To my surprise, it took almost two weeks for the new drills Otto promised to materialize, which was more than enough time for wild mass guessing to spread among the ranks about what we were going to be given. The rumor mill churned out possibilities ranging from the insane, such as powered armor being issued to veterans, to the somewhat believable, such as MEWs being issued to specialist teams, to the mundane, such as everyone being issued newer and better guns or armor. My bet was on it being something like that.

The drills started out very familiar, with Serge dragging us off to the gun range a few hours after I'd flopped down on my cot to try and get some sleep for what he described as the same marksmanship drills we'd done twice a year since I started in the city. The only thing unusual was how crowded the armory range was.

Even before we landed I might have guessed that half of the city garrison was present, and the abundance of griffons I barely recognized confirmed that a lot of second platoon was there. If one thing was consistent in Fillydelphia's Talon Company, it was bad scheduling, so someone must have mucked things up and the last round of drills hadn't ended yet.

We passed the giant grinning Pinkie Pie sign on our way in, whose front teeth had been shot out by high caliber rounds of some kind, and found an out of the way spot to park ourselves until space opened up for us.

“Hey, get a look at this,” Lita muttered, pointing a thumb over to one of the closer firing ranges.

A single purple griffon stood with a rifle held up in perfect form. He was covered in armor that reminded me a lot of Amy when she first joined our squad, before she got too sick of lugging around the heavier and hotter parts, but by now I'd recognize Egon under any circumstances. He snapped off ten shots that slapped holes in the pony painted onto the board ahead of him, grouped nicely in the chest.

“What do you think that's about? Never seen him hold a gun before today.” Lita yawned and rubbed her eyes. “Maybe times are getting desperate. After that last deployment that wouldn't surprise me.”

Lieutenant Blackfeathers strode forward to examine his work from his side, and nodded approvingly. The smaller purple griffon removed the magazine from the rifle, verified that the chamber was clear, and handed the weapon over to the next griffon in line. As he turned to trot back our way, he failed to contain a giddy little grin.

“Nice shooting, kid,” Lita quipped as he passed by.

“Thank you, Private Galeforce,” he quipped back without stopping.

“Huh, squirt remembers my name.” Not that he was much of a squirt compared to us anymore, coming in at close to her height. “Not sure if I should be flattered or what,” she added as she took her rifle in claw and got in line.

Our squad ended up split into a couple of lines, and I ended up going up to bat at the same time as her. As usual, holding a rifle for the drill felt strange after having just a pistol for most of my time in the city, but at least this time I could take some solace in the thought that the test of my accuracy here might actually have some correlation in the field next time since I had a rifle now. A lever action with different ballistics than the one I'd been given, but closer than a pistol by a long shot.

I did my best to focus on the blue pegasus mare painted on the target board ahead of me, and emptied the magazine I'd been given for the drill. To my mild surprise, despite the weariness in my claws I hit with all ten shots, and with decent grouping too. I didn't expect much from Heidi's assessment.

“Well done, private, although if I may make a suggestion?” she asked when she stopped next to me.

“Uh… course. Of course, I mean.”

“Try for center of mass shots, next time. Real pegasi don't sit still.”

Huh? I glanced back to the target, and sure enough, I'd landed one shot in the fake mare's eye instead of her chest where I should have been aiming. Oops.

“Yes ma'am.”

She left me to go speak with Carmelita, who had evidently done a less than stellar job. Lita had complained to me a few times since the robotics facility that she had chronic chest and back pain, which was very likely related to having a bullet the size of her thumb rammed through her body, but there was little that I could do other than give her consumer grade pain medication. I wanted to linger and see if that was what was wrong here, but Serge was up behind me, so I had to make room and head back to the waiting area, where I found Amy talking to a familiar white griffoness with a black beak and gray spots.

Valerie gave a little wave as I got close. “Hey, Kaz, long time no see.”

Two weeks sometimes felt like ages in this forsaken city. “Oh, hey, Valerie. Yeah, it's been a little while. I kept meaning to follow up with you and make sure everything came out okay.” I did my best to stifle a yawn. “Hasn't really been a free moment.”

She groaned and nodded. “We've been on double patrols ever since the last escapees. Nobody else has gotten out that I know of. Anyway, I feel fine. Not even sore anymore.”

Given the restoration potion I'd used, I'd have been surprised and alarmed at anything else. I neglected to mention that my back still ached every morning when I got up and that I'd peed blood for two days after the hit I'd taken, partly because it was definitely more information than she wanted or needed, and because I realized she didn't even know I'd been hit before she showed up.

“Good, that's what I like to hear.” Her presence did remind me of something though, so I asked, “Is all of second platoon here? I don't guess you've seen my sister?”

She scanned the gun range. “She was here, but I don't-oh, wait, there she is.” She indicated a group of griffons smoking near the armory building, where I picked out a deep yellow griffon that looked an awful lot like Alfred, who I knew was in her squad.

I excused myself so the two could go back to getting caught up, hopefully with a little less chaos and awkwardness than last time. Halfway over to the armory I realized that I probably shouldn't have split off from my squad without permission, but Serge didn't try to stop me, and there was no sign of Heidi so I pressed on.

Alfred was the first to notice me. Surprisingly for someone seemingly consumed by addiction, if his alcohol consumption was any indication, he seemed to be the only member of the squad who wasn't smoking. “Hey, Liese, Dr. Longtalons is here. Must want to talk to you.”

She coughed and thumped her cigarette butt off into the mud somewhere as she turned to face me. “Kaz? I didn't know your platoon was here too.” She sized me up. “What's wrong?”

“Huh? Nothing, I just wanted to check up on you.”

She made a little smirk. “I'm touched, Kaz. Checking up on me? What, are you worried about me?”

Well, a smirk and dismissive humor was a good sign. She definitely sounded more like her old self, but to save face I pointed lamely at the crowd behind me still lining up to fill cardboard ponies full of holes. “I meant just catch up, since we were both here and everything. Never know when that'll happen again. So, uh, how have you been? Sprain doing better?” How long ago had that been now? About three weeks?

She flexed all of her joints. “Fine. Only problem I've got now is being up to smoking a pack a day because of the damn Bloodletters. Between the extra patrol hours and expecting a revolt any day it's all I can do to keep my trigger finger from getting too twitchy. I'm just looking for a reason to put a bullet between Brimstone's eyes. Red Eye or Protege be damned.” She huffed. “You? I hope the rest of the city has been less crazy.”

What, was this all some pet project of Red Eye's protege? I'd have to inquire about that later.

“Mostly, but I actually helped catch those two runaways the other week.” Which was plenty stressful, mind you.

Liese's eyes flew open. “That was you? Damn, why didn't anybody tell me?” She gave me a little punch on the shoulder, but I was lucky enough to be wearing my armor for the drills. “You're really growing up. You'll have to give me your side of the story. All I heard was that a few ponies got shot and the runaways got an express ticket to the dump incinerator.”

I recounted the story, filling her in on the parts before Valerie got there and glossing over Amy's poorly thought out assault on the raider mare. Both because I swore not to and because telling Liese would have had it spread through second platoon within a week.

Liese snorted and crossed her arms. “I didn't hear about Valerie getting wounded like that. Jeez, I wonder if Gunther even knows. She got off easy in the attack on Brimstone but everyone gets it eventually I guess. Also sounds like she got lucky you were there. And I'll tell you something else, it's a good thing we're having these drills now. Sounds like half of the company doesn't know how to do urban combat to save their lives, literally.”

So there was more coming up than just marksmanship drills? “Not going to lie, I wouldn't mind some training on that. I get the feeling that's not the last time I'll be facing a runaway with a gun hemmed up in a room with no easy entry. That, uh, reminds me of something else though. You haven't heard anything about any other unusual training coming up today, have you?”

She shrugged. “You mean about the rumors that have been circulating? Nope, no clue. Guess we'll find out soon though. Might be literally nothing. Who even knows anymore?”

Certainly not me. I chatted with her a minute more before her sergeant pulled her squad away to head on to the rest of the exercises, at which point I returned to my own squad.

I felt like there was a lot more I could or should have said, but it escaped me at the time. At least I felt better knowing that she was kind of back to her old self.

The rest of the drills went by without much fanfare. We flew in formation for a while, practiced breaching doors and clearing rooms in a mock combat environment set up in a mostly intact bank building, and for good measure crawled and flew through an obstacle course that got a lot of questionable muddy material encrusted in my coat and plumage, but everyone came out with satisfactory results.

Well, that is, except for the final drill, where I finally found out what all of the hush-hush from Otto had been about.

Apparently at some point in the last six months, Red Eye had gotten a Ministry of War factory back online that produced shells for grenades and rockets, and after working out the alchemical formula for a suitable filling agent, full scale production had ramped up for them. No rocket launchers for us, but everyone in our squad was being issued two grenades apiece, and we had to be taught to use them.

Everyone else in the squad had been trained or otherwise used them before from old stock issued years ago, but I had not, and I wasn't about to dismiss throwing an explosive apple as so simple that I didn't need to pay attention to what I was doing.

We transferred alongside two other squads to the blasted remains of a prewar ball field some distance from the armory, which was now freshly churned up by what I guessed was the previous platoon going through their exercises, and formed up in one of the dugouts formerly used by sports teams from a long gone era. In a particularly rare sight, the heavily scarred quartermaster Sam was waiting on us.

“Grenade's real simple. You all know how it works. Even those of you who were civvies once know how it works.” He held up a metallic apple, as high as he could with his healed over injuries, and pulled the pin out at the top. “Pull the pin. When you let go of the leaf on the top, you've got four seconds until kaboom. You want the enemy to be sitting on it when that happens. Some of you might think you're fancy and smart and will think about holding it for a second before throwing it so unicorns don't try to throw it back. Let me tell you, from personal experience. Don't.”

Yeesh. Was that where the scars came from?

He put the dud back onto his grenade belt and led my squad up to a cinder block wall out on the field, which looked a little too disheveled for my tastes. “We're gonna start with duds. Pull the pin and toss it over the wall. Otto here will demonstrate. Once we've got this down we'll move on to bombing practice.”

The comparatively pristine griffon to his side took Sam's grenade and demonstrated the proper throwing technique. There was an unspoken command to do it just like him so we didn't throw too far or too short, which I tried to study as best I could.

Practicing with the inactive grenades took much longer than I expected, but passed uneventfully. We tossed them over the wall like Otto, practiced tossing them through windows on fake walls hastily erected on the field, and finally moved on to practicing dropping them on targets from the air in bombing runs. To my surprise, I wasn't half bad at it, and never missed the mark enough for Sam to feel the need to correct me. The rest of the squad did just as well, although Serge seemed to be a little slow on the release with his cybernetic claw.

We moved on to live fire exercises after that, and were each given two grenades. Given the risks of catastrophic mishaps now, we were instructed to throw one live grenade over the barricade, and to drop one on a two meter wide ditch on the far side of the field set aside specifically for that purpose. No throwing through windows since if we messed that up, somebody might end up dead. Everyone but the one practicing was hunkered down in the dugout, safe from any fragmentation or spallation.

As before, my technique was surprisingly good, and my throw over the barricade landed where I guessed it should have. The bang wasn't as loud as I expected, probably because I had my ears covered, but nevertheless I gained an appreciation for the casualty radius when I heard the fragments pinging off of the barricade and kicking dust off of its facade.

The bombing run was altogether more nerve wracking, since I had no barricade to protect me this time if I wasn't high enough or missed my target. I began my approach exactly like we did before and started across the ball field at an angle that kept the roof of the dugout the others were hiding in between me and them, keeping my altitude level at about three stories up. The target ditch was clear enough, and I lined it up in my sights. Per Sam's suggestion, if you kept the target in the center of your vision, you'd subconsciously steer yourself to put the grenade on target. The ditch was right ahead, and I had two seconds before I needed to release the leaf and start the fuse. If the grenade landed in the ditch, by the time it went off I'd be at such an angle that none of the fragments would fly anywhere near me.

I pulled the pin with the expectation of holding the trigger leaf until I released the grenade, but no plan survives first contact with a live fire training exercise.

The leaf sprang loose immediately and shot out of my grip. 'Four seconds until kaboom.'

I realized what had happened. Three seconds until kaboom.

A searing sensation shot through my claw as the fuse burned inside and heated the metallic shell on its way to the alchemical explosive agent. Two seconds until kaboom.

In a flash of panic, I hurled the grenade in the first direction my elbow bent, which sent it sailing backward in a short arc. My heart stopped. One second until kaboom.

The grenade hadn't even reached the ground when it went off. I threw up a claw defensively to protect my face the instant it detonated, and not a moment too soon. A white-hot stabbing sensation shot through my leg as a half dozen more fragments slapped into my breastplate and pelted my wings.

I didn't have time to dwell on how badly I'd been hurt and immediately dove toward the ground to see if my stupidity had gotten anyone else hurt or killed. The grenade was pretty far from the dugout, but up in the air the fragments might have made it inside…

“Who the fuck thought giving Longtalons grenades was a good idea!?” a male voice shouted. Nobody in my squad at least. Sounded like… pinfeathers, I couldn't remember his name. Something Blackclaws I think. Came to the clinic with diarrhea once like a year ago.

Sam crawled out and up to the ground level. “Private Longtalons… I think I'm starting to remember you.”

I chanced a glance over to where the grenade went off, but there was little evidence of anything at this point. All I could do was land and take the whipping that was coming...

“You're the fella that broke his gun by dropping it, right? And didn't I hear something about you tearing up a perfectly good suit of armor landing next to a pack of hellhounds?”

“Yes, sergeant,” I answered meekly as I examined my wings. There was at least one spot where a fragment tore through completely, but it surprisingly only stung a little. My foreleg was oozing blood from a much nastier cut, but it looked like the fragment didn't embed itself there at least.

“What's the matter, son? Barely a scratch.” He furrowed his scarred brow into a glower. “Now listen. You do understand you can't be having screw ups like that with miniature bombs, don't you? Lieutenant wants me to give everybody two, but… no.” He shook his head. “No, no, no, I don't think so. Now, you want grenades? Come back next time and do it right. Until then, nothing for you.”

“I understand, sergeant,” I replied, forcing myself to look him in the eye but wishing to the high heavens I didn't.

“Good. Now, return to your squad.” He turned back to the dugout. “Next! Private Clawmarks, you're up!”

I didn't linger any longer than necessary, and slunk back down to reunite the others, passing Isaac on the way down but not looking him in the eyes. Bloodfeathers, I'd been here for more than five years and I was still doing my level best to kill people by accident.

Carmelita didn't miss a beat. “Kaz, can I ask you something?”

No. “What?”

“Are you… just cursed or something?”

Cursed Kasimir, that sounded about right. I flopped down next to Amy, still keeping my eyes glued to the floor and said, “Sure seems like it sometimes.”

I pulled off my medical kit and started digging through it for some antiseptic and bandages. Like hell I was wasting a potion on a booboo on my leg. I couldn't wait to hear Heidi chew me out over this, and the last thing I needed was for her to also find out I used up a valuable potion on it.

A gray claw stopped just inside my vision, right next to a silver cybernetic one. “Kaz?”

“Yes, sergeant?”

Serge snapped his organic talons. “Look here.” I looked up. He didn't look mad, but also not particularly sympathetic. Tired. Just tired of my bullshit, I guessed. “When you get done patching yourself up, you're free to return to the barracks if you want to get some sleep. If not, Master Red Eye is making the alcohol brewed by the slaves available to Talon company today, so if you're interested, swing by the mess hall first.”

Lita didn't even give me a chance to respond. “Wait, we're getting free booze today? What's the occasion?”

“I don't know, the lieutenant didn't say,” Serge answered. “Probably supposed to help with morale or something.”

Made as much sense as anything, given the general feeling of lethargy and fatalism pervading the platoon since the Bloodletters were captured, but I wasn't really interested. “Thanks for the offer, but I'm going to sleep.”

Lita scoffed. “You sure? I'm not passing up a chance like this.”

Amy grumbled something and said, “Your sister might be there. I'm hoping Valerie is. Barely had a chance to talk today.”

Everyone else made noises of vague affirmation, which at first only increased my conviction that I wanted nothing to do with it, but after a little nagging I caved.

Fine. I'd get a shot of something, then go be antisocial until I was dragged back out to run another pointless patrol. I was not in a talking mood for many reasons.

To nobody's surprise, the promise of free alcohol meant that the mess hall was swarming with griffons by the time we got there. Enough so that it looked like most were hanging around outside now, lazing around the general vicinity of the train station turned military base in pairs and trios while chatting and laughing about things I couldn't make out. There were a lot of griffons present that I was only passingly familiar with, but despite my best efforts I didn't make anyone out that I knew was from second platoon. No sign of Liese or Valerie, and more importantly, no sign of Alfred.

Ugh. I'd probably be busy in the clinic the next day treating a dozen cases of alcohol poisoning. Or if I felt particularly daring, I could get alcohol poisoning myself and end up in the clinic as a patient, but I was pretty sure Yvonne would beat some sense into me if I made her and Adelaide's jobs harder instead of helping.

The sight of Egon fluttering past on his way back to the lieutenant's office with a bottle of something in his claws put even the joke of that idea to bed in a hurry. As usual, the thought of pissing Heidi off was enough to discourage planning any bad behavior. She probably hadn't even gotten the memo about my fuck up from earlier. Maybe I should get drunk in preparation for the tongue lashing to come.

“Jeez, you really do need a drink,” Lita quipped as she shouldered the door open for all of us.

“Probably,” I muttered. What did that mean? I wasn't even sure.

She shrugged. “Come on and let's see what they have. Ten bits says it's all terrible, but terrible booze is better than no booze.”

I was ready to tell her to speak for herself, but the spectacle inside of the mess hall interrupted my train of thought. It was thoroughly packed, as I expected, but five large drums with taps hammered into them covered the serving bar. Two younger griffons scurried back and forth between them, fetching different drinks for the agonizingly long line coiled around the interior wall.

Was it too late to turn back now-yep, someone got in line behind me. Too late to turn around. Ugh.

I still had no idea what to get, if there truly even was any variety available, so I waited until the rest of my squad ordered to get an idea of what was even acceptable. From the sounds of it, the choices were beer and vodka, the latter of which could be mixed with some ancient fruit punch mix dug up from somewhere, if I felt confident in my stomach's ability to digest it.

“Uh… I don't really know...” I told Agatha, the young griffoness who was waiting to serve me when I got to the head of the line. I heard more than a few irritated groans from behind me.

Amy was still standing nearby, sipping at her beer, and came to my rescue. “Hey, you like coffee, right?”

“Yeah?”

“Get some vodka, then mix some coffee from the barracks into it. It's good, trust me. It's called a Hayly's Cream or something like that. No idea where the name comes from.”

“Okay, but I wanted to sleep after this...”

Someone behind me groaned even more audibly. “Come on, Longtalons...”

Agatha handed me a large cup of clear liquid and grinned nervously. “You can get back in line if you don't like it and want something else.”

“Thanks.” I took the cup and got out of loudmouth's way. “Vodka and coffee it is, I guess.” Around the time I got to the exit, I noticed Amy was trailing me. “Don't see Valerie anywhere?”

She peered over a shorter griffon cutting across us and shook her head. “No… don't see anyone from her squad either. Shoot, I hope they didn't tell second platoon they couldn't meet up here.”

“Wouldn't be surprised,” I muttered. One of the few formative memories I had of my early days in Fillydelphia was running into Lieutenant Strongclaws over in second platoon's base, and he made it pretty clear that we weren't supposed to mingle without permission. “But maybe she's outside.”

She wasn't, and by the time we got back to the barracks, Amy was looking almost as sombre as me. “Damn. I was really hoping to talk to her more. Barely had a chance to talk to her at the range.”

“Sorry, guess you're just stuck with me like usual,” I said.

“I guess,” she muttered.

The two of us had the barracks to ourselves, which wasn't that unusual, but the silence was almost smothering this time. I mixed what was left of the coffee into the vodka, which was about half and half of each and didn't look remotely like the right proportions, and plopped into the chair across from her at the table. I wanted to ask if Valerie made any comment on her poor choice of tactics a couple of weeks ago, but as bitter as I felt I really didn't want to make her feel any worse, and settled on something less intrusive. “Sorry, I know you really were looking forward to talking more. Did you at least get caught up earlier?”

“Kind of, I guess. Hard to condense five and a half years of almost no contact into a few minutes, but we hit the highlights. We saw the robotics plant and she saw the Bloodletters. Probably the highlight of her career, you know?”

I took a sip of my drink and through herculean effort managed to keep a straight face. The coffee was good, but I got the distinct feeling that someone who wasn't used to drinking shouldn't be drinking vodka in this proportion. After giving it plenty of time to settle, I asked, “What's wrong? You're not disappointed that you didn't get to join in the assault, are you? It sounds like odds are one or two of us would've died.”

“I know, I know, but… yeah, I guess I am a little irritated about it. It's like I told you a while back. Back during training, they painted this job like we'd be doing amazing things for the future of Equestria.” She shrugged and gulped more beer down. “Equestria itself never mattered much to me. By most accounts the country doesn't exactly exist anymore. Anyway, yeah, I really wanted to be doing amazing things. Even when we go out in the field, we're usually just patrolling trade routes. Especially now that the Bloodletters are gone, odds are good we won't even see raiders harassing them anymore, and we haven't seen hellhounds or anything like them in years.”

“Almost getting killed by a Steel Ranger wasn't exciting enough for you?” I asked, swirling my drink.

“Okay, yeah, that was more intense than I liked. And I'm sure the encounter with the Bloodletters was just as bad. But it was just one time. The first time we've even gone inside ruins like that in years. I'm not sure they're even still doing stable reclamations.” She snorted. “Almost got killed by a damned slave two weeks ago, so it's not like this isn't dangerous work anyway. It's just dangerous on top of… ugh, I don't know.”

I nodded. “It's boring most of the time, won't argue with that. But… you know, I had someone ask me this recently so I'll ask you. If you're not happy here, why did you re-sign your contract?”

She thought for a moment between sips. “I don't know. I thought about trying to do the private merc thing. I'm sure a former Talon could get work somewhere, right? But… I don't know. Valerie's here and I don't have anyone anywhere else. I don't really have anywhere else to go, and if I did, I doubt it would be much more exciting. Maybe if I could have talked to Valerie before and we coordinated it, we could have both left when our contracts expired and did our own thing.”

I sipped my drink again and did a less stellar job of taking it like a man. After a cough, I asked, “So, what is exciting for you? I figured most people would lose a taste for being shot at after they've been in a few fire fights.”

She frowned and narrowed her eyes. “I don't like being shot at, or shooting people, if that's what you're trying to imply.”

Dammit, why did I even try talking to people? I sucked down another gulp and coughed again. “No, no, I'm serious. I'm just wondering what you'd rather be doing that hanging around in this dump.”

Her expression softened a little. “What I just said, probably. Valerie and I could run our own mercenary band. Lots of competition but...” She trailed off with a sigh. “Who am I kidding? I'd be lost outside of Talon Company. You're lucky. You actually know how to live a normal life.” She smirked a little and pointed at my drink. “Although obviously that doesn't include partying hard.”

I did my best to force a chuckle and coughed again, trying to get the faint spray of vodka that I'd aspirated out of my lungs before it choked me to death. “You got me there. Never really had a taste for it. Don't even smoke anymore.”

She smirked a little more. “And here I thought Sergeant Swiftwing was the Flock Scout in our squad.”

Huh? Oh, right, Lita mentioned something years back about him trying to run a Flock once before he joined Talon Company. I chuckled for real and decided to give my drink a little breathing room for the moment. “Yeah, I guess I'd have been perfect for it. But, uh, you know, the next time we're up for leave, I could take you somewhere if you're interested.”

Amy raised both eyebrows. “Kaz, are you asking me out on a date?”

Pony goddesses, I wasn't that drunk. Yet. “No, no, I'm just saying… if you want to see some of the outside world, I don't mind if you come along next time.”

She clicked her beak a few times and polished off her beer. “You know, why not? Yeah, that could be fun.”

Boy, you'd think after five years she'd know how boring I was, but now I had to think of something really interesting to do. I had a few months, if my timing was right. I was sure I could come up with something better than watching cracked paint chip off of walls.

“Well, all right then, I'll keep that in mind for next time.”

“You do that.” She swirled her empty cup. “Anyway, I'm going to go get another beer and see if I can find Valerie again.”

“Okay, I'm going to take a nap.” I waved her off, and once she was gone, made the mistake of downing the rest of my drink. After a suitable convulsion, I tossed the cup, stripped down and prepared to see what coffee and vodka mixed together would do for my sleep.

As caffeine dependent as I was, I doubted it would keep me awake at any rate.

Despite my promise to Amy, I never got the chance I expected to take her out of Fillydelphia on leave. Due to the extensive manpower shortage, all leave in Talon Company had been suspended for the time being, and that left us with an increasingly tense few months that followed with the occasional report of a slave getting out and breaking something or killing someone without any reprieve.

No more Talons had been shot by escapees, although I happened to be in the clinic one day when a griffon was brought in with multiple rib fractures and fragmentation injuries from a close range explosion. From what I gathered, he'd helped respond to an escapee and used one of those new grenades issued to us to flush said slave out of a building. The only problem was that Private Sharpbeak didn't realize that the rotten remains of said building's walls weren't going to hold back much of the grenade's blast. He got the raider, at least.

Every day seemed to bring more stress and tension. Amy and I were worried every day that we'd hear that Valerie or Liese had been killed or caught up in a similar accident. Talon Company also began to receive some new recruits from outside. Our squad was fortunate enough to not have to deal with them, but I overheard enough grumbling in the mess hall to gather that some of the squads who weren't so lucky were starting to have their nerves worn thin. Apparently, one squad even had newbie so bad she “put Longtalons to shame,” which I had to admit was pretty impressive.

In short, the city felt more and more like a grenade ready to go off with every passing day, and needless to say, I didn't get much sleep. The capstone to it all came about six months after the Bloodletters's capture, when Red Eye scheduled another series of tournaments in The Pit.

To literally nobody's surprise, like half a dozen members of the Bloodletters were going to be participating this time, including Brimstone Blitz himself. There was some murmuring of a zebra too, but if there was a zebra in Fillydelphia I was Princess Celestia.

Given the fighters present, security had been stepped up and two squads were stationed at the ice skating rink turned bloodsport field, not counting Captain Stern. I overheard a few of the newbies talking about how much they hoped their squads got picked to watch. More power to them, but given my luck I knew we'd win the lottery and I'd get stuck watching Brimstone squeeze some pony's guts out like a tube of toothpaste. The only consolation I'd have was that none of the ponies there were there because of me this time.

I nearly fell out of my chair that morning when Serge informed us that we had patrols as normal and that eighth and ninth squads were the lucky winners.

We were instead positioned near The Pit, surely to act as a contingency in the somewhat probable event that something went wrong, but I'd take what I could get.

It would be fine. With that many Talons and armed slavers around, even the Bloodletters wouldn't be so crazy as to try to escape. And even if they did, they'd never make it out of the Pit in the first place with that many armed guards around.

As I expected, the patrol turned out to be mind numbing. The routes had all been adjusted and rerouted to keep us near The Pit, which made the hours tick by at an agonizing pace. You could only look at the same crumbled and burnt out buildings, dilapidated and skeletal roller coaster and attached barn so many times before it all blended into the noise of the city.

The only remotely interesting thing happening was the ever growing gaggle of tipsy and drunk slaves collecting in the streets near it all. From what I'd heard, Red Eye gave the whole city the day off to come watch the massacre, and on top of it all gave out free booze to the slaves. A city packed to the brim with anxiety, tension and now alcohol. Who didn't see a disaster brewing there? Not Red Eye, anyway.

A few scuffles and fights broke out in the streets as the crowds grew, but it never escalated to anything Amy or I felt the need to interfere with. Being drunk might make a pony more likely to throw a kick or a punch, but it also made a pony a lot more likely to stay on the ground after one instead of escalating it into a growing brawl or full scale riot.

That all settled down when Captain Stern's voice boomed over the new speaker system that must have been installed at some point during the last year. She called everyone to order, announced what all would be happening and rattled off names I didn't recognize and didn't want to put to faces. She hyped it up and hammed it up as she announced the first round, as if she were watching a prewar sports match.

From this high up and at this angle it was hard to see any of the activity at the Pit anyway, but I turned my attention in the opposite direction. Amy could watch if she wanted, but I was only going to spot trouble if it started outside of the bloodbath preparing to start.

It was strange not reacting to the sounds of gunfire, screams and general chaos below. Someone died and Stern announced another match. Someone else died. Stern announced another match.

Amy and I were circling around the twisted and blackened remains of a radio tower when the first inclination that something was wrong struck me.

That far out we had no hope of understanding anything anyone was saying amongst the shouting, but the unmistakable report of an anti-materiel rifle discharging could only mean one thing: Stern had shot someone. Maybe one of the fighters insulted Red Eye or something. Amy cast a glance back toward the Pit and slowed in the air ahead of me. Stern fired again.

Everything fell apart in remarkably short order.

Whatever discord was unfolding in the Pit grew louder as hundreds of agitated voices shouted variations of rage and fear. Stern's rifle thundered repeatedly amidst lighter caliber weapons. Ponies began to spill out of the stands and clog the streets, headed for the proverbial hills. Slavers from further out tried to force their way back to the Pit, but with the throngs fighting to head the other way, they weren't making any progress.

“Come on!” Amy shouted as she flared her wings and rushed to get closer.

We were still some distance away, so it took an agonizing amount of time to reach it, during which the gunfire only ceased for a moment. By the time we reached the Pit itself, I was expecting every Bloodletter in the city to be in the middle of a blood orgy, but everything inside looked calm. I spotted a few corpses on the ground, but no sign of who or whatever the captain was shooting at. Speaking of which, Stern was busy bounding over the empty stands to race around and reach Red Eye, no doubt to protect him from whatever unholy mess was unfolding.

“Over there!” Amy shouted to me as we circled the open roof of the Pit. She pointed off to the skeletal remains of the roller coaster rising over the other decrepit buildings in the amusement park we were in. On the tracks were a couple of moving shapes, nearing the top where the coaster's old train cars were now perched and probably rusted in place.

Had two slaves seriously broken out of the Pit just now, made it all the way over there and not been shredded into hamburger by every gun in sight?

I swallowed a lump of apprehension and readied my newish rifle. If Stern was shooting at them that much, they had to be Bloodletters that escaped that couldn't be allowed to get away. I didn't much like my odds of hitting them from here with an unfamiliar weapon, even if it couldn't possibly be as bad as my pistol, but I lined up a shot at the coaster's cars, hoping to pin them in place. The bullet punched a ragged hole through the brittle remains, causing the two to pause for a moment.

We rushed to catch up and intercept them, trading off opportunities to snap off another shot to keep them from advancing. One of my shots missed the mark and actually struck one of the slaves, grazing the mare across the back of the neck and eliciting a sharp cry.

At that moment, two realizations struck me.

One, these didn't look much like Bloodletters. They were smaller mares, naked or in the attire I'd expect from an ordinary wastelander. And two...

I guess I had to find a pink tutu somewhere and call myself Princess Kasimir, because the second one, the one I'd hit earlier, was a zebra!

Amy looked just as shocked as we circled closer. Both appeared unarmed, so apprehending them should be fairly straightforward. I raised my rifle at the little gray unicorn mare and prepared to shout-

A haze of vibrant green flashed and tore at my claws. A deafening bang sounded and everything went white.

I woke up on the ground. I thought. It was hard to tell amidst the pain wracking my body. Whatever I was on, it was soft and twisted under me when I tried to roll over.

My back and wings exploded in pain. I opened my beak to scream, but only a choked gurgle came out. I couldn't breathe! I looked down and saw blood everywhere. It coated my breastplate, ran down my foreleg, coated the tarp I was sprawled on…

Panic set in as I gasped for air but only sucked more blood into my lungs. I tried to reach for my medical kit, but my body wouldn't twist around so I could reach it. I'd fallen from who knew how high. My back was probably broken. If I was aspirating blood, I'd been shot, but I couldn't tell where or how bad.

I couldn't think. Panic mixed with pain mixed with a sense of suffocation all on top of a sense of helplessness robbed me of what little coherence I had left.

Reflexively, I tried to cough and clear my throat, but it only made it worse.

Someone shouted something, but they sounded distant, with their voice warbled and distorted like my ears were submerged. They shouted again. Something pressed against the sides of my head and straightened my neck. I tried to scream again, but again nothing came out. I cracked my eyes but everything was dark and swam around me in an unfocused mass of confusion.

“Kaz! Kaz, wake up! Kaz!”

The sound of something exploding above shattered through the haze. Fragments of petrified wood showered down around me and bounced off of my breastplate. I had just enough time to see a pair of red eyes staring down at me before an overwhelming urge to both cough and vomit struck me at the same time.

I rolled over onto my belly and sprayed the pavement an arm's reach below me with bloody vomit. Violet coils of gently glowing potion boiled away in the puddle, tickling my nostrils and sending me into a coughing fit that threatened to make me black out as I hacked up spatter after spatter of more dark red sputum.

“Kaz!” Amy. It was Amy's voice. “Pinfeathers from hell, I thought I was too late.”

“Fo-fo hwhat?” I croaked, still doing my best to figure out what had happened, where I was and why my throat hurt so much.

“You were shot. I thought you were dead when I got here, but I found the glowing potion from your medical kit and it worked. Same-it was the same one you used on Valerie.”

I wheezed and fought to catch my breath. Everything still spun around me, but it was starting to stabilize. I blinked and forced my eyes to focus, where I saw Amy standing over me, perched up on the canvas tarp covering some kind of booth that I'd landed on. My back still hurt, but I could feel everything and flexing and twisting only ached. Had I landed a meter in any other direction I'd have hit the ground and snapped my neck or back for sure.

Amy shook the empty potion vial in front of my eyes, and I saw her raise a wounded wing with a tiny wince. Blood dripped from a ragged hole through the center of her right wing, and she clearly couldn't fold it up like the other.

“You..'ve been hit too.”

“Don't worry about me, can you get up?”

The answer was yes, but only technically. With Amy's help and a lot of care, I stumbled down the collapsed booth next to the one I'd landed on and to the ground below. I slumped against the nearest wall and worked to catch my breath again. My claw ran up to my throat, and I felt the bullet scar just beneath the feathers, healed by the potion in seconds.

I'd been shot in the throat. Wait, that mare took my gun and shot me with it. If she'd aimed a centimeter closer to the center line I'd have died when it severed my spinal cord. Not even the restoration potion would have helped that in time.

Amy hobbled around to look up at the roller coaster for a moment. She carried her right hindleg off of the ground, and even as she sat so she could aim her rifle up at the tracks she refused to put weight on it.

“What happened to you?” I finally managed to ask.

“That bitch shot me too. Hit me in the wing and I caught my leg on the scaffolding on the way down.” She traced her aim along the tracks. “I saw others going after them. One had a missile launcher so they're dead. Picked a bad time to try to break out of the Pit.”

And yet they managed to do it at all. I grabbed an ordinary healing potion for Amy and offered it to her. “We'll have to get your leg x-rayed, but this will help with the wing.”

She sucked it down. “Can you fly? We should hurry up and rejoin the others.”

I drew my pistol, but shook my head. “I'm going to need a minute here.” Besides, it sounded like someone had it under control, and I think the lieutenant would forgive us for taking a minute after both almost being killed.

It wasn't like two equines were going to escape the city on their own, no matter how resourceful they were.

I never did find out exactly what happened to the escapees. The last I heard, they had been apprehended deep inside of the Ministry of Morale building somewhere. Nobody saw what happened, but Private Updraft, the one Amy saw with the missile launcher, had been killed. Several of Red Eye's guards were killed too, and some of the more insane ramblings said that a giant alicorn from the crater showed up and was also killed.

Nobody was that skilled and lucky. Nobody. The escapees weren't even Bloodletters, from what I'd heard.

But it didn't change that Private Updraft was dead, that I'd nearly been killed and that Amy had a dislocated ankle. There was little to be done for that aside from administering pain killers and reducing the joint.

I knew I'd be hearing rumors about it for weeks afterward, but if the escapees had been caught, I was sure they'd been executed. It was rare for me to feel like that was justified, but this time I thought it might be. I couldn't blame any slave for trying to escape, but that many guards had been wounded and killed, and not all of them deserved it.

I felt a little bitter thinking about the unicorn taking my weapon and shooting people with it. The only consolation I had there was that there wasn't much ammo in it to begin with so she could only do so much damage.

But it didn't matter. They'd been captured and executed, and that would have to be the end of it.

As if we didn't have enough problems in the city like it was.

Gain Experience - For surviving another harrowing battle, gain 3,000 experience points.