against my own, and heard Lily’s voice through the deluge of light and heat. “Candy! Try to stay calm. We’ll get through this!” Her words were little comfort against the blazing agony inches from my forehead.

The brown buck pointed at the windows as he yelled at his underlings, “You idiots want to get paid, don’t you!? Hold them off!”

The slavers that were still by the shelves joined their comrades at the walls, firing through the windows as quickly as they could. Glass windows shattered left and right, barely audible over the deafening blanket of gunfire. The unicorns in the group collected the glass as it fell from the windows, flinging it outside the building while the earth ponies cut down ghoul after ghoul with their rifles and shotguns. Dozens of zombies shrieked in rage as their limbs were blown apart as if they were made of wet cardboard. Their bodies fell to the earth to be trampled by the snarling herd, but for every zombie that was ripped apart, three more took its place.

It was all too familiar. In Coltsville, Holly explained that these monsters could resurrect themselves, but these slavers were most likely ignorant of The San Palomino’s ghouls. My gut twisted with fear even as the inferno in my horn commanded my attention. I could only pray that Bright Eyes wasn’t with this particular herd. If she was close, then we were already dead. I had seen well enough what happened to the Steel Rangers that opposed her, and these slavers were as children with B.B. guns compared to those brutes! But with the scalding heat holding my magic at bay, I couldn’t even muster the resolve to shout a warning to my captors. Held in those chains, I was as helpless as a foal.

I grew desperate. Gripped as I was in the unholy fury of the light, I lifted my eyes to the ceiling, prepared to pray for the assistance of any divine being that would listen—even if it was Celestia. But instead of the aid of an elder sibling, I was rescued by a younger one.

In all the chaos, no one else noticed the ceiling panel lift and disappear to the side. No one else saw the black-cloaked figure bite down on the inhaler of Dash. No one else saw the pair of burning amethyst eyes glowing like hellfire in the shadows.

Nohta pounced on the brown slaver. Mother’s cloak billowed behind my sister as she landed on the stallion’s back, breaking his grip on the device. His body crumpled underneath Nohta’s weight as her hoof flashed downward against his fetlock. Even through the gunfire, I could hear his joint breaking.

He lost his grip on the little box, crying out as it sailed through the air. Why was my sister so preoccupied with that tiny—

“NOHTA!” Lily screamed behind me, “GRAB THE DETONATOR!”

My eyes shot wide as I realized what was tumbling end-over-end in a wide arc between the aisles. If it landed on the button…

Nohta abandoned the slaver and dove for the trigger, catching it face up in her hooves as she slid across the tile. She twisted her body to protect the little box, slamming her shoulder into the flimsy shelf and making it teeter on its side. Ancient cans of dog food and packages of dehydrated fruit fell to the floor, giving one of the slavers a second to yell in surprise before the entire shelf came crashing down on top of him. The glass in the window frame sliced right through his barding, and a pair of ghouls snapped at his limp body like hungry dogs scrabbling for table scraps.

In all the commotion, even I lost track of my sister. The yellow mare pointed her pistol at my head and screamed. “Shit! The prisoners are—”

Nohta slammed her Pipbuck into the mare’s throat just as Lily kicked out against a shelf. She and I were sent flying forward, our shoulders cracking the glass display case of the station’s service counter while the unicorn’s weapon discharged a mere pony’s length away from my face. The bullet’s wake blew over my body in a wave of pressure while the gunshot deafened my right ear. I was already gritting my teeth against the scalding heat in my horn, but just as my hearing was reduced to a sharp ring the pain disappeared completely.

I lifted my head to see the mare stumbling to the side, blood and spittle flying from her grimacing face as Nohta landed back on all fours. The slaver had lost her concentration, and the magical aura around her horn had faded along with the bindings tying Lily and I together. Lily’s wings unfurled against my back just as my little ember of rage blazed white-hot.

Blood-red light bathed the inside of the station. Hatred mixed with indignance in my gut, pushing me further than I ever would have gone without. I put everything I had into my spell, seizing the mare by the throat and slamming her body against a nearby shelf. She was still choking and scrabbling at the magical leash with her forehooves when Nohta’s blade slashed her neck all the way to the vertebrae. Goddess, the arterial spray was glorious!

I noticed another inhaler of Dash skid across the tile as I turned my now blood-soaked face to Lily. She had already latched her blades in place on her wings and slung her revolver over her shoulder, but it wasn’t until I saw her hover over the shelves and raise her rifle to her shoulder that I really saw her. In that moment, with a zebra-model lever-action rifle in her hooves and with pure fire in her eyes, she was in her prime.

In the tiny space of the spark station’s interior, Lily’s rifle might as well have been a cannon. It roared like thunder, exploding a unicorn mare’s neck so violently that her horn rocketed upward to embed itself in the ceiling. Lily’s hoof then darted forward, moving the lever to eject the cartridge as her wings twitched to adjust her aim. Lead and flame flew forth again and again. Slavers didn’t even have time to scream before their brains coated the ghouls closing the distance in front of them. I counted eight shots, and caught sight of five dead ponies and three silenced zombies. That was when I understood why Lily came so highly recommended by Margarita.

Lily landed beside me, shoving my pistol into my chest before she scrambled to reload her rifle. “That’s a fuckload of ghouls out there! We can’t stick around for long!”

Strapping my pistol to my leg, I chanced a quick glance at the remaining slavers firing into a wall of snapping jaws, crazed eyes, and flailing limbs. Deja vu came quickly as I realized the slavers were attempting to stand against the tide of ghouls, but this time I wasn’t burdened by sympathy.

The horde moved as one, sacrificing dozens on the outside in order to protect their center, which bulged and advanced towards the wide windows. When they were close enough the ghouls split away, and a single abomination rushed the building. I stared in awe as a hideously distorted face covered with an abundance of matted pink fur and pockmarked with jiggling pustules reached the outer walls. The bloater gasped excitedly as it lunged towards the windows and wrapped its fluffy hooves around a stallion’s neck. His eyes went wide as the ghoul scrunched up its muzzle and stuck its tongue out of its mouth. For a moment, all was silent, save for the whimpering stallion. Then the ghoul’s eyes narrowed. I’ll never forget the sound it made as its grotesque tongue waggled between its teeth.

“Pbbt.”

Pink Cloud erupted from the ghoul’s body, tearing through its skin as easily as it tore through the line of slavers. Three stallions and two mares were instantly swallowed up by the plume of gas. Their skin melted from their bodies to fall like sludge against the tile as they clawed at their eyes and fell over screaming and twitching. I watched in horror as one mare’s pained shrieking caused her eroded skin to bubble up and pop away from her throat before she lay still.

The blast had reached us as well, toppling shelves like dominoes and batting my mane aside as I covered my eyes. The shelves lurched to the side, falling on top of the three of us and bruising my side with their steel racks. Pink death was slowly seeping over the tile as Nohta was knocked on her side, dropping the detonator for our bomb collars. It skidded back towards the brown earth pony, who clawed at the tile to grab it. I lit my horn, and raised the shelf a few precious inches before a blue blur jetted past my side to slam into the downed buck. Lily wrestled with the slaver, keeping him away from the killswitch as Nohta helped me lift the shelf. But we weren’t fast enough.

I scanned the room, and found the detonator for our collars. The pink mist rolled over the tile, reaching my back hoof before I could stand. Agony unlike anything I had ever felt—like my very essence was being stripped from my body—rippled through my leg. I groaned helplessly against the pain before Nohta mustered the strength to throw the shelf off of us.

Scrambling to my hooves, I scooped up the detonator in my magic and threw myself over the counter, knocking the bits register to the floor before I landed beside my bedroll. The brown slaver landed with a grunt beside me, sporting a deep gouge across his muzzle.

Before I had time to question his presence, Lily landed beside me with her rifle cradled in her hooves. “Candy! It’s time to go!” Pointing to the detonator, she yelled over the screaming and gunfire, “Keep that thing close! If we get too far away from it our collars will blow!” The rifle went limp in her shoulder-sling as she pulled her pistol from its holster and fired over the counter. I wasn’t sure if she was aiming at slavers or ghouls. At that point, it didn’t matter.

Nohta dove behind the counter as bullets ripped through the little cardboard displays above our heads. Covering her head with her hooves, she screamed, “We need to grab the stuff from The Caravan!”

Lily ducked down, shoving my saddlebags into my chest and yelling, “Fuck that shit, there’s no time! Just get your packs and run!”

My packs… Scarlet light flooded our little corner of the spark station as my magic dug through my saddlebags. A tiny object, just the size of an apple, floated to my eyes. I felt my lips curl back in a grin as I pulled the pin…

The grenade soared over the counter just as Lily’s expression went from bewildered to panicked. She tackled me to the floor, shielding my face with her wings and shrieking at the top of her lungs. “GET DOW—”

*BOOM*

The explosion drowned her out as shockwaves rippled throughout the station. What glass was left shattered into slivers and shards that rained down around us like tiny knives. The counter warped inward, reaching for my side as it succumbed to the force of the blast. The back of my head ached from where it hit the floor. Little cuts on my legs and ribs stung like bees. And through it all I felt Lily’s breath on my chin.

Glittering splinters fell from her feathers as she pulled her wings away from my face, giving me a clear view of her blood-red eyes. I stared up at her, feeling her heart thundering against my belly, and felt my lips curl back in a grin before I whispered, “That felt good.”

Her brow furrowed as she winced. “Heh. For you, maybe.”

The brown slaver whimpered and moaned beside us, a thousand tiny lacerations decorating every inch of his body that hadn’t been covered by his black barding. There was no way that he would escape the ghouls, not with that many wounds and one eye shut from the beatings Lily and Nohta had given him. I was content to leave him to his fate, but Lily had other plans.

“Drink this, asshole.” She shoved a potion into the stallion’s hooves. “And get ready to run.”

“What!?” I spat out. “Why in Luna’s name would we give him—”

“No questions!” Lily yelled. “There’s no time to argue!” As it turned out, she was right.

Hooves crunched on broken glass before a decayed face jutted over the bent counter and bellowed overtop of us. Little flecks of reeking spittle rained down on my face, causing me to close an eye and raise a hoof against the stench. Lily rolled to the side, biting down on the bit of her revolver as the ghoul scrabbled over glass and metal. A single shot blew half of its throat against the ceiling, sending the zombie toppling backward as quickly as it had appeared.

A grip far stronger than my own pulled me to my hooves just before Nohta thrust my barding in my face and screamed. “We’re cutting this close!” I nodded, and slid into the leather as quickly as I could.

Lily stood up beside us, flapping her wings to rid them of all the flecks of glass as she looked over the counter. Her hooves found the buck’s neck as she shoved him against what remained of the outside wall—the frame of one of the wide glass panes. The lack of crunching glass or hoofbeats allowed me to hope that we were alone again, but the wild look in Lily’s eyes told me otherwise. Not to mention the chorus of growls and hisses just outside the station as ghouls clambered through the windows.

Lily stared at the slaver’s glaring face, but spoke to Nohta and I. “Looks like arguing was pointless,” she admitted. “There’s only one way to go now.” Stretching her neck and wincing, she added, “This guy’s gotta have some codes or keys or something on him. If not, then...” She shrugged, furrowing her brow. “Well… I’ve got some friends that owe me a favor or two.”

She pulled him away from the window frame before slamming him back against it and shouting into his face, garnering his full attention. “Listen here, motherfucker! If you don’t do exactly as I say, then I swear by Stormwalker herself that I will crack your ribs open and tear your lungs out of your back with my teeth! And then… And… ” The sun broke the horizon just as a maniacally gleeful grin broke across Lily’s face. Her voice rose several octaves as all sense left her. “And since you kept me from taking my medicine today, you big old meanie-pants-makes-us-dance, you get to show us your moves too!” I nearly spat out the health potion I had hurriedly procured from my packs.

She dug through his packs, produced another bomb collar with a flourish, spun it around her hoof like an over-sized bracelet, and slapped it around his neck in one fluid motion. The stallion’s eyes bulged as Lily chortled and whinnied, “Ha ha! Now you’re all dressed up for the ball! Don’t worry if you don’t know all the dances, us ladies are gonna lead from now on!” Hooking a hoof around his neck, she threw him through the window like a sack of potatoes.

She turned around and slapped me on the flank—and believe you me, words cannot adequately describe my incredulity or my indignation—and fluttered over to the groaning stallion. Giggling like a madmare, she turned back to our stunned faces and wiggled her hips, “C’mon Candy! Move what yo momma gave ya! It’s time to shake that hoove thang!”

As it turned out, “shaking my hoove thang” consisted largely of tripping over myself as I scurried to both don my barding and escape out the same window that Lily traipsed through earlier. Then it consisted of running. Lots of running.

Nohta lead our advance alongside the crumbled road, occasionally leaping on the hoods of motorwagons to fire her pistol over our heads. Lily mimicked my sister, though instead of running and leaping she chose to lazily fly backwards just above me, giggling uncontrollably every time her rifle picked off a ghoul that came too close to our group. The chocolate-brown slaver, burdened as he was by his thick barding, was panting for breath just behind me, barely able to maintain my brisk pace.

I could have slowed down for him, but frankly I couldn’t care less if the fiend was devoured by the hungry zombies at our back. After turning the tables on somepony that had so severely wronged us, I was… less than sympathetic for the stallion. When I did slow my pace it was only so that I could cast a quick glimpse behind us. That was why I knew that luck was still on our side. There was no hint of the glow that Bright Eyes or any of her undead zebras cast. We still had a chance.

The uneven terrain forced us on to the main road as we took an overpass over a small gorge. The motorwagons were smashed up against each other horribly, creating a cramped series of sharp, rusty obstacles that scratched at my barding and saddlebags as I tried to squeeze through. Luckily the tetanus-laden maze was hampering the ghouls as much as it was a hazard to us. Glancing over my shoulder, I witnessed a ghoul’s flopping lip catch on a jagged motorowagon door. I couldn’t help but cringe in pain as half of the zombie’s face was ripped away, stripping its flesh straight down to the bone. I gagged, turning forward just in time to see a rusty city limits sign sitting on a wide metal pole. It welcomed us to Spursburg, which, according to the sign, was “Where we put the ‘Spurs’ to progress!”

Lily flew past the sign, guiding my advance as she cackled with glee. “Two steps to the left! Now spin around and jump to the right!” I rolled my eyes, but was too winded to complain about her “dance lessons.”

The devastated road was littered with broken glass, gravel, and bullet casings. As I tried to pivot and turn, I lost my footing and slammed my shoulder into the driver-side door of a motorwagon. The vehicle rocked on its wheels as I gasped and chanced another look behind us. The ghouls were gaining.

A pair of hooves wrapped around my saddlebags, pushing me forward as gusts of wind played with my mane. A sing-song voice giggled just behind my ears. “Looks like someone needs a dance partner!”

Lily managed to shove me out of the way just before the slaver slid over the same stretch of road and dented the vehicle’s door with his forehead. He stumbled away from the impact on wobbly hooves, blinking stupidly as a trickle of blood dribbled down his muzzle.

Ghouls clambered over the tops of the motorwagons behind us, their hooves clanging against rusted metal as they snarled and hissed. Hungry eyes rolled in their sockets as they spotted the dazed slaver, and the zombies closest to him hissed and lunged forward. Lily’s hooves left my saddlebags as she twisted in the air and kicked off of the nearest vehicle, launching herself through the air. Over the ghouls’ growling I heard her excited voice cry out in delight as she dove into the fray, “Hey Nohta! It’s a mosh pit!”

Lily splayed her wings wide as she tackled the leading ghoul, raking her bladed feathers across another zombie’s face while she forced the first up against the shoulder-high concrete barrier on the side of the road. The second ghoul shrieked as it reared back, blinded when Lily’s blades sliced through its yellowed eyes. I heard bones breaking as Lily slammed the first ghoul into the embankment. It went limp underneath her cackling body as she turned to stick out her tongue and make a googly-eyed face at a third.

The other ghouls were beginning to catch up with us. They ignored Lily and the slaver, instead turning their undead stares in my direction. An excessively loud gunshot rang over my head, smearing bits of brain and shards of skull against a windshield. Nohta leapt in front of me just as the small herd scrambled over a vehicle. We couldn't run anymore. It was much too late for that.

My little pistol floated in front of my eyes as I activated S.A.T.S. and took aim. Nohta’s back hooves were in the process of caving in an undead chest as my beams of light speared one ghoul’s eye and burned a smoking crater through another’s hindquarters.

My aim was still atrocious though. S.A.T.S. did its best to compensate for a third target I had queued, but instead the rest of my barrage flew past a zombie’s face and impacted with the city limits sign. Centuries of neglect had rendered the metal clips holding it in place into little more than bands of rust, and they stood little chance against my accidental assault. They snapped like overly-stressed rubber bands from the heat of my blasts, and the sign groaned as it came crashing down atop a motorwagon.

Metal screeched against metal as I shielded my eyes with my Pipbuck. The roof of the vehicle caved in, spewing glass in every direction to pepper us all with tiny shards. I looked up past my hoof to find Nohta covered in dozens of little cuts and shaking like a dog to rid herself of the glass.

Lily was wrestling with another ghoul, holding it in a headlock and grinding her hoof into its mane. She laughed hysterically as it struggled in her hooves, “Heehee! Noogie noogie!”

My jaw dropped as I stared at her. “LILY!” Honestly! What was she doing!?

She looked up, her pierced ear bobbing frantically, and grinned an apology. “Oops!” A twisting jerk of her hooves snapped the ghoul’s neck, and her wings shrugged as she dropped its limp body at her hooves. “My bad!”

Beside her was the slaver, finally making himself useful. Four ghouls had surrounded him, biting down on his thick barding, but they might as well have been biting the concrete. He shoved one of them away into a motorwagon, breaking one of the taillights as he rammed the zombie up against the vehicle’s trunk. Bringing a single hoof down on the poll of its head, he squashed its skull like an overly-ripe melon. Goddess, he was strong!

Lily and Nohta converged on the slaver, each of them prying a zombie away from him as he finally fell to his knees, exhausted. The final ghoul had already sunk its teeth into one of his hind legs, but he couldn’t shake it off. I contemplated leaving him to that fate, but Lily had already risked herself to save his life. If she had some reason for keeping him alive, then he must have been worth something.

That didn’t stop me from taking my sweet time pulling my shotgun from my packs. A single slug tore through the ghoul’s ribs, painting the road and the stallion with rotting viscera. He shoved the weakened zombie to the ground, rolling on top of it and stamping a forehoof through its face.

I took a moment to examine the carnage. The road reeked of decaying flesh, and was littered with decomposed bodies. Lily and Nohta were sporting a few dozen cuts each, and the slaver looked like he’d be lucky to stand, let alone run. But there was one thing that struck me as good fortune: the only sounds that graced my ears were those of the gunfire from the city. The fastest ghouls in the herd were all dead.

Or rather, they were dead for now. I failed to suppress a shudder as I remembered all those lifeless corpses in Coltsville stirring to motion. Hopefully Bright Eyes could only do that with the ghouls in her immediate vicinity...

Nohta sat on her haunches, chugging a bottle of water as she glared at the slaver. I slid my shotgun back into my packs, trading it for a bottle of disinfectant and cotton balls, and tended to Nohta’s cuts. It was only as she finished off the bottle that I noticed the faint clicking sound coming from her leg.

My lips pursed in a frown as I pointed at the bottle with a hoof. “Err, Nohta… that was irradiated water.”

She lifted her Pipbuck to her eyes, checking the increase in rads. “Oh,” she stated in a humdrum voice. “Fuck.”

I couldn’t comprehend how she could be so nonchalant about something so terrible, but after our recent spat I was in no hurry to agitate her further. Instead, I simply I groaned into a hoof as I admitted, “I need to make more Dragon’s Breath anyway…”

“I think we’re more in need of health potions, Sis.” Nohta waved off my concern with a hoof, nodding behind me. “Especially if we’re heading into that.” I sealed up the last of her little lacerations and peered over my shoulder. I hadn’t really payed attention to the sight of the city before, not with the rolling hills obscuring my view and the snarling herd of undead demanding my attention. Now it was impossible not to notice how close we were to the city.

Spursburg loomed over us like a gargantuan decomposing corpse left to rot in the sun. A hoof-full of exceedingly tall buildings nestled in its center stood defiantly against age and decay like the ribcage of some massive beast. Thick vines and cables hung between the structures, covered in clumps of sickly moss and resembling decomposing tendons that hadn’t yet lost their putrid meat.

My jaw dropped at the sight. “Those buildings are… tall.”

Lily giggled, pronking neatly over the panting slaver and pointing her wing at the city skyline. “Pfft! That’s nothing! Those buildings aren’t even twenty-five stories, ya big goof!” My brow crinkled as I stared at her, but she only snickered into a hoof and grinned. “You should see Manehattan sometime! Now those buildings are tall!”

I shook my head at the ludicrous thought of somepony purposely building structures taller than what stood before us. Even at its deepest point, The Stable only went down three levels! Surely space in Equestria wasn’t at such a premium that ponies had been forced to build halfway to the moon…

The stallion limped towards us, breaking me from my reverie and reminding me of the task at hoof. My muzzle lifted primly in the air as I made a point of mending Lily’s trivial wounds before acknowledging his presence. I looked him up and down, noticing the dozens of bite-marks and bits of glass still embedded in his coat.

Leaving him as he was, I flicked my tail and turned back to Lily, “Now that things have settled down somewhat, would you mind explaining exactly why we didn’t let the ghouls eat this buffoon?”

“We uh… We kinda need him, Candy,” Lily pleaded, tapping her hooves in front of herself timidly.

“By the stars and moon, why!?” I demanded.

The stallion grunted, “Do any of you idiots know how to unlock slave collars?” I bristled at the question, opening my mouth to reply just as Nohta’s hoof collided with the stallion’s jaw. He fell over, making a terribly disgusting squishing noise as he landed on top of a ghoul’s sliced torso.

The slaver didn’t even have time to nurse his face before Nohta was standing over top of him and snarling. “Speak when spoken to, bitch.”

Lily’s wings flapped excitedly as she chortled, “I think I like it when Nohta gets angry at somepony other than me!” Stilling her wings, she continued, “But he does kinda have a point. I can’t brain well enough to take one of these things off on my own.”

“So… we’re relying on him to take these off for us?” I blinked incredulously at Lily’s innocent smile, but she didn’t seem to grasp my meaning. I asked my next question in as calm a voice as I could muster, which amounted to something just below a scream. “Lily, are you insane!? He’s a slaver! He wants us dead! Or worse!”

“I didn’t want you dead,” the slaver groaned.

I had to grasp Nohta’s hoof in my magic to keep her from pummeling him. Her eyes caught mine as she looked back, flashing with an unbridled rage before she tore her hoof out of my grip. Her tail whipped through the air as she stomped off, Mother’s horseshoes clinking against the pavement with every step.

I inched closer to the stallion, not bothering to conceal my own displeasure with his presence. “Oh? You just wanted to sell us, is that it? To whom?”

Despite his face looking like it had been used as a cutting board, the stallion grinned. “Who the fuck do you think?” His eyes roamed over my body uncomfortably before he continued, “Of course, it’d be a shame to send a flank like yours to Unity or the factories. What Red Eye doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Maybe I should keep you for myself…” Goddess, I must confess that I very nearly shoved my pistol through his teeth and pulled the trigger. Honestly, I might have, if Nohta hadn’t been in my way.

I didn’t bother to stop her this time. She stood over top of him, holding his face between her hooves to slam the back of his head into the pavement. Just when I thought that she was going to split his skull open, she instead held her hoof back and slugged him across the jaw.

She got up from the slaver, and walked back to my side while staring at me through hard eyes. “Go ahead,” she challenged me. “Tell me you didn’t want to do that yourself.” My mouth hung open as I glared at my hooves, unable to come up with a proper response. My little sister knew me far too well. I huffed, and directed my attention back to the slaver.

My voice shook as I tried to keep my rage in check. “Your next words are going to decide whether you live or die.”

“Brahminshit.” His lips worked lazily as he spat out a glob of blood and saliva at my hooves. “You need me a hell of a lot more than I need you.”

My pistol floated up to the underside of his jaw, raising his eyes to mine as I stood over him. “Have you been to Stable 76?”

A wicked grin spread across his face before he answered. “Your overmare cried like a little bitch when I let my boys have her.”

I stood still, feeling a burning pressure welling up within my chest. It invaded my temples as my eyes narrowed and I clenched my teeth. Lily landed at my side, placing a hoof on my shoulder and giggling.

My ears lay flat against my mane as I rounded on her. “Lily! I’ve had enough of—”

Her hoof shifted from my shoulder to prod my muzzle, silencing my outburst as Lily smiled and winked at me. I blinked in confusion, but Lily only smiled and turned towards the slaver. Lowering her face to his, she batted her lashes innocently and asked a question. “I bet you watched, didn’t you?”

I gasped, retracting my pistol. “Lily!”

The brown stallion snorted, “Funniest shit I’ve seen since I got here.”

“Yup! I could tell!” Lily announced proudly, poking his armored chest with a hoof. “You look like somepony that likes to laugh!” She nodded knowingly before holding a hoof to her chest and beaming a winning smile at the slaver. “I like to laugh too! I also like caps! Teeth or wings?”

The slaver furrowed his brow before answering in a flat tone. “What?”

“Teeth or wings?” Lily repeated, her grin growing a little more manic.

The slaver shook his head. “What do you—”

“Teeth it is!” Lily yelled and clopped her hooves together like an ecstatic little filly being given a present on her birthday. Without any further warning, she slammed a hoof against the stallion’s face, pinning his head against the road. Before any of us could react, she bent her neck down to clench his left ear in her jaws.

The slaver squirmed underneath her as panic gripped his features. Nohta and I stared, wide-eyed, as Lily gave one last psychopathic chuckle in a happy-go-lucky voice. “Fhud haf pick wnngs!” The stallion’s eyes bulged in fear. I couldn’t blame him.

In a jerking, twisting motion Lily wrenched her head back. The slaver thrashed frantically as I saw the skin on the side of his face stretch and tear. When Lily pulled away, she was still holding his ear in her wild-eyed, manic grin. Blood dripped from her chin as she giggled and flapped her wings.

The slaver tried to scream, but his cursing came out muffled under Lily’s hoof. She tucked her muzzle into her saddlebags, depositing the ear before making a disgusted face and scraping off her tongue with her free hoof. “Peh! When was the last time you took a bath? Ballad tasted a lot better than you!”

Goddess, I couldn’t believe it. She was still cracking jokes…

Lily paused, wagging her tail like a puppy waiting for a treat. When she got nothing more than mumbled swears and groans of pain, she drew a deep breath and tried again. “I saaaaaaid, Ballad tasted a lot—” Her eyes shot wide as she grinned sheepishly. “Oh! Oops!”

Using her hoof to turn his head over on the road, she spoke into his other ear. “I said that Ballad—”

“I FUCKING HEARD YOU THE FIRST GODDESSES-DAMNED TIME!” The slaver thrashed with all that was left of his spent strength, but was unable to shove Lily away.

“Holy fuck, Lily…” Nohta stepped forward, wearing an expression of revulsion tinged with amusement. “You bit his ear off.”

Realizing my jaw had slackened considerably, I closed my mouth and cleared my throat. “She, ahh… she does that.”

Lily cocked her head to the side, smiling slyly. “You could say I’ve taken…” she paused, snorting as she laughed at a joke I wasn’t privy to, “ ‘More Than One’ that way!” Blood dribbled down her chin as she giggled and poked me in the ribs with her knee. “Ha! Did you notice how I worked that in there? I’m so smart!” Rising to the air with a triumphant hoof-pump, she shouted, “A-boo-yah!” The slaver took the opportunity to lift his head from the asphalt and glare through one enraged eye.

Nohta raised an accusatory hoof in Lily’s direction and stated simply, “You really are fucking crazy.”

Lily threw her forelegs wide, bursting into song while she hovered. “Crazy, she calls me… Sure I’m craaazy… Crazy in love—” She stopped as abruptly as she began, and stared down the road behind us with a worried expression.

She licked her lips and swallowed before muttering, “We, uh… we need to keep running.”

My brow furrowed as I questioned her, “Lily? What is it?”

“Ghouls,” she said, panic working its way into her features. She slowly grew more and more animated, waving her hooves through the air as she pointed behind us. “More ghouls. Lots and lots of ghouls. I can’t count that high.”

I resisted the urge to ask if that meant we had three ghouls coming our way, and instead raised my forelegs atop the hood of the crushed motorwagon. Peering over the sign, I felt a jolt of fear race down my spine.

Lily whimpered behind me. “Umm… Grumpy says it looks like 156, but he isn’t sure.” I turned back to see her gasp and raise her hooves to her cheeks, as if a great realization had just washed over her. “That’s a dozen baker’s dozens! There are literally dozens of dozens of them!”

She momentarily calmed herself to tap her hooves together and state, “Grumpy also says we should run.”

My voice shook as I nodded my head. “I’m inclined to agree with Grumpy.”

“Candy!” Lily yelled, holding her hooves in front of her face, “That many ghouls is like… a whole lot! It’s like two and two and two and two and—”

I ignored her, instead turning to the slaver as I contemplated whether to heal him or let him die. In the end, I settled on a compromise. Smirking, I told him plainly. “You should start running.”

“…two and two and two—”

He only looked up at me expectantly. “Are you fucking insane?”

“…two and two and two and—”

“According to her?” I glanced up at Lily. “Very.”

The slaver grunted and winced as he hissed, “Don’t you want that collar off?”

“…two and two and two—”

Vibrations rippled underneath my hooves, knocking dust from the motorwagons. My horn flared as I inspected him, and I spent the minimal amount of effort to get him up and moving. “You should be able to run now, but whether you live or die is up to you.” If Luna and Celestia were unwilling to do me any favors, then why should I help this fool? The light of my horn died as I glared coolly into his eyes. “I’m willing to take my chances either way.” I didn’t wait for his response, I simply turned and ran.

“…two and two and two—”

Lily was already wearing my nerves thin, and she had only just started. I screamed towards the sky as Nohta and I raced past another rusted motorwagon. “Lily! Count later! We need to go!”

She floated just above me, keeping pace but refusing to shut up. “Two and I and two and can’t and two and stop!”

I mistook that as one of her commands, and paused in the middle of the road to question her. Her gaze was locked behind us as she continued her mantra. Following her eyes, I saw the slaver hobbling towards us as quickly as he was able. But behind him…

An immense dust cloud followed behind the herd as they raced directly toward us. The sharp sounds of their hooves denting metal and breaking glass pierced through the low rumble as motorwagons were either climbed over or shoved aside. My shoulder gave a little twinge as I remembered Coltsville. That was all the encouragement I needed.

The slaver had nearly caught up to us when I reared back and bolted in the opposite direction. I could hear his hoofbeats growing more steady—and more rapid—behind us, but the sound was being overtaken by the hissing and snarling at our backs. Eventually his steps were lost amidst all the others. But his screaming… That lasted right up until the reverse proximity fuse on his bomb collar triggered.

I had done my part. His death was his own fault. The bomb collar was more mercy than he deserved.

“…two and two and two—”

Spursburg opened up all around us as we weaved our way through the vehicles. Squat little houses, every one of them indistinguishable from the others, raced past us as we followed Lily toward the inner city. Based off of the noise, she was leading us straight into the heart of a warzone!

Smaller buildings—warehouses, shops, restaurants, clinics, and apartment complexes—lay against each other in a crumbled heap of debris and broken concrete that splayed itself around the larger buildings like mulch in a garden. Ponies darted to and fro amidst the wreckage, occasionally pausing long enough to pop off a few bursts of rifle-fire towards other ponies. Explosions rippled through the debris, tossing pulverized stone and mortar to the air like confetti at a party. The constant staccato rhythm of gunfire echoed off the buildings and reverberated through the street, growing louder with every hurried step we took.

“…and two and two—”

My eyes darted in every direction as I followed Lily’s counting. In a third-story window of a blasted brick building, I spotted a bright-green mare wearing a leather cap and thick goggles. Our eyes locked for a single moment as she raised her rifle in my direction, but then she noticed what I was running from. I only had time to see her turn her head and shout into the building before Lily lead us around a cafe sitting on the street corner. A moment later the hellish cacophony of dozens of automatic rifles echoed through the streets behind us, followed shortly by the roar of enraged ghouls. The green mare might not have been my friend, but we at least shared a mutual foe.

“…two and two and two—”

I had no earthly idea where we were headed or what we were running into. The vines that hung between the buildings were getting thicker, and so was the air. Strangely enough, the air was humid—nothing at all like the dry heat of the desert. The scent of gunpowder hung heavily on the wind, but I also caught a distinct whiff of rotting plant matter mixed with ozone. The cloying air stuck to every exposed part of my body, coating my fur in the reeking funk of decaying filth. It was certainly no place for a lady; I could feel my mane getting frizzier by the second!

We finally came to a wide open parking lot in front of a large factory. The building itself was shorter than some of the surrounding structures, being only six stories tall, but it was still impressive by my standards. The parking lot veered off to the side, leading to several loading ramps for larger motorwagons. An imposing statue of a rearing pegasus with flared wings and a fierce expression stood proudly outside the terraced steps leading up to the main building. Moss hung from the statue’s wings and clung to its barrel, but did little to diminish its intimidating appearance. Bolted to the marble base underneath the statue, a brass placard declared that we had found “Ministry of Awesome Production Facility #24.”

“…two and two and two and—”

Lily and Nohta were the first to reach the wide doors atop the steps, throwing them open and bounding inside. Gunfire flashed through the doorway as they made short work of the building’s previous inhabitants, and as I stepped through the threshold I noticed several headless ghouls lying in twitching heaps on the floor. All around us were heavy-looking trophy cases, displaying countless golden statues and blue ribbons in front of pictures of a smirking cyan mare. I couldn’t help but notice a resemblance between her expression and the one Lily always wore. After running full-out for so long I was too winded to do anything but point and grunt at the ghouls climbing the steps behind us.

Nohta and Lily slammed the doors shut, bracing their backs against the thin metal moments before the herd rammed the doors head on. Nohta—Luna bless her strength—held her ground, but Lily slid inward from the impact, opening up a small crack wide enough for one of the zombies to squirm half-way through.

“Two and two and two!” Lily finally finished counting, swinging her wing upward in a wide arc to eviscerate the ghoul with a single stroke. Its guts spilled over the floor as I pulled our only option out of my packs.

The little grenade floated over the ghoul’s growling head before I pulled the pin. “Shut… the…” I tried to scream my warning, but I was too out of breath. I stumbled forward, standing overtop of Lily as I lent what little strength I could.

A deafening boom warped the metal doors inward. It left a tinny ringing in my ears even as it thinned the herd outside, buying us a few precious seconds. A dozen little holes were ripped through the doors as tiny fragments blasted through the metal. The force of the blast blew the gutted zombie fully through the door, exposing its ravaged hindquarters and shredded back hooves. It wobbled on its front legs for a moment before falling over with a final snarl, hitting the floor with a wet smack.

Nohta was the first to recover, locking the doors in place and grunting, “These won’t hold for long. We need to keep going.”

“We should head for the roof,” Lily asserted. “Then we can fly away to…” She trailed off, taking note of what wasn’t on the side of my body. “Err… oops?”

“LILY!” I groaned, “Ugh! Where are we supposed to go now!?”

Hooves smashed frantically against the doors, widening the little holes my grenade had rent through the metal. Our barrier was looking more and more like a clumsily opened can of vegetables with every second. An altogether terrifying realization to come across when you suddenly understand that you are the corn.

My sister was the one who acted first, grabbing me by the hoof and dashing further inside. She screamed as we ran. “Fuck this shit! There’s no Goddess-damn time!”

The doors really didn’t last long at all. We had only just passed the rusted front desk in the lobby and reached the factory’s floor when the ghouls crashed through the flimsy barrier. They spilled into the lobby behind us, clambering over each other as the zombies in the lead tripped and were promptly trampled by those in the back. The zombies too close to the doorframe ripped and tore their hides as they struggled to reach the front of the pack, heedless of their own injuries. There was something manic in the way the ghouls chased us. We were more than just food to them. It was as if they were addicts chasing a drug.

My ponderings ceased abruptly when Nohta shoved me from behind, ushering me along the faded lines painted on the polished concrete floor. She really needn’t have bothered. Just hearing the guttural growls and shrill hissing behind us was more than enough to move my legs. Not to mention the looks in all those cold, dead eyes...

Rows and rows of tall racks holding neatly stacked wooden crates flew past us as we zoomed across the factory floor. Near the top of the shelves vines as thick as ponies weaved between the steel beams, covered in broad dark green leaves and brightly colored lichens. I had absolutely no idea how the flora could survive in such dark conditions, let alone create such a lush canopy of vegetation. Only a few yellowed windows dotted the factory’s walls and roof, allowing just the barest hint of diffused light to penetrate the cavernous interior of the building. Only slightly less surprising, given the oppressive humidity, were the mushrooms that lay strewn about the floor—though even they were the size of sofa chairs.

I grew up in a stable in the desert. In my early educational expeditions into the canyon outside our home, I grew used to short shrubs, hardy grasses, and the occasional cactus. But this alien landscape made me feel as if I’d stepped into a fairy tale. Or one of Father’s cheesy sci-fi stories. With the snarling herd of undead nipping at our hocks, either was equally believable.

As if that wasn’t enough, my Pipbuck was vibrating so violently that I was sure I was going to slip and tumble to the floor. A dozen warning messages were flashing through my vision, each of them vying for my attention more urgently than the last. Fleeting glimpses of intriguing phrases such as “multiple contacts,” “pack predator,” and “biological anomaly” rushed through my vision, but I was far too focused on the slick patches of algae and slime mold that dotted my immediate path to pay my Pipbuck much attention.

Just one misplaced hoof could send me careening off course into a wall or steel rack, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out what the ghouls would do after that! I blinked hard and shook my head as I tried to keep pace with Lily, peering past line after line of techno-babble that obscured my sight. It was the last message, however, that heralded the chaos that was to come.

[Preparing Countermeasures]

There were eyes in the canopy of vines. And wings. Large wings.

My mouth opened to scream, “What!? You’ve got to be kidd—”

My little sonic deterrent, resting so peacefully in the slot of my Pipbuck mere moments ago, came to life with a hellish shriek that echoed off the walls and floor of the building. The unseen beasts in the shadows stirred to life as well, bellowing in pain and rage. The creatures thrashed against the vines and the steel racks, knocking the wooden crates from the shelves.

Storage boxes rained down all around us, exploding into hundreds of wooden splinters and scattering all manner of gems, metal plates, and electrical equipment in every direction. A shadow in the rafters moved out of my vision, and a moment later something massive thudded against the ground behind us. Lily flew ahead of us, motioning for Nohta and me to follow her before she pulled a ninety degree turn down one of the aisles between the steel racks.

I had no idea what she was thinking, but she was already pushing the range of the reverse-proximity trigger held in my packs. Lily left me with no choice other than to trust her, or else her bomb collar would explode as soon as I lagged behind. It was all I could do to try and shove the numerous distractions from my head and focus on keeping up with her. I should have paid my surroundings a bit more attention.

Nohta ran ahead of me, grabbing one of the steel corner beams and slinging herself in a graceful arc down the aisle without skipping a beat. I, however, slid along the slick concrete before I slammed into a massive support pillar. Lightning flashed down my side as I felt a rib crack, but my cry was drowned out by the screeching device on my hoof. I scrambled on the floor, getting my hooves back underneath me just as a trio of ghouls crashed into the same pillar. I cast one quick glance behind me, and saw why my Pipbuck was making such a racket.

The beast towered over me. Its head was nearly as big as I was, and its shoulders were nearly as wide as the aisle. Dagger-like claws, slick and shiny with blood, jutted out of the end of gargantuan paws. Leathery wings rose from its back, intimidating in their own right, but they were nothing compared to the scorpion tail…

The manticore’s eyes met mine for one horrible moment as it raised a paw high above its head. I wasn’t sure if I was about to be crushed into jelly or sliced into ribbons. My hooves flailed uselessly underneath my body, failing to find purchase on the damp ground. In my desperation I poured magic into my horn, unsure if I’d be able to teleport or not.

Blood burst upwards like a fountain, gushing through the air as I felt the wake of a bullet streak past my ears. The manticore fell backwards, clutching its right eye and thrashing wildly. Ghouls piled on top of the beast like a swarm of ants, biting and pummeling every piece of the manticore they could reach. Half a dozen of them were crushed when the beast rolled over, sweeping its tail and paws in wide arcs to rid itself of the tiny biting nuisances. Bellowing in rage, it turned its face in my direction, exposing the bloody crater sitting beside another enraged eye.

That was more than enough for me. I turned and ran—still slipping and sliding as awkwardly as a newborn—just in time to see Lily eject the cartridge from her rifle, hovering a few feet above the floor as she took aim once more. A zombie bounded down the aisle, its wide-open maw close enough that I could smell its reeking breath. Lily’s rifle kicked, and the ghoul’s head was reduced to a thick red paste that coated my shoulder and stuck in my mane. I felt one of its gore-coated teeth bounce off my cheek just as I finally found mostly dry floor underneath my hooves.

I galloped flat-out after that. My rib was protesting like a knife in my side, but I couldn’t stop! I followed Lily as she swooped down another aisle, and saw Nohta up ahead. She was frantically unwrapping a length of chain from a cleat in the wall. My eyes followed the chain upward, seeing the massive steel shutter it was connected to. What was she doing!?

Eeking out every last bit of willpower I possessed, I urged my legs onwards toward the door. Nohta’s eyes darted between Lily and me, and then to the metal above her before she undid the final loop. The barrier unfurled, racing for the floor like a thunderous guillotine. Lily grabbed my shoulders, pulling me forward, and then threw us both to the ground as the heavy sheet metal came crashing down. At the last moment, Lily cursed loudly in my ear and reached back behind us just in time to snatch her hat from under the crushing metal barrier. The door slammed home inches from my mane as we continued to slide across the floor into the next section of the factory.

My Pipbuck finally, mercifully, quieted itself as we lay panting on the cool factory floor. The sounds of the manticores and ghouls tearing each other to shreds just beyond the shutter door was the only thing that reached my ears. I pushed myself to my hooves, winced when my fetlock tested my injured barrel a little too forcefully, and activated my spell. We weren’t out of this yet.

“Woo! That was fun! Let’s go again!” Lily bounded by my side, beaming. How in Luna’s name she had any energy left to her at all, I had no idea.

“For… you… maybe,” I coughed. In case you were unaware, nausea, shortness of breath, and chest pain make a rather unpleasant combination.

My sister didn’t exactly share Lily’s enthusiasm. Nohta was still fighting for breath as she wobbled towards us. “Holy fuck… Goddess-damn… Son of a bitch…”

One last stab of pain bit into my torso as I reset my rib. Watching Nohta grimace as the bone popped loudly back into its proper place, I grunted out as much of a response as I could between gulps of air. “Quite…”

Lily flapped her wings, speckling the floor with blood. For the life of me, I honestly couldn’t recall when she had used her blades. In a sing-song voice, she gently chided us. “Tsk tsk. We don’t have time for a nap, you guys. As soon as that party winds down the guests are gonna start looking for something else to do.”

My knees buckled underneath me. It was a monumental effort just to speak. “R-Right… Just… One mo—”

“Nopey dopey! Time to go!” Lily’s hoof was a blur as she shoved something small and chalky in my mouth. I was so surprised by the action that I didn’t even have time to protest. The tablet was already dissolving on my tongue when she started massaging my throat like an animal in a veterinary clinic. “Swallow it, Candy! Ladies never spit!”

That was when I learned that exhaustion does not preclude one from blushing.

Energy flooded my body, washing away my fatigue like dirt down a shower drain. It was warm, and soothing. I felt… alive. Rising to my hooves, I couldn’t help but ask, “Lily! What was that!?”

She giggled as she waltzed over to Nohta. “It was a party-favor, silly! You looked like you could use a good Buck!”

“I...” My jaw dropped as my blush deepened. “WHAT!?”

Lily offered another of the chems to Nohta, who promptly bit down on the tablet and swallowed. Of her own volition, I might add. Tossing the empty bottle nonchalantly in my direction, Lily beamed as she watched my reaction.

I turned the bottle over in my magic, scrunching up my muzzle as I read the label. “You forced me to take a chem?” I asked, incredulous. For whatever indiscernible reason, the absurdity of that fact had a certain… humorous quality to it. Before I could reign it in, a single feminine giggle bubbled up through my lips.

“Now’s the time for it, Sis.” Nohta rose as easily as I did, hooking a hoof behind her towards the door. “We need to get the fuck out of here!”

Having that chem—and all of the testosterone that came with it—coursing through my system couldn’t have possibly been a good idea. Long ago after one of my usual weekend-long study sessions, Pearl had tried to discreetly suggest that I might benefit from a very low dosage of the steroid, but before I could ask why Father became absolutely furious. That was one of the most glorious arguments to ever take place in The Clinic, and for the life of me I had absolutely no idea what prompted the debacle in the first place. Buck certainly had its uses; we had given it to Mother when she fell ill. And several of the aging stallions in The Stable had been able to go about their days with a bit more pep after being prescribed the drug.

But I most certainly didn’t have any of those ailments. And beyond the rush of energy and general feelings of well-being that the caravan regulars swore by, the only other possible use that came to mind was… Well, it was nothing that I needed to concern myself with. I was far too busy for that sort of nonsense.

Months later when Pearl made his follow-up suggestion that I spend my 21st birthday at The Stable’s bar instead of working with him at The Clinic, I had to be the one to put my hoof down. Pearl may have outranked me, but with Father having finally resumed his Caravan duties I was the lady of my household. And ladies do not act that way.

On the one hoof, I knew the risks of dependency that came with ingesting entire tablets of the chem all at once. I didn’t need for tomorrow to come only for me to feel weaker than I usually did. I was only hoping that, much like Nohta’s previous experimentation, one dose would do no lasting harm.

On the other hoof… Dear Princess Luna I felt good! Forget the risks! This was worth it!

I shook my head, trying to settle the raging dissonance in my mind and fight back the giddy urge to smile. “Ahem,” I cleared my throat, hiding my growing grin with a hoof. “So, ah… Where to next?” No, tail! Stop swishing like that!

“Someone’s having fun!” Lily snorted into her hoof before trotting off past a complicated looking system of machinery and conveyor belts. “Follow me!”

I fell in line, eager to see where the day would lead us. I was almost too pre-occupied with the utterly fascinating machinery to notice Nohta cantering up beside me and tapping my shoulder.

“Are you okay? You’re acting kinda weird.” In spite of the furrowed eyebrow and ghastly scar across her cheek, my sister was a rather pretty young mare. I paused to stand in place, pawing at her face with my hoof. I couldn’t help but giggle at her reaction.

The stripes on her face wavered, blurring together as the air rippled all around us. My goodness, the light filtering through her lilting mohawk was beautiful! Why hadn’t I ever noticed that before?

“Uh… Sis?” The poor thing seemed genuinely worried now. So sweet of her. My hoof broke contact with her cheek as she turned to shout. “Lily? The hell is going on with her?”

The bouncing bundle of blue up ahead stopped and tilted its head. “What’s the deal- OH PONYFEATHERS!” Lily dashed right up in front of my face, her lovely red eyes as wide as dinner plates. The way her pierced ear was bobbing up and down was absolutely ridiculous! I snorted into a hoof, wondering when everything had become so absurd.

My sister’s tail swished as she yelled. “WHAT’D YOU GIVE HER!?”

“Err… Buck…” Lily tapped her forehooves together, clearly reticent to completely spill the beans. As my sister raised an eyebrow, Lily finally conceded, “...laced with just a pinch of Pink Sand.”

I was suddenly stricken with the ludicrous notion that Nohta’s eyebrow might actually flutter away from her face and float away to the tune of polka music. It and everything else in sight was certainly wriggling enough to do so. I couldn’t help but wonder if I was wiggling like the world around me.

Lifting a hoof in front of my face, I stared in awe as the white and red left a trail across my vision, which then rippled like disturbed water before catching up to where I knew my leg was. I couldn’t help it. I burst out laughing, clutching my barrel to keep my ribs from launching into orbit.

Nohta wasn’t nearly as amused as I was. “What the fuck is Pink Sand!?”

Despite the tears of mirth in my eyes that were making the already warped and distorted world even more blurry, I realized that Lily looked positively uncomfortable. “Err… It’s a mild hallucinogen mixed with some… other stuff. It’ll wear off in a couple hours! She didn’t get much of a dose!” I was convulsing with giggles as Lily lifted my forehoof and placed it over her shoulder, urging Nohta to do the same. “We just need to get her moving!”

Nohta growled and rolled her eyes, but obliged. “The moment she starts talking about righteous vibes or some other brahmin-shit, you’re getting a black eye.”

“But Nohta,” I gasped, needing to share my great revelation. “We are vibrating!” When my sister’s only response was to grumble and stare forward, I felt the need to explain further. “We’re all vibrating together!” I could feel Lily at my side, trying to suppress her laughter. Well, at least Lily understood.

The two of them did their best to guide my tittering form up the metal stairs that lead to a series of catwalks above the factory floor. I was having far too much fun to argue with their notion that I required aid in locomotion. My grin only widened when I realized that the colossal machines below us looked like big soda bottles. They probably held enough Sparkle-Cola to swim in!

Of course, being in such close proximity to two sweaty mares who hadn’t bathed in days brought a rather pungent scent wafting across my muzzle. With a start, I realized that a good portion of the funk was coming from me. With both my hooves preoccupied, I had nothing behind which to hide my snickering. “Hee… hee hee… We stink.” Oh my goodness! Did I just say that? “Ha! I’m sorry!”

I felt Nohta’s groan rumble out of her throat, sending tiny vibrations through my shoulder. “Fucking hell, Lily. This is worse than when you got her drunk.”

Lily grinned sheepishly at my side, adjusting her wing to drape it across my back. “At least she’s not, err…”

“At least she’s not what?” Nohta demanded.

“Uhh… You know.” Lily cleared her throat before elucidating, “Feeling the other effects?”

The rippling visual distortions were beginning to fade away, leaving me with nothing more than an empowered sense of vitality, a warm feeling of contentedness, and an oddly daring desire to exercise my newfound strength at the nearest opportunity. I was almost wishing that a few ghouls would make it past the manticores and find us. Unfortunately, the noise from the other section of the facility had died down considerably.

The two warm bodies helping me along were moving incredibly fast over the metal catwalks. The knowledge that I had the both of them by my side to help me, even when I was quite sure that I would have been fine on my own, was most reassuring. And even better, their toned and lithe muscles tickled as they brushed against me. A broad smile worked its way across my face as I realized that a girl could get used to that sort of thing.

“This is fun,” I purred. “You two are really soft.” Realizing that Nohta had left her cheek completely undefended I craned my neck down to nuzzle against it, feeling a lovely electric tingle race across my face as I did so. Why did everything feel so good!? I giggled as Nohta recoiled from my innocent display of affection.

Lily’s jaw dipped as she stared dead-ahead. “Uhh…”

“OH FUCKING HELL, LILY!” Nohta’s shout echoed off the factory walls.

The combined body heat of all three of us was becoming rather oppressive. There had to be a way to cool down! “This barding is really tight. Can I take it off?” If we could stop for just a moment, I was sure that I could concentrate enough to undo these straps...

Nohta ignored me, glaring at the anxious pegasus on my other side. “I am going to beat the everloving shit out of you! And then I’m gonna force feed you a potion and do it again!”

“Nohta!” I giggled as I chided her. “Why didn’t you tell me this was so much fun!?” Seriously! I felt like I could tell her anything! Why hadn’t she confided this in me? Oh well, it was no matter. I could forgive her.

She huffed, staring straight forward at a small white door. “You’re not having fun, Candy. You just think you are.”

I snorted and rolled my eyes, noticing—as if for the first time—the sensation my eyelashes left on my cheeks. “Hmph… My sister’s a worrywort. She doesn’t like fun.” Turning to Lily, I giggled and purred, “But you know how to have fun, don’t you?” Lily’s muzzle scrunched up as her face went rigid. For some reason, I could no longer feel her wing on my back.

I don’t really remember where the conversation went after that. To be honest I don’t recall much of anything save for waking up several hours later in a smallish office with a wooden desk and an inoperable terminal. Luckily, the rest had done my aching muscles wonders. Beside my bedroll were several empty bottles of water, a used inhaler of some sort, and an empty box of snack cakes labeled “Twinkie Pinkies.”

I was rather dismayed at the idea of having used another chem, though I suppose the lack of withdrawal effects I felt was worth it. To be honest, I was more put off that I had no recollection of eating the pastries. After all, they were strawberry flavored. And apparently fully endorsed by “The M.O.M.” whatever that meant.

Tall windows gave me a wonderful view of the city outside. Judging by the columns of windows adorning the surrounding structures, I was five stories up. As the sun dipped ever closer to the horizon, it illuminated nearly everything taking place below me, casting long shadows across the cityscape. Unfortunately, the rampant flora that clung to the buildings was the only thing not being swallowed up by every kind of death I could imagine.

Spursburg was in utter chaos. The thick glass in front of me slightly muffled the gunfire, but muzzle flashes, explosions, lasers, and even the occasional horn-flare of a spellcast were plainly visible amongst the bombed out buildings and rubble scattered through the streets. Intermittent volleys of missiles and rockets pummeled the sides of buildings and reduced roads to rubble. Every so often, another motorwagon would erupt in a glorious mushroom cloud of rainbow light. Ghouls were running in packs through the city streets, attacking en masse to overwhelm small squads of soldiers wearing thick barding made of welded metal and hard rubber. Wisps of Pink Cloud could be seen wafting out of cracked windows in the buildings and seeping over the ruined roads. And above it all, manticores circled overhead like oversized vultures waiting for easy meals.

Alone amidst a city’s worth of carnage, however, one sight caught my attention. An eerily beautiful explosion that put all the others to shame obliterated an entire intersection, tearing through the base of a shorter building so viciously that the structure fell in on itself in a heap of rubble. The flames that toppled the building didn’t bear the rainbow coloration I had come to expect from the erupting spark batteries in the motorwagons. That explosion had been green, and it lingered in the air like a pleased demon surveying its hellish work. Even as the floor underneath my hooves shook and centuries-old dust fell from the ceiling over my head, I had to remind myself to close my slackened jaw.

The initial blast had been bright enough to hurt my eyes, but the emerald flames that licked the devastated earth in its slowly dissipating wake were dark as night. They expanded rapidly, devouring everything in their path, and the entire city block went black as the fires managed to consume even the light itself. I only knew of one thing that could do that. Some wonderful fool in the city was either brave or insane enough to bring the ultimate weapon to the battle of Spursburg.

They were using Balefire.

I stilled my racing heart and reluctantly turned away from the window. Stifling my grin, I strolled past the desk and cracked open the door of my room to peer into a much larger office space. Rows of small, spartan workspaces dominated the interior of the room. Nohta and Lily were huddled over a plain wooden desk, arguing in hushed voices as they poked their hooves at a crudely crayoned map of the city.

They both looked up as I approached, relief washing over their faces in equal measure. I did not take that as a good sign. My brow furrowed in worry as I pondered the blank space in my memory, “Err… Could someone explain to me what just happened?”

Lily winced as she pulled out a cigarette. “I uh… I kinda accidentally drugged you.” My jaw dropped as I stared at her. She lit the cigarette, inhaling sharply before apologizing. “I didn’t mean to! I was gonna take that myself sometime!”

Rubbing my temple, I braced myself and asked, “What did I do?”

Nohta cringed, wrinkling up her features as if she were pain. “You got a little… touchy-feely, Sis.”

Lily smirked before explaining a little more enthusiastically than I cared for. “As my firearms instructor back home used to say, ‘You were feistier than a two-cap snake wrangler in a pit full of rattlers.”

“Oh for the love of Luna…” I shook my head, rounding on my feathered friend. “Lily, I am trying to be lenient with your… oddities. But I would very much appreciate it if you didn’t drag me along for your bouts of chemically induced thrill-seeking.” I stomped a hoof on the floor as I added, “And we will never speak of this again. Understood?”

“Heh… right. Sorry.” Exhaling a plume of smoke, Lily scratched at her mane and whispered, “It’s not like anything actually happened. After Nohta forced me to take a Mintal—which hurts like hell if I take it halfway through my crazy, bee tee dub—I snapped out of it and gave you my last inhaler of Nixer.” Leaning back in her chair, she tipped the brim of her hat upwards and winked in my direction. “So don’t worry, that shit oughta get the good stuff out of your system pretty quick. I keep it around for bad trips.” I could only sigh and rub my temple in response.

Nohta furrowed her brow as she turned to Lily. “How many chems are you on, anyway?”

Lily’s eyes lit up as she boasted of her exploits. “Hah! Pretty much all of ‘em!” As if she were emphasizing her point, Lily took a drag off her smoke before adding, “Med-X, Buck, Rage, Stampede, Mintals… They’re all a good time. You just gotta know how to use ‘em.” Digging through her packs, she tossed a small inhaler on the table as she beamed. “None of them are as great as Dash though. Dash is totally best chem.”

Worryingly, I noticed Nohta’s eyes linger on the inhaler for longer than I liked. Clearing my throat, I kept my eyes locked on Lily as I set her with a stern glare. “Aren’t you worried about what you’re putting in your body? Or getting addicted to any of this nonsense?” Nohta took the hint, bowing her head to stare at her hooves.

Lily chuckled dismissively as she rolled her eyes. “Shit babe, aren’t you worried about getting shot? We all gotta go sometime. Might as well have fun while we’re here.” Winking slyly in my direction, Lily continued, “Besides, I already eat Mintals like they’re Candy.” With her head bowed, Nohta missed both the pun and the blush spreading through my cheeks.

Scrambling for a change in subject, I blurted out, “I-I’m going to assume that we at least lost the ghoul herd?” Lily nodded as her smirk broadened. “Okay,” I looked around, examining the office space. “Then what’s the plan?”

“Nohta and I were trying to figure out where The Bard would be holed up. But before we do anything about him we really need to get these fucking collars off our necks, cause this shit is really cramping my style.” Lily gave her bomb collar an experimental tap, which was answered by an angry warning beep. Leaning forward in her chair to rest her hooves against the table, she wrinkled her brow and nodded in my direction. “No offense or anything, but I’m not the kind of pony that likes being tied down. I can’t do shit if I’m not mobile. Having to stay within fifty feet of that detonator you’re carrying is killing me.”

Shrugging, she suggested, “I say we try to find some of my friends in The Outcasts and ask them for help.”

I raised an eyebrow in Lily’s direction. “The Outcasts? Really? One of the raider gangs that assaulted Mareon? Why in the whole of Equestria would they lend us aid?”

“Because if there is anything that Outcasts absolutely fucking despise, it’s slavers. If we run into a group of them wearing these ugly-ass necklaces they’re gonna do whatever they can to get ‘em off of us.” Lily gave me a small, sad smile before nodding at the window in the office behind me. “All that fighting out there is mostly between Red Eye’s forces and Outcasts. No one else has that kinda firepower in this desert.”

Nohta finally lifted her head, asking in a calm voice, “If they’re so opposed to taking slaves, then why was that one outside Mareon okay with putting Margarita in chains?”

Lily took a long drag off her cigarette, shaking her head. “Yeah, that’s been eating at me. I don’t fucking get it. I mean, some of those mares and stallions are my friends. They’re good folks. Shit, I almost joined Adamant’s crew myself a couple years back.”

Her words brought back a troubling memory, and an even more worrisome complication. “Lily,” I started, “back at the spark station that stallion said you were…” I swallowed, fearing the answers she would give. “He said that your tribe were raiders. And now you’re saying that one of the gangs that we are trying to wipe out are your friends.”

Lily took one final puff from her cigarette, snubbed it out on the table, and laid her hat next to the crayoned map of the city. Dragging a hoof across her face, she spoke in a tired voice as she stared at the map. “Sometimes life doesn’t give you much in the way of options.”

She ran her tongue across her lips before continuing. “Folks like to call Thunderhooves ‘raiders’ because they don’t understand why we did what we did. That’s why I don’t want to kill The Outcasts until I figure out what made them change.” Her eyes hardened as she stared at me. “But right now? They’re not giving me a fucking choice. Friend or not, if I don’t like Adamant’s answer then I’m putting a bullet between his eyes.”

Nohta was staring at Lily, revulsion twisting her features into a severe scowl. “You’d kill a friend?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Lily whispered.

I took a step closer to my sister’s side, placing the desk between Lily and myself. “You’re not exactly proving to be a font of trustworthiness at the moment, Lily.”

She cocked her head to the side, giving me a nonplussed look. “This coming from the girl that’s getting more unhinged by the day and has a serious fetish for blowing shit up? And her little thieving sister that gives me dirty looks every chance she gets?”

My jaw dropped, but Nohta was the one to slam her hooves on the desk and shout, “What the fuck is that supposed to mean!?”

“It means that no one’s perfect. Not me, not you, not The Thunderhooves or The Outcasts… No one.” The glare that Lily wore softened as she closed her eyes and shook her head. “Look… You two don’t have to worry about me. We haven’t even been on the road a week and you guys have both already saved my life.” She gestured across the desk to both Nohta and me with a hoof before pointing her leg at herself. “As far as I can figure we’re all good here. And we’ve got bigger problems to deal with than diving into personal brahminshit.”

Nohta was seething at my side, but despite the sting that accompanied our companion’s words, some part of me knew Lily was right. Laying a hoof on my sister’s shoulder, I spoke to them both in what I hoped would pass for a soothing tone. “Let’s… Let’s just get back to the task at hoof then.” Nohta didn’t budge. I sighed and added, “The last thing I need to do is waste energy healing the two of you because your tempers got the best of you.”

Nohta finally backed down, sitting on the floor and crossing her hooves in front of herself while grumbling under her breath. In the relatively peaceful moment I had bought, I set Lily with a worried gaze and spoke quietly. “But I will need a more thorough explanation later.”

“Yeah, that’s fair. But I got some questions for the both of you, too.” Lily leaned back in her chair, lighting another cigarette. “Like why Nohta didn’t wake us up before the slavers got there. And why we didn’t do more to keep that guy alive.”

“Hey, I tried to! Neither of you would wake up when I shook you and the slavers were almost on top of us by the time I was able to hide!”

Lily tapped the ashes off of her smoke, letting them fall on the dirty carpet as she reprimanded my sister. “Well try harder next time, squirt.”

“Ahem,” I cleared my throat. “I’m sure that we’ll have time for all of this later.” Nohta huffed as her ears twitched, and Lily took a drag of her cigarette while pursing her lips.

My intuition told me that it was probably not the best time to continue the conversation, and besides that, I had another pressing concern rearing its ugly head. I cleared my throat and inquired, “Would anyone be so kind as to point me to the, ah… facilities?” Lily’s confusion was made apparent by the furrowed eyebrows above her red eyes, but Nohta understood.

“Bathroom’s back that way, Sis,” She said, waving a hoof behind her.

I thanked her, and traveled the short distance to the restroom. I almost turned around and walked out when I saw a pony’s skeleton huddled in the corner, surrounded by empty syringes of Med-X. Even worse than that, though, was the blood-covered face I saw in the mirror. There simply was not enough soap to scourge the dried gore from my coat and mane. At least the plumbing still worked…

I left the bathroom, carrying a new roll of bandages I had procured from the first aid kit on the wall, and caught the tail end of Lily’s sentence.

“-idn’t mean to piss you guys off. I just don’t like being judged, y’know?”

I would have expected my sister to respond harshly. After all, Lily was more than willing to pass out judgement on others. Hypocrisy was an easy target for Nohta, and she hardly ever passed up an opportunity for a snide remark. But as I approached over the flattened carpet my sister remained silent, rubbing the side of her neck with an absentminded hoof.

Clearing my throat again to announce my return, I asked, “So then. Where were we?”

Lily blew out a plume of smoke before responding. “I say we look for The Outcasts first. It won’t take us long to find them, we just gotta look where the fighting is thickest.” Just then, another massive detonation outside sent reverberations through the floor.

Lily grinned, as if the explosion proved her point, and tapped the map as she spoke, “I know they’re on our shit list right now, but something big had to have changed to make them attack Mareon the way they did, and I at least want to know why they did that.” She leaned against the table as she explained. “Could be that something even worse is about to go down out here. We need to figure that shit out if we’re gonna have any chance of stopping it.”

I turned to my sister, floating the bandages to the table. “Nohta? Your thoughts?”

Nohta stopped rubbing her neck and glanced at the map before shrugging. “The gangs hate each other, right? Maybe The Outcasts would be willing to help us out if they knew we were planning on taking out The Bard.” Pursing her lips, she jabbed a hoof in my direction. “If nothing else, you two are basically chained to each other until you get those things off your necks. We need to do something.” She sighed heavily, shaking her head. “I don’t really like it, but it’s the only plan we’ve got.”

I nodded. “Well then. I’ll leave you two to… whatever plan you’re concocting.” I scanned the room for my belongings, asking, “I’d like to make some potions while we have a peaceful moment. How much time do we have before we leave?”

Lily gave a short bark of laughter, “With all the fighting out there, I figure The Bard’s cowering in one of his safehouses, waiting until all this shit blows over. He’s probably pissing himself right now.” Her wings gave a single quick flap as she admitted, “I would be, too, if I had them after me.”

My brow furrowed. “Who? The Outcasts?”

She shook her head. “No. The Bard’s gang has been outmaneuvering The Outcasts for years now, they know how to move through this city better than anyone.” Lily’s eyes narrowed, and her voice grew harsh. “The real problem is that Red Eye’s army brought back-up. Back-up that doesn’t give a shit about any peace agreements between Ol’ Red’s forces and the locals.” The look she gave me was wary, as if she weren’t sure how much she could say. “There are… Well… Don’t freak out, okay?”

Oh no. “Lily?”

“Just…” She winced, glancing at Nohta, but my sister only cocked her head to the side, clearly as confused as I was. Lily snubbed her cigarette out against the desk’s surface, her ear bobbing wildly before she finally forced the words out. “Okay, look. Maybe it’d be better if you just saw them. Take a look outside. You’ll see one before too long.”

Giving her a final questioning glance for good measure, I trotted back to the window, unsure of what to expect. The battle for the city was still raging. Tracer rounds were beginning to visibly pop out against the dark structures and foliage as the sun’s light retreated from the world. It took me a moment to realize that all the thousands of bullets racing for the sky were following shadows zipping below the clouds.

Directly across the street below me, I caught motion atop the roof of a shorter structure. A dozen ponies were piling out of an access hatch, scrambling to take up firing positions as they set up a machine gun and aimed their assault rifles at the road. Every one of them was wearing a unique set of barding, though they all shared the common motif of soldered metal. I stared on in curiosity for a moment, watching as the ponies on the roof slunk down to hide behind the short wall along the roof’s edge.

More motion, this time further down the road. A larger group with matching red and black armor, probably thirty ponies at the very least, was making quick progress through the streets. Goddess… they weren’t even using the motorwagons for cover…

The ensuing fight was more akin to a slaughter. The smaller group’s attack began with such unexpected ferocity that I had to wonder if they were actually Steel Rangers. Rockets, grenades, and unfortunately placed motorwagons detonated in unison, the cascade of explosions sending rippling shockwaves through our building and throwing rubble and dust through the street. The machine gun and assault rifles rained bullets upon the few scattered survivors, painting the blasted roadway bright crimson. The immense amount of pooled blood reflected the light of a unicorn’s spell as she sent a mote of light bursting through the air.

She and the rest of her platoon were cut down a moment later, but the flare she had cast was still pulsing overhead. I took a chance, and opened the window for a better view. Lily and Nohta joined me to watch the carnage unfolding underneath us. But… that was when I saw what Lily had spoken of. And it wasn’t below us. It was above us.

Tower 52 was up to its usual antics, peeling back the cloud layer in a devilishly wicked way I was sure was meant as a personal affront. The moon, already high in the sky, was in full view. And silhouetted against it so perfectly that I knew it could not have been a mere coincidence, was the most awe-inspiring sight I had ever seen.

A living embodiment of grace, power, and beauty surveyed the land beneath her, held aloft by the gorgeous wings beating at her sides. Her elegant body was as black as night, save for the building light emanating from the tip of her slender horn. And… she wasn’t alone. In fact, there were a dozen of her. Each one nearly identical in appearance, with dark bodies and not a cutie mark to be found. But it didn’t matter that there were many of her, or that she lacked the moon upon her flank, or that her mane wasn’t an exact match to what I had seen in the memory orb, because she alone was special. She alone was perfect. She was the only alicorn who flew before the moon.

My lip quivered. My breath hitched in my throat. I swallowed, but couldn’t look away. I couldn’t believe my eyes. After all the doubt, and the blaspheming, and the cursing, and the heresy… She had come. She was here. That could only mean one thing…

Luna had come for me.

In a single blissful moment, every ounce of doubt disappeared in a puff of wispy smoke, replaced by all the unending hope and faith that rose from a lifetime of devotion. Ice fell into the pit of my stomach even as my heart soared into my throat. This was my test. This was my sign! I had prayed for this! I had begged The Goddess for this! She hadn’t forsaken me! She still remembered her most faithful!

But… why would she come here now instead of when I was begging in the orchard? What had changed? My situation wasn’t different in the slightest! The world hadn’t changed one iota! That could only mean…

I had been the one to change.

Selenism had preached three truths. Had I been wavering from them? In my quest for answers I had learned a great deal of honest things. The true fate of The Caravan and the feeling of sunlight upon my face among them. And I had been honest as well: I knew how poisonous secrets were to the heart, especially when you kept them from your friends.

Loyalty really was one of the highest of virtues. It had driven me to apologize to Lily for how I had treated her. It gave me the strength and conviction to make a promise to Nohta that we would set things right. And it had given me the resolve to not give up on Father, even if the chances of his survival were slim to none.

But… Laughter? What had I learned of Laughter? What meager amount of frivolity I had indulged in these last few days had been paltry and hollow. Was she simply trying to tell me that I still had much to learn? Perhaps that was the real message then. The Dark Mother and my own mother were on the same page then… I needed to achieve balance in Luna’s favored attributes.

I was broken from my meditations by the shriek of a rocket as it raced for the heavens. It caught The Goddess full on, detonating in a massive plume of smoke and fire. I braced my hooves on the windowsill as I stared, wide eyed, at the dissipating cloud left over from the explosion.

She was completely unharmed. Twin currents of air from her magnificent wings blew the smoke aside, causing it to furl underneath her majestic form. The shimmer of a magical shell she had raised around herself caught the moon’s light as she gazed upon those fools that had dared to strike her. I almost felt sorry for her attackers. Almost.

Three of her copies—each one varying only by slight differences in their dark coloration—dove downward toward the group on the roof. The blue Luna faded from view halfway down, and the purple one disappeared completely in a violent flash of magenta magic, but the green Luna only raised her shield as she plummeted like a meteorite out of the sky.

“ALICORNS!” The unicorn with the rocket launcher shouted a moment too late. His comrades looked up just as a vision of unblemished beauty and pure power descended on the group like a viridian hammer of righteous fury. She crashed into the makeshift fortification with all the force of a wrecking ball, scattering ponies and blocks of rubble as if they were toys.

The buck at the machine gun was crushed under the shimmering dome of magic that surrounded the pseudo-goddess, his plumed helmet spinning wildly as it flew down into the street. The rest of the squad turned, their rifles barking in unison as they focused their fire on the imminent threat within their midst. But no matter the firepower brought to bear upon the imitation of The Dark Mother, her shield would not break.

I was so entranced with the imposing presence of the green alicorn that, if Nohta hadn’t pointed a hoof across my vision, I would have missed what was coming next. My sister’s voice betrayed a hint of fear as she nearly yelled in my ear. “What’s that!? Behind them! It’s like the air is alive!” I followed Nohta’s hoof with my eyes and stared, awestruck, at the massacre unraveling below us.

The emerald beauty’s assault proved to be no more than a distraction. With their attention placed solely on the green alicorn directly in front of them, none of the ponies noticed the subtle ripples in the air at their backs. Fountains of blood sprayed into the air as throats were slit and heads were twisted or ripped off of their necks in magical bubbles. The invisible assassin was quick and efficient in its slaughter, and only as the last unicorn ran out of ammunition and yelled for covering fire did he understand that he was alone.

The purple alicorn flashed into existence just above him. Her coat was so dark that I at first mistook her to be ebony. Her immense and gorgeous wings kept her aloft as she effortlessly lifted the stallion into the air to face her. From my vantage point, I saw the recognition and acceptance of his fate wash over his face. The magic faded from his horn, and his empty weapon clattered to the concrete. His only show of resistance was to spit on her perfect muzzle. A bright flash of magic later, and they both disappeared.

The other alicorns scattered, diving for different parts of the city. Some of them flashed brightly and disappeared in puffs of purple magic, while some of them dissolved into nothing as they dove for the ground. Most of them simply glided on their powerful wings as they slowly vanished from sight. I looked upward again, but to my disappointment, The Goddess was no longer there.

Nohta looked to Lily, her eyes wide and her voice frantic. “What was that!? What just happened?”

Lily sighed bitterly, “Alicorns happened. And now Hard Line, Switch Hit, and Puggins are dead.”

“Alicorns?” Nohta repeated. “How many fucking goddesses are there!?”

“They’re… They’re not really like Luna or Celestia, Nohta.” Lily scratched her mane, searching for the words. “I’ve only seen them a few times myself, but when they show up they fucking wreck everything. And for whatever reason, they always choose one unicorn to teleport away.” She shook her head and flicked her tail. “I’m really glad I’m not Hard Line right now.”

What had she said? I cleared my throat and asked, “They ‘choose’ unicorns? For what purpose?” Luna was looking for me! I knew it!

Lily shrugged, and jabbed my shoulder with a stern hoof. “I don’t know. And stop thinking whatever it is you’re thinking, Candy. It would be a very bad idea to go asking them.” She must have noticed my excitement, because she grasped my cheek with a hoof to force me to gaze into her eyes. “These aren’t whatever fucking moon-goddess you think you grew up with, Candy.” Her next words came slowly and harshly as she emphasized her point. “They. Will. Kill. You.”

My jaw worked, and my eyes roamed over her face as I tried to think of what to say. I knew she was wrong, but how could I convince her?

She released my cheek, and closed the window before continuing. “The alicorns are gonna be the biggest threat here. If we get the jump on them, then we might stand a chance, but it looks like they’re all on high alert.”

Nohta’s cloak whipped against my side as she bolted behind us. “We need to move. This place isn’t safe anymore.”

We gathered our things quickly, and followed signs on the walls to the building’s closest exit: a loading bay for finished product. The area had been thoroughly looted, with only a few bits of scrap metal remaining on the heavy steel racks that took up the majority of the space. We were still running along the second-level catwalk when Nohta held out a hoof, stopping me in my tracks. There was movement outside.

A smallish group, no larger than ten or twelve white-coated ponies, was dashing through the street below us, running from a much larger pack of ghouls. From my vantage point I witnessed one of the ponies turn and emit a gout of searing flame from his horn. Images of my encounter with The Pyro flashed through my mind as several of the chasing ghouls were bathed in magical fire, burnt to charred masses of shrieking flesh between the scattered vehicles. The remaining ghouls clambered over the motorwagons, leaping into the group before the ponies could escape.

Pistols and shotguns blared into the night, blowing chunks of rotten brain and viscera across windshields and rusted doors. Another unicorn in the group was pinned beneath one of the charging ghouls, but a quick flash of her horn rendered her attacker rigid and pale before it toppled to the ground. When a third unicorn swung her massive scrap-metal cudgel into the beast’s head it shattered like glass, flinging little shards of frozen ghoul across the street.

A larger unicorn with a jet-black mane helped his comrade to her hooves before turning back to the rest of the group and passing out healing potions. The white ponies had handled the ghouls largely without injury, though I did notice a couple of them had streaks of red running along their hides. I was sure that they were going to escape, just as long as they got out of the road quickly. But of course, the wasteland had other ideas.

A jagged arc of crackling ebony energy leapt from an alleyway and split the group down the middle. Two ponies were reduced to smouldering, twitching heaps, their death throes fueled by the electrical arcs still dancing between their limbs. A third was blown into nothing more than smoking chunks of meat and bone that splattered across his nearest companions. The third pony’s entrails hung in the air just behind a white earth mare, only for them to slide off of nothing as an invisible assassin slit the mare’s neck. A staccato rhythm of gunfire from the remaining ponies sent sparks flying off of motorwagons before a midnight-blue alicorn materialized within their midst, an enormous bubble of energy already protecting her from the barrage of lead.

As the group was focused on the blue alicorn just in front of them, a purple imitation of The Dark Mother stepped out of the alleyway and lowered her head. Obsidian lightning flew from her horn and burned a wretched hole through a hapless stallion’s neck. Judging by the look on her face, the alicorn believed this callous slaughter to be nothing more interesting than squishing a common radroach. But the large unicorn with the black mane had turned to notice her. The alicorn and I were both in for a surprise.

As her horn glowed a third time with eldritch energy, so too did the unicorn’s. His teeth grit together with concentration, and a cloud of jade magic surrounded the white ponies at his side just as lightning darted in their direction. The bolt struck a mare in the chest, but only caused her to gasp in surprise before bouncing back to the alicorn’s horn. The entirety of the violet alicorn’s head was blown apart in a fountain of gore, shredding her neck into limp flaps of bloody flesh all the way down to her withers. Her body was left standing upright for one surreal moment as her wings flared and her foreleg made a futile motion to back away. What was left of her toppled into a set of trash cans in the alleyway as her smoking horn clattered against the broken asphalt.

The blue alicorn turned in the unicorn’s direction, but his magic had already coalesced around her shield. Tendrils of emerald energy oozed over the sapphire bubble, kicking little sparks back and forth between the two magical fields as both ponies wrestled for control. The alicorn flared her wings inside her bubble, but it was no use; the white unicorn was too strong. His magic fully enveloped her bubble, and the barest hint of a grin flashed across his face.

Iridescent shafts of light raced along the shield’s perimeter as the barrier slowly began to shrink. The entire sphere brightened, illuminating the expression on the alicorn’s face as it turned from haughty annoyance to genuine panic. She braced her hooves against her own shield as it collapsed inward, gritting her teeth and shoving with all her might, but she might as well have been a foal struggling against a trash compactor.

Slowly, agonizingly, the shield imploded in on itself, shrinking in size even as the light pouring off its surface grew brighter. The bones in the alicorn’s wings broke first, followed by her legs, and then her neck. By the time that the shield had collapsed down to the size of my hoof, it was glowing like a tiny star in the street. Only as the unicorn’s jade cloud left the shield did the alicorn’s magic die out, allowing the compressed scarlet goop that used to share Luna’s likeness to explode outward over the asphalt with a disgustingly thick, wet splash.

I was nearly sick from the sight of what had just transpired, and to be fair, more than a little impressed. The unicorn fell to his knees from magical exertion, panting as the rest of his party helped him to his hooves and urged him to keep running. Through their worried shouts, I caught his name just before they disappeared around the corner.

“Elegy! We have to go!”

Dry Wells had spoken that name, as had Psyker. Her tired voice echoed through my mind, “He can turn magic back in on itself. Reverse a spell after it’s been cast. I’d love to see what he could do in a fight with that. Maybe against a shield spell? How messy would that even be?”

Now I knew. And it was horrifying. The Bard was not the weakling that Lily believed him to be.

My sister also recognized the name. She poked at my shoulder, hissing. “That’s The Bard! We’ve got him!” She bounded down the steps, with Lily and me in hot pursuit. But as soon as we reached the floor, Spursburg sent us a stark reminder as to exactly why we couldn’t be reckless in the city.

It was such an unexpected sight that I didn’t quite trust my eyes. Through a shattered window, I saw a little red filly running for her life across the paved lot outside the loading bay. She looked… familiar, somehow. But my attempts at getting a better look at her were short lived, completely forgotten as soon as I noticed what she was fleeing from. Just behind her was the biggest ghoul I had ever seen.

Much like the plant growth infesting the city, the zombie was ridiculously huge. The beast was easily twice my height, with gargantuan muscles bulging underneath its stretched and splitting skin. Hundreds of bullet holes, burns, and slash marks decorated its huge frame, testament to exactly how much abuse this creature could withstand. It bore down on the little filly with great, lumbering strides that shook the earth, plowing through motorwagons as easily as I might have shoved aside empty tin cans.

Lily hissed a warning, “Fuck! Rambler! Stay dow—”

I didn’t think. There wasn’t any time. The beams flew from the muzzle of my pistol as quickly as I could pull the trigger. The shots that managed to impact against the colossal beast’s thick hide singed and charred its flesh, leaving tiny craters in its shoulder and barrel that left its ribs exposed to the night air. The filly scrambled down the alleyway as the monster turned—completely uninterested in her—and stared directly into my eyes.

I was suddenly very glad that I had visited the little filly’s room earlier.

The rambler was impossibly fast. Each of its thundering hoofsteps carried it further and faster than five of my own. It didn’t even bother to go around the motorwagons in its way, it simply plowed through them and charged directly at the wall I was taking cover behind. I gasped as I realized what it was going to do.

I threw myself to the side a moment too late. The rambler burst through the wall of the building, flinging bricks and mortar in a wide cone as it exploded through the wall. The impact launched me past Lily and Nohta’s wide eyed faces, sending me tumbling through the air like a filly’s ragdoll. I slid and rolled across the floor before coming to a stop near a wall. The adrenaline coursing through my system kept me oblivious of the state I was in, but that changed when I tried to stand and lightning raced up my hind leg. Hissing in agony, I fell back to the floor and grasped my leg with a hoof as Nohta raced to my side.

The rambler smashed through the racks in the room, kicking up a deafening cacophony of steel clanging against steel. It stumbled and tripped over the sheer mass of horrendously twisted and jagged metal caught between its scarred and misshapen hooves. The monster thrashed wildly as it tried to stand up, tossing heavy bars of bent steel about the room in every myriad direction.

Lily hovered just off the floor, shouldering her rifle as she lined up a shot. Her weapon roared in the loading bay, ripping a massive hole through the rambler’s face. Half of its jaw was torn away, flinging spittle, rotten teeth, and congealed blood against the far wall as the beast’s head snapped back. The gargantuan ghoul was knocked off balance, toppling into the jagged metal once more as its girth sent empty crates flying. Lily squinted her eyes as her hooves worked the lever on her gun, kicking the spent round from the chamber and taking aim once more. Unfortunately, that was when the other ghouls joined the fray.

The second shot was just as deafening as the first, but missed low as a glowing one slammed into Lily’s side and threw her off balance. The bullet smashed into the rambler’s barrel, shattering one of the exposed ribs and shredding through its internal organs. Even with the mind numbing pain I was in, I couldn’t help but wonder just how the ghoul could function with one of its lungs dangling limply through the hole in its side.

Lily was forced to the ground by the undead zebra, holding it at bay with the rifle in her hooves as she growled, “Nohta! Get her out of here!”

Nohta’s wide eyes met my own before I winced and shouted. “I’m fine! I’m fine! Go help her!” My sister hesitated for just a moment, looking back and forth between Lily and me before swearing and charging to help with the ghouls. I concentrated my magic, and began healing my broken femur as quickly as I could.

Five of the common undead had rushed through the hole produced by the rambler’s entry, as well as the glowing striped corpse that was currently wrestling with Lily. She managed to kick away from the monster, gaining enough room to slam the butt of her rifle into its jaw and knock it to the ground. Continuing with her momentum, she spun around and fired at a second zombie, splitting its head like a melon before a third feral knocked the weapon from her hooves.

Nohta reached Lily just in time to keep that ghoul from tearing through the pegasus’ neck with its jagged yellow teeth, smashing her shodden hoof into the undead’s jaw to produce a sickening crunch. The light coming off the glowing one was partially blocked by her flowing cloak, casting a long shadow along the interior walls as the ghoul’s radiant stripes reflected off the jagged bits of metal next to the rambler like a sea of fireflies. Nohta’s forehoof collided with the zombie’s face hard enough to snap its head backwards before she tackled it to the floor.

Lily took the momentary reprieve from the melee to dig a hoof underneath her hat and extract a small inhaler of Dash. She bit down on the mouthpiece just before another ghoul lunged for her, and smiled wickedly around the inhaler as she ducked underneath its cracked hooves to rake her wings along its exposed belly. The ghoul stumbled from the counterattack as its hind legs got tangled in its dangling intestines, and tripped over itself to smash headfirst into a workbench. Lily spat the Dash into her hoof as she darted past another ghoul, decapitating its head cleanly with one sweeping strike.

In all the confusion, no one noticed the fifth ghoul split from the pack to charge in my direction. Words cannot adequately express the excruciating agony of leaving my broken bone half healed to unholster my pistol and activate S.A.T.S. Five crimson bolts of energy later, the ghoul slid to a stop at my side, still smoking and twitching from the three shots that had connected. And though it wasn’t entirely necessary, the two extra point-blank shots I placed into its obliterated skull did make me feel a little more at ease.

Nohta forced her first target to the floor, savagely beating its face over and over until decayed bones cracked underneath the weight of her blows. Only when its brains were smeared across the floor did she look up to notice the glowing one inhaling deeply as its stripes’ luminosity doubled. Neither she nor Lily, who had zipped over to retrieve her rifle, were fast enough to stop the creature from blasting the room with a cone of light and radiation. Lily was far enough away to escape the blast, and I was even further away than she, but Nohta…

Nohta caught the brunt of the cone, her cloak fluttering behind her as the magic surged towards the rambler. She doubled over as she coughed and hacked, robbed of her strength even as the gigantic ghoul regained its own. It trudged through the scrap metal as its flesh stretched and regrew over the hole in its side.

“Nohta!” Lily and I both shouted at the same time, but Lily’s voice was louder and carried better through the wrecked building. Nohta turned just in time to catch the inhaler of Dash flying towards her through the air. Lily’s voice called out to her again as Nohta stared at the tiny canister. “You ready to fuck some shit up!?”

Lily’s rifle blasted a massive hole through the glowing one’s shoulder, followed by another through its barrel and a third through its neck. If I hadn’t seen her make the shots with my own eyes I wouldn’t have believed anypony could fire that weapon so quickly. The ghoul fell to the ground, shrieking and writhing, its wounds already sealing up. But it wasn’t the only one with healing magic.

Nohta’s anxious eyes met my own as she held the inhaler to her mouth. I nodded as I clambered to my hooves, cutting off the stream of crimson energy flooding into my thigh. The pain still throbbed throughout my leg, but it was a mere phantom of the agony I was in earlier. My nauseous belly threatened to empty its contents at any moment, but I had seen just how devastating these undead zebras could be when given the opportunity. I didn’t intend to let that happen. I had to act now.

My shotgun slipped out of my saddlebag as I walked past my sister. “Can you distract the rambler?” I asked, sliding a slug into the magazine.

Nohta bit down on the inhaler and sucked in, tossing it aside a moment later. The cocky grin that came over her features was as unnerving as it was inspiring. “Fuck yes, I can!”

“Good. It didn’t regrow its rib. Open up the wound if you can, I have an idea.” Five shells of buckshot followed the slug into the magazine before I racked a round into the chamber. By The Goddess that sound is satisfying…

“Got it, Sis!”

Lily sent another trio of rounds smashing through the glowing one’s body, tearing massive holes through the striped and scarred coat. “Reloading!”

The glowing one fell to the floor, bracing itself against the wall with a hoof and trying to stand as I walked forward. The lambency in its eyes grew to a raging luminosity as it snarled in my direction. I was a mere pony-length away when I opened fire with S.A.T.S. aiding my aim, but at that distance even I would have been hard pressed to miss without the aid of the spell.

The first round shredded through its eyes, reducing the twin nightmarish lights glaring in my direction to little more than vibrant green jelly. The second round blew its leg apart at the fetlock, splattering viscous greenish-white sludge against the wall. It fell, shrieking, to its haunches and leaned against the wall as I yanked on the trigger again and again. Buckshot tore into the glowing stripes lining the zebra’s neck, opening its throat like a gore-soaked flower in full bloom.

Five shots down… I grit my teeth and rammed the barrel of my shotgun into the ruined crater I had blown through its neck, jamming the metal up against the ghoul’s yellowed spinal column before pulling the trigger. Brain matter, tufts of mane, congealed phosphorescent blood, and shards of skull and vertebrae splashed against the wall, painting the dull grey surface with a dripping mural. It was the perfect abstract representation of violence.

Lily shouted as she landed beside me. “Candy! Fuck! Don’t you know what those things do to unicorns?”

“Of course. That’s why I killed it.” Honestly, I didn’t know what her problem was. Did she expect me to sit back and let her and Nohta do all my fighting for me?

There was only one ghoul left in the room. As luck would have it, it was the big one. Nohta was pestering it with The Worm, using her pistol to blow hoof-sized chunks of rotten flesh from the ghoul’s side and shoulders. The rambler was fast, but with the Dash in her system my sister was able to keep her distance as she led it around support columns and steel racks.

Of course, our luck wouldn’t last forever. The colossal ghoul eventually changed its tactics, and rather than chase her around the various obstacles, it simply chose to use its insane strength to plow through them. Metal screeched in protest as the ghoul crashed through the racks, knocking them aside as easily as a pony might topple a stalk of corn.

My sister dove out of the way just in time to avoid being crushed by the tumbling metal, but couldn’t avoid the rambler’s swiping blow. She let out a cry of pain as the ghoul’s gigantic hoof smashed into her side, flinging her like an insect across the floor. My jaw dropped as I saw her slam into the wall, her body going limp before she passed out.

I… I knew that the rambler was just a beast. My earlier experiments on the filly-ghoul had all but proven they were mindless creatures driven by some unknown instinct. That didn’t stop the fire in my breast from spreading. My empty shotgun clanged against the floor as I pulled out my pistol and my last grenade, keeping the latter in my hoof.

A layer of over glow from my horn bathed the loading bay in crimson light. The blood-red color saturated the room so thoroughly that I could hardly see the lasers fly from my pistol. The beast turned in my direction, the only indication that my wild fusillade was connecting, and lady luck decided to play one last card. One of my shots obliterated the creature’s eye, charring the inside of its ocular cavity as the eyeball fell to the floor in two smoking chunks of flesh.

As the beast covered its ruined face with an enormous hoof and roared in outrage, I let my drained pistol clatter to the ground just before my world disappeared in a flash of light. I reappeared right next to the gaping wound in the ghoul’s side, plucking the pin from the grenade with my teeth and ramming the explosive right next to a half-decayed heart with my hoof. I have to admit, the tactile sensation of performing both actions was… oddly satisfying.

Unfortunately, the ghoul did take notice of being penetrated through a hole in its ribs. The gargantuan hoof shielding its ruined eye swung backwards, and despite my concentration, I was too slow to teleport away. The ghoul’s limb slammed into my side like a battering ram, flinging me across the floor and against the back wall next to my sister. My hooves gave out underneath me, but in spite of the little balefire bomb of pain that just exploded in my chest, a wicked grin slithered over my lips as I pulled my head up from the floor.

*BOOM*

Goddess, it was like I was at a filly’s birthday party, only someone had loaded the pinata with explosives and meat! The entire rambler was blown apart in a glorious eruption of body parts, coating the walls, the ceiling, the floor, the steel racks, even me in blood and guts! I wasn’t even distressed by the awful stench or the sick, slimy mess sticking to my mane. I could only revel in the fact that I had done that!

“Heh… Nohta…” I looked to my sister through the one eye I had that wasn’t covered in congealed goo. “We did it.”

She half-whispered and half-groaned beside me. “Yay…”

Flapping wings flung little droplets of blood over my face as Lily landed next to us. “You two are seriously fucking crazy.”

I grinned as the pain hindered my ability to breathe. “Coming from you… I’ll take that as… compliment. Heh…”

My world was starting to fade from view as Lily dug through my packs, but the vile tasting regular health potion Lily forced down my throat gave me the strength to sit up. She gave one to Nohta after making sure that I was alright, and I took the opportunity to survey the destruction all around us. I must say, after wreaking so much havoc upon those abominations, I couldn’t help but feel proud of our accomplishments.

Lily was helping my sister to her hooves, flaring her wings as she made a timely suggestion. “All that noise is sure to bring some attention this way. We need to heal up and get the fuck out.” I nodded, concentrating my magic to aid the process along.

Lily hoofed over my pistol and shotgun, an indiscernible expression on her face. Was that… admiration? Annoyance? I honestly couldn’t tell. She cleared her throat loudly as she loaded her revolver and rifle. “Try not to lose your weapons, Candy.”

I was giddy with excitement, riding a high not completely unlike the one from my recent chem adventure, and opened my mouth to respond with a superbly witty comment. Unfortunately, I never got the opportunity. Nohta had endured quite enough of my antics, and promptly grasped my hoof to tug me towards the loading bay doors.

I was still giggling like an idiot when we stepped outside, but my laughter died in my throat as dozens and dozens of ferals bounded into view all around us. The horde was spilling into the street from every direction, racing towards us as quickly as their rotten hooves would carry them. By The Goddess, would they ever let up?

“FUCK!” Nohta screamed. I’m not usually one for cursing, but in this case her assessment and reaction were rather spot on.

Lily, Nohta, and I bolted down the road in the direction the ghouls’ numbers were thinnest, our weapons carving a path through the undead that lead to a tall stone building. I had no idea what we were going to do. Without any grenades, we had no way to fight off a horde that size! My high from killing the huge rambler ghoul was consumed by a rapidly escalating panic as reality began to sink in. I only just kept from screaming as I reloaded my own guns and followed in my companions’ wake.

Lily spared three bullets for the large glass doors in the front of the building. The glass shattered and clinked to the ground just before we leapt directly through the frame. Nohta darted to the side, making for a stairwell just inside the lobby. Lily and I followed her lead as I prayed to every goddess I could that Nohta’s judgement would prove beneficial once more. It was only around the ninth story that my aching legs began to seriously question whether The Goddesses were indeed assisting me or only prolonging my suffering.

The walls of the stairwell were fuzzy with moss, but of more pressing importance was the fresh blood and entrails coating the steps. Lily was able to bypass such an obstacle by simply flying above the steps, and Nohta was nimble and surehoofed enough to bound upwards with ease. I, however, was neither blessed with wings nor my sister’s deftness of hoof. Not that such a trifling concern mattered. A quick glimpse through the clear space in the middle of the stairs at the teeming mass of undead bodies surging up the steps was enough to get my hooves moving quite effectively.

I clambered up the slick steps, my hooves sliding over the greasy guts hanging down the stairwell. Some poor fool’s gallbladder snuck its way underneath my hoof, robbing me of my balance and sending me flopping belly-first onto the sloped carpet of gore. The ghouls bounded up the steps behind me, reaching the landing just below me as I rolled over and tore my shotgun from my packs.

The first zombie’s brains splattered against the wall behind it. The second lost its left foreleg and collapsed inches from my back hooves. A third was simply perforated by the shot, staggering backwards before it was trampled by its more enthusiastic peers. The gunshots were deafening in the confined space where their noise was free to echo off the walls. I knew I couldn’t keep this up, but the horde was advancing so quickly that they’d catch me if I stopped firing!

Another shot blew a ghoul off balance, forcing it to latch onto the railing, but the rusted bolts that secured the barrier to the stairs were too far gone. The metal groaned underneath the ghoul’s weight before it snapped, sending the abomination plummeting downward. Judging by the repeated thuds and clangs, the zombie was crashing into every hoof-rail it passed on its stories-long descent.

As soon as my shotgun was empty I switched to my pistol, activating S.A.T.S. and aiming for as many heads as I could queue. Three more undead ponies fell, their bodies either charred to the bone or singed to ash. But when S.A.T.S. was exhausted, my frantic barrage did little to quell the tide of gnashing teeth and flailing limbs. I panicked and screamed, clutching a rotted leg in my magic and dragging both it and the ghoul it belonged to over the edge in a desperate bid to stall for time.

A streak of blue feathers hurtled itself overtop of me, crashing into the snarling herd and flaring its wings wide. Fountains of sticky, semi-congealed blood spilled out of shredded necks and the still wriggling stumps that had once been limbs. The crimson liquid pooled and flowed over the edge as Lily thrashed wildly, cutting everything to her sides and kicking out at everything else within reach. I was more than a little impressed with her ferocity and vigor, but she was still only one pony fighting back a herd of ghouls. The math just didn’t add up in our favor.

Lily groaned and grit her teeth as a zombie’s mouth clamped around her foreleg, biting into her flesh just before she wrenched the leg towards her torso and flared her right wing. Her blades scalped the zombie, cleanly slicing right through its eyes and everything behind them. As the ghoul’s limp jaws fell from her fetlock, Lily shrieked in my direction. “Candy! Fucking run already!”

Goddess, what I was doing!? I scrambled to get my hooves back underneath me, only to witness my sister fling herself past my head, tackling a ghoul just before it could lunge at Lily. I heard bones crunch and tendons pop as Nohta rammed the beast into the wall. She rose up to her bipedal stance, lifting the ghoul upwards with her Pipbuck underneath its jaw before before pulling her free hoof back to cave its skull in.

Another ghoul shot past Lily, wrapping its forehooves around my sister’s shoulders and dragging her to the floor as its teeth chomped down on the hood of her cloak. The fabric fell away from Nohta’s face as she slammed the back of her head into the zombie’s snout, twisting her body in its grip and unsheathing her knife. When the ghoul tried to bite her, the only thing it swallowed was Nohta’s blade.

She was back on her hooves in an instant, shouting at my gawking face. “Go, Sis!” She barely had time to get even those words out before fending off another attacker, this time parrying a clumsy and feral blow to redirect the ghoul’s lunging momentum directly into the path of Lily’s wing. Nohta shouted at me through the gore that splashed against her face. “Get to the roof!” It felt prudent to obey her command.

I slipped over more blood and guts as I hurried upwards, firing off S.A.T.S. guided lasers at every opportunity. My lightshow was far less effective than Lily’s practiced brutality or Nohta’s agile dance, but it did slow me down enough that I noticed the real threat thundering up the stairs. My eyes widened as I saw the colossal beast flinging its smaller kin out of its way with reckless abandon.

I opened my mouth, and screamed out a warning, “Rambler!” Lily and Nohta shared a wide-eyed look as they heard me.

Lady Luck was obviously not playing favorites that evening. The massive ghoul was obliterating the rest of the herd as it rushed up the stairs, crushing ghouls underneath its wide hooves and smearing the walls with their bodies as it plowed through their numbers. Countless zombies were shoved out of its way, toppling down the central opening of the stairwell to split their skulls and land in a growing pile at the building’s ground floor. The beast’s single-mindedness and brute strength were doing a far better job of thinning the horde’s numbers than Nohta, Lily, and myself, but we stood absolutely no chance if it reached us.

Nohta spun on her hooves, bucking out at a ghoul’s chest to knock it into several more ferals. Lily took the opportunity to duck under her assailant’s lunging attack, flaring a wing as she rolled to the side and off the edge. Nohta bounded over the now headless body as she forced me up the steps, but Lily remained hovering in the central opening. As Nohta and I scrambled up the slick steps, Lily shouldered her rifle and took aim. The zebra-rifle roared underneath us, each thunderous gunshot answered by a far more guttural cry of rage further below.

“Fuck!” Lily ascended along side us, cursing after each round failed to bring the beast down. “Son of a bitch!” Her hoof flashed forward as she ejected another cartridge. “By Thunder, just die already!” There was one more loud report from her rifle above us, but still the ground continued to shudder underneath my hooves. My eyes caught the graceful spin of the smoking casing as it plummeted downward, but before it could reach the corpse-laden floor I looked up to see Lily shrugging apologetically in midair.

Her ammunition spent, she shouldered her weapon and swallowed, “Well, the good news is that I don’t see any of the other fuckers down there…”

My eyes widened in disbelief. That rifle had nearly felled a manticore with one shot! It had staggered the first rambler just as easily! How could this beast still be pursuing us!? I raised a gore-slicked hoof to the rusted railing, shouting at the top of my lungs, “Lily! What do we do!?”

She raised a hoof above her, pointing to the top floor. “Keep running!” Clenching her teeth around her pistol, she emptied her second gun in a barrage of bullets. I couldn’t help but notice that the angle at which she was firing was much closer than before. The ghoul was gaining on us!

Nohta was the first to reach the door to the roof, slamming a hoof into the rusted metal hard enough to dent the thin steel. “Fuck! It’s locked! I need to pic—”

“No time!” Lily cut my sister off, flying over Nohta’s head and ramming her shoulder against the metal. Even that hadn’t worked! And the ghoul was only a floor below us!

“Together!” I shouted. “We need to do this together!” Lily and Nohta nodded at each other as I reared back on my hind legs, throwing my weight forward just as the two of them bucked at the door with all their strength.

The door exploded open, hanging limply in its frame as moonlight poured into my eyes. I followed my companions onto the roof, but nearly bowled Nohta over when she dug her hooves into the gravel and slid to a stop.

My vision was dominated by the black cloak that had risen in front of my face. “Gah! Nohta? Why did you…” My sister’s hoof stretched out across my chest as her hooves scrabbled in the loose rocks. “Why did…” I repeated, dumbstruck. My eyes stared forward, but just like before, I couldn’t believe them.

Nine imposing and regal figures had already claimed the roof as their own, standing in a wide half-circle around the door. I was so close to them that I could clearly make out the distinct colorations that graced their forms. Three of them were purple, three of them were blue, and three of them were green. I felt the collective gaze of nine sets of eyes zero in on my forehead just as an impossibly strong magic encased my body.

My lips quivered as I was gently coaxed forward, “G-Goddess?” The particular alicorn I was gawking at, the violet-black one in the middle, smirked as I addressed her. Her slender legs carried her in front of her fellows as she slowly walked toward me.

I felt hooves clawing at my shoulder and wings beating at my side, and I heard distant voices calling my name. They didn’t matter. I had found her! After all this time and all the pain, I had finally found her!

In that moment, my beleaguered faith came flooding back. My zealotry was renewed and I knew the truth.

These last few days had been just a test! I knew it! That realization washed over me, warm and comforting. In the back of my mind I had always known! I had never faltered! I was only being tested!

I stared, transfixed, at the magnificent teal eyes before me, unable and unwilling to look away. The alicorns I had seen earlier didn’t matter! This was Luna! And she was going to solve everything! Nothing would stand against her!

I inched forward, shrugging off the hooves on my shoulder as I walked ever closer to the divine. The magic that had gripped my body fell away like a loosely draped blanket sinking to the floor. Tears filled my eyes as I stood in her shadow. I had finally attained my dream.

The alicorn’s beautiful wings flared wide at her sides as I approached her. Her glorious mane billowed like lavender plasma behind her, quite unlike the silken strands that adorned the heads of her fellows. I was momentarily curious as to how her mane had lost its stars, but in the grand scheme of things I knew that such a paltry detail hardly mattered. She was so beautiful! So elegant! So… Perfect. It took all of my willpower to respectfully avert my gaze from the holy pony before me.

The tip of my horn scraped against the gravel as I knelt before her on trembling legs. Pride swelled in my breast, giving me the strength to choke out the words I had always wished to say. “I am yours, Luna.”

I heard her voice from every direction at once, as if her words suffused my very being with the divine essence of her thought. But unfortunately, for reasons I could not discern, her amused message came out garbled and incomplete. “Why d- -ou -all Us Luna?”

What? Why couldn’t I understand her!? The tears in my eyes dripped down my muzzle as my chest heaved. “For-Forgive me, Goddess! I swear I will learn to understa—”

The gravel shook underneath my hooves as I ran out of time. The rambler crashed through the exit to the roof, smashing through the frame and flinging the flimsy metal door past my body. I raised my head in alarm, just in time to see the flying metal slam directly into the face of one of the regal figures to my left. The dark-blue beauty reared back a moment too late, her skull crushed and her spine broken.

No… No! How could that beast have— No, Candy, the others are only a mirage… Right? The sight of the pseudo-goddess lying dead rent a hole through my heart. Was… Was this another test?

The blue alicorn’s body crumpled in a pitiful heap of feathers as her two nearest replicas evaporated into rippling air. The Goddess strolled past me, and I heard her proud voice in my mind once more. “We ha- endur- -ese -ames long -nough!” Her lips! They hadn’t even moved! The texts had never spoken of that! But, it didn’t matter, I could almost understand her! I just needed to concentrate!

Nohta slid beside me, hooking a hoof underneath my foreleg as she screamed in my face. “SNAP OUT OF IT!”

I wriggled out of her clutches, shaking my head. What Lily had said couldn’t be true, my sister had to see that! “Nohta! The alicorns bear her likeness! We have to protect them!”

The rambler dashed past us towards the green pseudo-goddesses to my right, its thundering hooves kicking pulverized gravel through the air as it closed the distance. The green alicorns lit their horns in unison, and the one closest to the beast encapsulated herself in a shimmering bubble of energy just before the huge ghoul slammed into her. The sound of cracking glass shot through the night as the not-Luna grit her teeth and narrowed her eyes. I stared, confused, as one of her green neighbors fell to her knees, panting for breath.

Rearing back, the ghoul hammered its hooves against the magical barrier again and again, driving the protective sphere into the roof like a stake in the ground. A gust of wind swatted my mane to the side as my ears swiveled backward and my hackles stiffened. A moment later, a crackling bolt of ebony lightning blasted into the rambler’s oversized knee. The limb ruptured, exploding like a pus-filled sac to scatter blood and bone over the roof as the ghoul roared in rage. It’s howl was so shrill and loud that I was forced to cover my ears with my hooves to keep from going deaf.

I looked up, trying to spot where the lightning originated, and saw The Dark Mother silhouetted against the moon. Lily joined my sister, shouting as she tried to corral me away from the fight, but I was too entranced by the battle of titanic figures to flee. I needed to witness this.

The Goddess hovered overhead as orbs of light and shadow materialized before her enraged face, converging into a ball of darkened sapphire at the tip of her horn. My jaw dropped in awe as she aimed her horn downward, unleashing all of the pent up magic at her disposal in a torrent of divine retribution. A high-pitched shrieking scream filled the air as the magic raced for the the colossal ghoul. It collided with the beast’s back, detonating in an ear-splitting blast of blinding light.

Nohta and Lily wrapped their hooves around my shoulders as they fought to protect me from the beautiful and righteous carnage. We were flung aside by the shockwave, callously tossed through the air as easily as all the gravel that was thrown from the explosion’s center. We came to a sudden stop as we slammed against something unrelentingly hard and spherical. My companions groaned at my side, flopping over on their backs as they finally released me. I scrambled to my hooves, coughing up dust and blood as I lifted my gaze once more to where the behemoth had stood moments before.

A gargantuan hole had been carved through the roof, its outer rim decorated by twisted and slagged steel girders. Through the opening I could see the devastated remains of the floor below us, an office space filled with shattered desks, obliterated terminals, and wrecked printers. Sheets of copier paper drifted to the floor, their ends singed and curling inward.

The dust settled as the rambler bellowed meekly like a wounded beast, dragging the half of its body that remained along the gravel with the only limb it had left. Dear Goddess, how was it still moving!? My pistol leapt from its holster as I made my own paltry contribution to downing the beast, peppering its thick hide with lasers that paled in comparison to The Lady’s terrifying might.

I expended an entire charge before my weapon was wrested from my grip by a magic far stronger than any I’d ever felt. My eyes flashed backwards as I saw one of the deeply purple almost-Lunas holding my weapon above my head and furrowing her brow in confusion. Did… Did she just want me to watch?

I turned toward the ghoul just in time to see its body lifted into the air by two cooperating clouds of midnight-blue magic. It shrieked as its neck was stretched and separated from its shoulders, wrenched away by the two alicorns that phased into existence at its side. Viscera piled on the rooftop as the ghoul was ripped apart, lending the scent of gore to the overpowering aromas of pulverized gravel and ozone.

I scanned the destruction all around me. One of the green alicorns hadn’t survived the blast, but the other two were wobbling on shaky legs, supporting each other as they ambled towards the ghoul’s corpse. They were joined by the third purple alicorn and the two blues as they all inspected the torn body from different angles.

A voice, deep and powerful, echoed through my mind in that same disjointed speech that came from everywhere at once. “Why di- -ou help Us?” I turned back to the the purple beauty holding my pistol, my puzzled expression mirrored by hers.

I stammered, wondering if my brash actions had jeopardized my test. “I-I just thought that—”

An excited and airy gasp sounded from the twisted crater that had once been the doorway. I knew that sound! Terror pulled my eyes wide as I turned to scream a warning, but I was too late.

A bloated ghoul covered in glistening pink pustules dove towards the group, flinging its hooves around the neck of a blue alicorn and poking its tongue out between its teeth. The bloater exploded in a rapidly expanding cloud of pink gas, shearing the blue alicorn’s flesh from her bones. I was forced to watch in horror as the magic of Mother’s people killed my goddess all over again.

Only one of the green alicorns reacted quickly enough, throwing her partner from the blast before being completely enveloped by the caustic mist. She and the second blue took to the air, crashing moments later when their wings oozed off of their bodies. The purple alicorn tried to raise a shield, but only succeeded in trapping the gas in with herself. By the time her magic dissipated, only her bones remained—stained an obnoxious pink hue and sitting in a neat little pile where she had stood.

The lone green alicorn that had been saved by the sacrifice of her kin didn’t escape unscathed. She rolled limply in the gravel, faint trails of the gas clinging to her horn and face before dissipating in the wind. Her hooves covered her face as she screamed in agony. The sight of her in pain was more than I could bear.

The Pink Cloud was still expanding, billowing upward and outward from the blast zone and rolling over the gravel at an alarming pace. The Goddess descended, flapping her wings furiously to keep the fumes away from her downed comrade, and was soon joined by the remaining purple that still held my pistol.

Lily and Nohta gingerly rose to their hooves behind me, hissing and cursing the alicorns under their raspy breath. I absentmindedly floated a pair of health potions in their direction, unable to redirect my attention. My chest heaved as I sat there, helpless and useless, while our divine saviors blew the cloud of poison off the roof. As the mist finally died and began to evaporate, all I could focus on was the trembling green goddess at my hooves. Her beautiful face had been cruelly marred by the foul magics unleashed by the ghoul’s attack, but that was far less unsettling than what was flashing across her flank.

Cutie-marks appeared and disappeared one after the other, each one a different symbol I had never seen before. Luna’s mark was the moon itself, but I didn’t recognize any of these images from the Selenist’s texts! What were these pictures?

A magical wand, a starburst pattern, intertwining streams of sparks… Dozens of cutie-marks popped into existence and were replaced so quickly that I couldn’t even take in all their details. The image on her flank finally settled on one mark—a golden-yellow flower—and to my unending horror, she cried out in a frail and panicked voice. “Sisters… I… I can’t hear you…”

My hoof rose to my mouth, not because I had any clue whatsoever what she was speaking of, but rather because of the pure agony in her aching voice. I… I had to do something. Damn my test! I couldn’t bear to see her suffer!

I rushed to her side, gently placing my hooves on her body and whispering as soothingly as I could. “Goddess, I’m here. It’s me, your priestess.” I may have been taking some liberties by presuming to have acquired such a station, but who else was more faithful than I? The green alicorn recoiled at my touch, whimpering in pain while I tried to calm her. “Luna, let me help you. Nothing would bring me greater honor.”

Scarlet light bloomed from my horn, and a single tendril of magic snaked towards the green alicorn’s heart as she winced and gasped, “Why do you keep calling Us—”

PAIN!

Indescribable agony flooded every shred of my existence, crushing my mind under the glacial weight of far more than one body’s anguish. I felt thousands of Lunas, each of them shrieking to reject my spell as they recoiled from our magical connection. And somewhere far away in that unending sea of tormented perfection, I felt a leviathan stir in the deep…

A hoof as hard as stone slammed into my chest, mercifully severing my spell as it knocked me over. My breath exploded out of my lungs as tears streamed down my cheeks, and a booming voice assaulted my ears with all the force of a bomb.

With each enraged shout, The Goddess ground her hoof a little harder into my chest. “WHAT.” I opened my eyes, catching the furious visage of The Dark Mother silhouetted against the night sky. “WAS.” She bellowed each word, her muzzle inches from mine. “THAT!?”

The pressure of her hoof made it impossibly hard to speak. “Goddess… please… I was—”

“Who are you to assault The Great and Powerful Goddess!?” Her horn flared to life, the fluting spiralling up its side lighting up bright white as the two of us were encased inside a magical bubble.

“Was…” My eyes bulged in their sockets as my body fought for air. “Trying to… help,” I squeaked.

I heard Lily and Nohta scream my name before bullets slammed ineffectually against the arcane barrier. The Goddess stood over me, ignoring the attacks as her eyes flashed with arrogance and disdain. “Help? How could you help Us?” The gunfire was abruptly silenced as I heard Lily and Nohta forced to the gravel, their every other word a crude profanity hissed through grit teeth.

My eyes glanced at the squirming green alicorn to my side. I couldn’t use my magic to save her from the pain. But… What if I didn’t use my magic?

My impudent hooves dared to clutch the elegant foreleg that was crushing my chest. “Anti… dote…” The pressure lessened slightly, allowing air to rush into my burning lungs. I fought against the urge to catch my breath as I struggled to explain myself. “Antidote for Pink Cloud… Mother’s book… I can brew it if I can find a few more ingredients!”

“You lie.” Her hoof moved upward, hovering just above my windpipe.

My eyes went wide as panic filled my voice. “NO! No! Goddess, please! Honesty is the first of your Three Truths!”

Her brow furrowed quizzically. I could tell that she didn’t believe me, that much was certain, but I wasn’t the one that convinced her.

The green alicorn whispered a single word. “Sister…” Judging by the frailty of her voice, I was sure that the green pony didn’t have the strength to utter much more.

The Goddess glanced back at her green look-alike, indecision tainting her formerly calm regality. She raised her hoof from my throat, but kept the severe expression as she glared at me. “If you fail in this, you will beg Us for death.” I made to get up, but was shoved hard against the gravel as her hoof returned to my chest.

“And We will not grant that wish.” She finally released me, lowering the barrier and stepping towards the green alicorn. I swallowed back the lump in my throat, and nodded.

Rising to my hooves, I glanced back at Lily and Nohta, finding them held against the rooftop by the second purple alicorn with their own weapons pointed at their heads. My ears drooped as I realized the hopelessness of our situation. They couldn’t save me. I had to do this myself.

Luna stood over her downed green comrade, beckoning with a hoof. “Come.” That single word was a more effective leash, by far, than the collar around my neck.

My horn sprung to life, pulling Mother’s book from the recesses of Nohta’s packs. Nohta’s eyes met mine as we shared a look of supreme uncertainty. Goddess, please let this work…

Lady Luna’s horn glowed brightly as I approached her, casting a blinding light across her face as she declared, “We are leaving. Now.”

She was going to teleport… Oh Goddess, she was going to teleport! “Wait!” I cried, pointing at my neck. “Our bomb collars! If my friend leaves my side she’ll die!”

The Goddess glanced at Lily, and in a voice laced with indifference, asked, “And why would We care if your friend dies?”

My lip quivered. “But… Loyalty is amongst the greatest of virtues…” My words fell on callous ears. The almost-Luna’s apathy was all the proof I needed. She was not Luna after all. I shook my head, fear and outrage tainting my voice as I yelled at her gorgeous face, “I’m trying to help you! I need her help to do it!” It was a convenient lie. And even if it was an outright bluff, it was the only card I had left to play.

A flicker of magic stripped Lily of her packs, pistol, and rifle just before she was yanked through the air and shoved into my hooves. We both grunted from the impact before the certainly-not-Luna’s horn began to gather energy again. She looked over to her purple companion, speaking aloud in a plain voice, “The M.A.S. and M.O.P. facility.”

Her companion nodded once, still holding my struggling sister against the gravel. I gestured to Nohta with my one free hoof, “Wait! My sist—”

Magic engulfed my body in a grip like iron as a haughty voice boomed into my ear. “She does not wear a collar.”

My sister’s eyes flared in panic as we both realized what was about to happen. “CANDY!”

The pseudo-goddess at my side spoke two last words. “We go.”

I reached out to my sister, my heart icing over as I wondered if I’d ever see her again. “NOH—” I didn’t even have the time to finish screaming her name before my world exploded in a violent flash of magenta.

Footnote: The Party Levels Up!
Welcome to Level 9!
New Perk!

Bomber Mare (Rank 1 of 3): The bigger the boom, the better! Your explosive weapons now do 25% more damage! Careful with those grenades, Doctor!

Skills Note: Medicine 100
Skills Note: Explosives 50

Lily gains a perk: “I know I wanted some alone-time with Candyflanks over here, but this damn alicorn is plot-blocking me super hard right now.”

Moving Target: They can’t hurt what they can’t hit! So long as Lily is sprinting or flying, she gains added Damage Resistance and Damage Threshold.

Nohta has left the party.

Author's Notes:

A lot can happen in 6 months. Between standing beside my best friend at his wedding, moving to a different state, mourning the loss of my uncle, welcoming my new niece into this world, playing way too much Fallout 4, and the usual craziness of the holiday season, I’m not entirely sure how I managed to find time to write.

Or sleep, for that matter.

It’s a crazy world out there. Luckily I have a couple of great people to help keep me sane.

Wr3nch is way more awesome than he gives himself credit for. If he’s ever foolish enough to give me his address, I’m gonna buy him more pizza than he can eat. Or at least enough to give him a very bad stomach-ache. A better editor I could never hope to find, and on top of that he’s a damn cool guy.

Stevepoppers is, as far as I can tell, not so much a pre-reader as he is a concentrated ball of excitement and wonder. This guy gives some great feedback, and loves to dig into all the little details scattered throughout the fic. Whenever something slips past both Wr3nch and me, Stevepoppers has got it covered.

I’ve never really been sure just how rigorous the editing phase is for other FoE fanfics, but we tend to put this fic through the wash several times before each chapter gets published. I owe my crew a hell of a lot, and I’m glad to call them “friends” even while they’re chewing me out. What else are friends for, right?

Thanks for all the covering fire, guys!

Another big thank you to KKat, for giving all of us this amazing sandbox for our imaginations. And of course, thanks to all the folks who have worked on MLP or Fallout.