The thing about happiness is that you only know you had it when it's gone.

If there was one positive to my recently-ended abstention from drinking these past couple of months, it was that I’d become quite the lightweight now. I was barely a quarter of the way through my first bottle of Wild Pegasus, and I was already at that pleasantly comfortable level of drunk that it usually took me a whole bottle to reach, and a second to maintain throughout the night. There was every temptation to see how much more of the bottle it would take to put me on the ground, but I refrained.

For now.

There was still every possibility that I’d reconsider that decision later on this evening.

This night had been pretty rough on me. Which was a ridiculous position to be holding, honestly. No amount of whiskey could chase that reality from my brain. My despondency was selfish and foalish. I knew that; but I was...fifteen? Sixteen? Oh, who was bothering to keep track anymore…

Oh, so much had gone so very right for us as a whole; and I couldn’t even claim to have had the roughest night of any of us. That dubious distinction went to Foxglove for having to live through one of her greatest traumas in the most visceral way imaginable. Ramparts was arguably in a close second, having had to go through it as well. Nothing I knew about his past suggested that he had a history of being violated by ponies, but I got the impression that the perspective he’d had while experiencing the orb wouldn’t have been his preference, if given a choice between the two ponies involved.

Compared to them, I’d gotten off light; especially since―even drunk―I knew that how I was feeling was entirely my own fault. I’d done it all to myself. I’d known that Arginine didn’t have romantic feelings for me; and you just had to listen to him talk about sex once to figure out that being physically intimate with another pony didn’t mean much to him.

Honestly, I hadn’t thought that it would mean all that much to me, but here we were. Goes to show what I know.

“The thing of it ith,” I murmured aloud, slurring only slightly, “I’m not even mad at RG. He didn’t know. I’m the problem,” I took another small sip from the bottle, “I’m jus’ really bad at picking stallions. So far, I’ve slept with a stallion whose stable wants to kill everypony, I almost slept with this White Hoof who was also myyyy,” I fumbled in my head trying to work out Cestus’ relation to me, knowing that he’d been the son of my adoptive father’s estranged half-sister, “...cousin?” that seemed like a safe classification, “I didn’t know that at the time, and it wasn’t a blood relation. He drugged and kidnapped me before we could do anything serious; but he was going to keep me as a sex slave to pop out foals for him.

“So I guess that kind of counts…

“Then there was my pa,” I continued, nodding my head listlessly along, “we only kissed the one time and never got any further, but oh did I want to!” I frowned, glaring straight ahead at the distant lights of New Reino, “he fucked Foxglove though…” I thought for another moment, “I almost had sex with a pony I thought was him. It turned out to be some weird bug monster that could change shapes, so that one probably doesn’t count...”

I glanced over to my left, looking up at the gleaming metal and holographic face of the towering robotic alicorn perched next to me, “what do you think?”

Moonbeam was silent for several long seconds as she processed everything that I’d just said. For a pony who supposedly had a brain that was more hard bits than squishy bits, it felt like she was having to think about what I’d said for a very long time. Eventually, she finally offered up a very tempered, “...you tried to sleep with your father?”

I waved away her trepidation, “ah! He was just my adoptive pa. S’all good.”

“Uh huh,” I sensed judgment from the robopony and glared at her. She held up her hooves in surrender, her illusionary expression offering an apologetic grin, “not judging! I promised I wouldn’t, and so this is me being super not judgy about your choice of stallions!”

I held my glare for another few heartbeats, then took another sip of whiskey and turned back to the city. I’d rather have been doing all this drinking in the comfort and atmosphere of a bar, but Starlight had been very insistent that I not go out for my ‘walk’ alone, and had asked her daughter to go with me. As it turned out, most of the bars in New Reino had an unwritten ‘No Killer Robot Alicorns’ rule regarding who and what they’d let into their establishments, and trying to explain that Moonbeam was not, in fact, a true ‘robopony’ but in actuality a pre-war filly preserved in a life-support tank that just happened to be controlling a giant robot body had not been well-received.

So I’d been forced to settled for buying a couple of bottles of Wild Pegasus and finding someplace where I could drink without getting a lot of ponies gawking at the intimidating Moonbeam sitting beside me. That had apparently taken us completely out of the city, and far enough away from New Reino’s walls that the guards weren’t always looking nervously in our direction.

“He cared about me,” I continued finally, in a subdued tone, “I wanted to show him that I cared about him too. That’s how ponies show that they care about each other, right? They kiss and do things,” I shrugged, “so I wanted to kiss and do things with him.”

“I can understand how you’d see it like that,” Moonbeam acknowledged in a more sympathetic voice, “but adoptive or not, he was family. Family doesn’t need you to show them that you care like that. It’s just sort of...understood. Not that I can claim to know how the ideal family works either, mind you.”

I grunted, “it was more than that. He was exactly the kind of stallion I wanted to find someday―or so I thought. He was strong, smart, careful, and he always had an eye on the future. He reminded me of my real pa. That was the kind of stallion I want to have a family with someday.

“So...it just sort of made sense. Why look for somepony else who was just like Jackboot when I had him right there?” I let out a heavy sigh, “even when I found out he was a White Hoof...he’d been so good to me my entire life…”

Moonbeam’s features flickered into a wan smile, “I can’t say that ‘having a family’ is something I’ve ever seriously thought about―for obvious reasons,” she even managed a little chuckle, “but I’d be lying if I said I’d never wanted somepony who cared about me,” her features fell slightly, “which is something I can say I haven’t had much experience with. Besides Mom, Dad, and Treehugger, everypony else I’ve ever met has just tried to use me like a machine.

“Except for you guys, of course.”

“S’algood,” I hiccupped, raising up a hoof into the air, which the alicorn gently bumped with one of her own.

“From my point of view, you’re already super lucky for having a pony like that for pretty much your whole life,” she rolled her eyes, “even if you didn’t get him to mount you before he died,” I snorted, but Moonbeam carried on, ignoring it, “my point is: you can’t let yourself get wrapped up in this idea that sex is what’s important about a relationship.”

“Pfft,” I sputtered messily, then wiping my mouth with my hoof and debating another sip from the bottle in my hoof, “what would you know about it?” I winced almost immediately, only realizing how mean that had sounded after I’d said it.

Fortunately, Moonbeam seemed to be rather forgiving of my inebriated state, “I know that I have to believe that it’s possible to have somepony care about you without ever being ‘with them’ like that,” she said patiently, “otherwise, what’s a mare like me supposed to hold out for?”

The piece of my brain that had remained defiantly sober somehow clamped my mouth shut. That was a perspective that hadn’t occurred to me. I averted my gaze from the alicorn and made the conscious decision to cap the remainder of the Wild Pegasus, “sorry,” I mumbled.

“It’s alright,” Moonbeam assured me, “I get that sex is a thing for a lot of ponies―I mean, it’s how all of us got here in the first place, right? But I can’t let myself believe that it’s the only thing that brings ponies close and keeps them close. Even ponies that are super important to us.

“It’s not how we know that they care.”

“I guess. It still bothers me though―what RG did. I know it shouldn’t, but it does.”

“If you got over him helping to exterminate the Wasteland, I think you can get over this,” Moonbeam pointed out.

That was fair. In the grand scheme of things, sleeping around with mares for money was, hooves-down, the least aggregious thing that he’d ever done in his life, “yeah, I know; and I’ll be over all of this by morning. I think that he and I are through though. As a couple, I mean.”

“Because he cheated on you?”

I shook my head, “Nah, not really,” then I thought for a beat longer and shrugged, “but also, yes,” at Moonbeam’s questioning look, I endeavored to explain, “it’s like you said: sex shouldn’t be a factor in whether ponies care about us or not, and there’s nopony that’s more true for than Arginine.

“And that’s also the problem: Arginine doesn’t care. About anything.

“He’s not helping us because he believes exterminating the Wasteland is wrong. He’s doing it because he figures that giving the ponies in his stable the strongest resistance possible is the surest way to validate his life’s work and really prove that he’s helped to create the strongest and toughest―and therefore the ‘best’―ponies in Equestria. ‘Better Ponies’.

“But, more than that, he doesn’t care if we win either,” I sighed, “because that’ll either mean that the ‘best ponies’ already control the surface, or that his stable just needs to work even harder to achieve their goal. Either way, he’s perfectly fine with it.

“Arginine doesn’t actually care about me―or anypony, for that matter―he just cares about his life’s work,” I shrugged, “so, yeah...not really coltfriend material. Not the kind of pony to think about settling down with someday.

“Not that those are even the sorts of thoughts I can afford to distract myself with right now anyway, right?” I asked, glancing up at the robopony looming over me, “I’m supposed to be focused on beating RG’s stable. That’s way more important than trying to find a stallion. That can wait until we survive this whole mess.”

“That’s certainly the pragmatic way of looking at it,” Moonbeam agreed

“Yeah…” I nodded, “I should be more worried about building our army and fighting,” I took a deep breath to cleanse my thoughts and let it out slowly. I was still drunk, but that was something that would sort itself out in time, “I should call up Ramparts and ask him when I should meet him to help recruit ponies,” I reached down and started keying in the earth pony stallion’s pipbuck tag to speak with him.

“Uh,” Moonbeam cautioned, “didn’t he say that he was going to―”

My eyes went wide, and my cheeks flushed a deep crimson as sounds began to blast out from my pipbuck’s speakers the moment I opened up the com frequency. I wasn’t sure exactly what was happening at first, because it sounded like some weird combination of gibberish and growling that made me think something was clouding the frequency with noise. Except that the ‘gibberish’ became distinguishable as a series of utterances by a mare who sounded like she was in the midsts of a marathon run speaking in a foreign language of some sort. I presumed Yatima’s native zebra.

The growls, meanwhile, had a familiar sound to them as well, and I quickly identified their source as being Ramparts’ gruff baritone. Though it sounded much gruffer and more guteral than I could recall ever hearing in the past. Unlike Yatima, I couldn’t say that there was any coherent speech mingled anywhere in there, but the stallion was certainly being very loud about something that he was doing. The high-pitched squeaking of metal that was barely audible over the sounds of the two ponies suggested that other things were being loud too. I slapped my hoof onto the control for the device’s radio and closed the communication frequency.

Both of us were silent for what felt like a solid minute. I became very aware that my wings were no longer folded neatly at my sides. Curiously, I felt Moonbeam’s own alloyed wing hovering above my head as well. Then the robopony let out a synthesized cough, “...good for them.”

“...do you think that if I asked Yatima what ‘Ndiyo, ngono na mimi kama kahaba mbaya!’ meant, that she’d tell me?”

Much to my embarrassment, and in a move that I’d not done since my first black-out binger when I was twelve―Jackboot had been a rather...liberal parent―I awoke out in the middle of the Wasteland spooning an empty bottle of Wild Pegasus with my lips resting upon the opening as though I’d been suckling on it like a baby bottle. My self-consciousness was made all the more poignant by the fact that Moonbeam was still very obviously nearby, and wasn’t even making an attempt to pretend not to have noticed. If there was a saving grace, it was that it appeared I’d indeed only imbibed from the one bottle, with the other remaining completely unopened. Which boded well for my head-splitting hangover. It might very well wear off sometime before the end of the week!

“She lives!” the metal mare announced. Though her volume had not really been that loud, I winced all the same and waived my hoof in a gesture indicating for her to speak much more softly. My audible response was little more than a pained grumble that might have been words. Moonbeam smiled and leaned in more closely, as though to whisper in my ear. Then, much to my agony, she said in a much louder tone, “you overslept!”

I recoiled back, my wings fluttering in a most uncoordinated fashion as I tumbled back down to the ground, my hooves planted over my ears, “gahh! Why?!”

“Because you apparently completely shut down your transceiver last night when you accidentally ‘dropped in’ on Ramparts and his wife working on a sibling for their kid; and so I’ve been the one having to take all your messages today,” the look of satisfaction that Moonbeam was wearing on her face suggested that her scolding tone was meant more in jest than it implied she was actually angry with my recently terminated unconsciousness, “I’m not your secretary.

“But here,” the alicorn’s holographic features flickered, and suddenly she bore an uncanny resemblance to Ramparts as she played back what was obviously a recorded message that the stallion had left for me, “what, you mean just start talking and you’ll―okay: uh, Windfall, when you wake up from your ‘nap’, come on down to the Feed Bag. I’ve arranged a meeting with a few merc leaders who say they’ve got ponies they’re willing to hire out, now that we actually have the caps to make it worth their while. I figured this is something you’d like to be there for.

“Sooner’s better than later, just so you know,” there was a brief pause, “so, like, is that it, or do I have to press a button or som―?”

I was rubbing my face with both of my hooves in an effort to wipe away the hangover―which was having minimal effect, as it turned out―and trying very hard to organize my thoughts into something that made sense as I worked up a response. However, Moonbeam was not inclined to give me time to say anything, “but, wait; there’s more!”

Now she looked like her mother, “okay, Honey, when she wakes up let her know that none of us have heard anything from Arginine since he left. I already went by the casino and where he’s been working, and they haven’t seen him either. It’s ‘good riddance’ as far as Foxglove’s concerned, sure; but I just thought that Windfall might like to know. You’ll tell her when she comes around, right? Oh, and make sure she’s on her side just in case she vomits while she’s out. I had this friend in school who got so plastered one night and she passed out and then she nearly choked to death when she―”

Moonbeam shut her illusionary mouth, cutting the recording short, her features having reverted back to ‘hers’, smiling awkwardly, “Mom kind of goes off on a tangent after that, but you get the idea,” she said with a little shrug, “it’s a good thing she mentioned that too,” she added, gesturing to a spot on the ground next to me.

I glanced over and rolled my eyes. Yup, it really was the morning after my first black-out all over again, “I need a healing potion,” I murmured.

“Mom also said that if you don’t suffer the consequences, you won’t learn; so I’m not supposed to give you anything like that,” she paused for a moment, “unless I can find a way to give you a drink made of asparagus, tomato juice, and three raw eggs. I can come close to those first two things, but something tells me she didn’t mean radscorpion eggs; because three of those things are about the size of your body, so…” she shrugged, “maybe just the one then?

“That’s still a lot of egg though…”

“Fine,” I growled as I finally decided to risk getting myself up off the ground. You pass out drunk in the middle of the desert for one night, and suddenly everypony loses all their sympathy for you or something. Didn’t I just have a falling out with my lover or something? Wasn’t I supposed to get a pass on this sort of thing because of that?

I was gratified to find that I was sufficiently sober to maintain my balance while standing, though I didn’t quite want to risk flying just yet. My lips twisted into a wry smirk as I contemplated how out of practice I’d become with my drinking. Just last year I could having polished off two or three bottles of whiskey and still been fit to fly by morning. Heck, that’d been my usual evening routine!

Was this what getting old felt like? I didn’t much care for it.

“Let’s go to the bar,” I said to the alicorn robopony. Arginine still wasn’t a pony that I had much interest in seeing right now, and he was more than capable of taking care of himself. He’d probably just found some mare to fuck or something…

I winced visibly at the thought. Not because I was bothered by the notion of him sleeping around―okay, that bothered me, but not specifically in regards to that thought―but because I very quickly realized how unfair I was still being to him over this. Frankly, Arginine was probably the most asexual pony I’d ever met. If any stallion cared less about staring at flanks and flirting, then they were either a gelding or had been straight up dead for a few decades. Wherever the unicorn was, he wasn’t with another mare, that was for sure.

“Actually, I’m supposed to be getting back to the garage,” Moonbeam amended, “Foxglove wants to run more diagnostics,” the robopony’s glowing pink eyes visibly rolled in a circle, “she says she wants to make routine checks of the new partitions they set up. Make sure that Selene is staying put.”

“Yeah, okay,” I said, nodding my head. That did sound like a good idea, as annoying as it probably was for the metal mare to spend who knew how many more hours spent hooked up to the terminal, “the Feed Bag probably has a ‘no roboponies’ policy anyway.”

“You know, this place is a lot more discriminatory than I’d have thought,” Moonbeam noted, “like...ponies can literally buy other ponies in this place, but I can’t buy a drink. That’s fucked up.”

I paused and glanced up at the robopony, “...but you don’t drink...do you?”

“Well, no; but it’d be nice to have the option!” she quipped back at me in a slightly indignant tone. That was fair, I suppose.

I bid Moonbeam a brief goodbye as she split off to return to where most of our group had taken up residence, while I guide myself towards the establishment that Ramparts had indicated to meet him at. It was some time about mid to late morning, judging by how bright the overcast cloud layer was and the volume of ponies milling about the city. New Reino might never ‘sleep’, but it did experience a lull in the earlier part of the day as most of the visitors slept off their own hangovers. This was generally the time that the bona fide residents of the city who lived and worked here full time went out to do their shopping and errands before their employers had real need of them to attend to the tourists that were the life-blood of the local economy.

While my stomach was pretty adamant that it wasn’t going to tolerate anything like food quite yet, I still swung by a stall to pick up a Sparkle Cola to at least get something sloshing around in my belly to help settle things. While I was waiting for the little shop’s owner to fetch it for me, I noticed that a pair of stallions who’d been talking with each other nearby seemed to have paused their conversation a little abruptly.

My ear flicked as I heard their not-quite-whispered comments, “is that her?”

“No way...is it?”

“I mean, how many other white pegasi with blue hair do you think there are around here?”

“Good point...you gonna say anything?”

“...couldn’t hurt, right?”

Through their hushed conversation, my own internal reaction had been gradually shifting around from curious, to surprised, and finally settling onto amusement. It wasn’t like I couldn’t be recognized as being The Wonderbolt even when not wear my signature barding. That one stallion had a point after all: a pony like me was a fairly unique sight around these parts. Nor had I gone out of the way to make it any great secret of who I was―which had even come back to bite me in the flank in the past, I recalled.

“I going in,” the first stallion―a burnt orange unicorn stallion with a golden mane about twice my age―said just before departing his earth pony companion and stepping my way.

I almost managed to suppress a resigned sigh and felt my lips spreading out into a small smile. Though, it was certainly refreshing to find that there were ponies who wanted to thank me for what I was doing for the valley who I hadn’t personally pulled out of harm’s way. However, I didn’t have anything to write with, so if he wanted in autograph he’d better have brought his own pencil or something―

“Hey,” the orange stallion said, grinning down at me as he propped himself up against the side of the little stall, “how you doin’?”

It...was a bit of a flirty way to start off asking for a signature or something, but whatever, “fine. So, what would you like?”

The unicron’s green eyes widened slightly and his grin grew a little broader, “right to the point; I like that!” He leaned in uncomfortably close, “I was thinking we could go back to my place and...take you for a flight?”

Any sign of amusement immediately fell away from my face as I gave the stallion a dead-eyed stare. Seriously? He was trying to pick me up for sex? No attempt to flatter me with compliments or take me out for dinner and drinks at least? I mean, none of that would have worked anyway, but most stallions at least made the attempt; even in a town as shallow as this one, “really?”

Apparently not one to be dissuaded by what I thought was a pretty clear indication of my feelings on the matter, the burnt orange stallion pressed on with his efforts, “I mean, I’m not expecting any free rides here―heh, see what I did there? I can pay you for your time. Would two hundred caps do it?”

...that was certainly a new angle, surprisingly enough. I couldn’t remember a stallion ever just outright offering to pay me for sex. I briefly glanced at my appearance to make sure I hadn’t somehow donned any tack or a bridle while I was sloshed last night. Nope; I wasn’t dressed like most mares-of-the-evening I’d seen, so why this guy thought I was one was beyond me. I guess not every pony waited until after noon to get drunk, “not happening.”

I heard his friend snigger from behind him, drawing a brief glare from the unicorn. He snorted in his companion’s direction before looking back my way with a renewed smirk, “look, I know that’s not a whole lot compared to what you’re probably used to, but I’m not asking for a couple of hours. Fifteen minutes; tops,” I heard another, more muffled, chortle from the other stallion, to which the unicorn propositioning me didn’t react

Was all of this...supposed to make me somehow more inclined to accept his offer, I thought to myself as I felt my lips twist up into a sneer of disgust. Because, as unappealing as the prospect of being paid for sex with a complete stranger was in the first plus, I wasn’t seeing how the assurance that it would be wholly underwhelming sex was supposed to sway my thinking the other way, “definitely not happening,” I snorted, turning to leave, “bye!”

I swiped my Sparkle Cola from the counter, leaving behind a few caps in its place. Apparently, however, I hadn’t actually heard the last of him as the stallion darted around and planted himself in front of me, casting me a stern glare, “I just want a quick mount!” he insisted.

“Alright,” I deadpanned. Time to end this so that I could get on with my day. Besides, my hangover was not coping well with this little irritation.

The unicorn’s face blossomed with delighted surprise and a smile started working its way across his lips, “now that’s more like it! So, I’ve got a room at―”

Whatever he intended to say was very abruptly cut off as I flung my unopened bottle of soda up into the air and darted forward. The stallion barely had time to process that I’d made a move by the time I was directly beneath him. At which point I pushed myself upward with all four legs, a forceful flap from my wings adding additional force as the orange pony was thrown bodily into the air, flipping flank over muzzle until he once more hit the ground with a grunt, flopped out on his back.

I then proceeded to flip myself effortlessly in the air, catching my airborne Sparkle Cola as I went, and landed―none to gently―upon his stomach, forcing the air momentarily from his lungs and prompting a series of coughing gasps as he tried to recover his breath. I leaned in a glared down at the stallion, “there: a quick mount. On the house. Now leave me alone, or I’ll fuck you in a way you won’t enjoy, got it?”

The stallion wheezed and then rapidly nodded his understanding without saying another word.

“Good boy,” I flashed the unicorn a cold smile, patting him on the head as I removed myself from his gut and resumed walking away.

As I left the area, I heard his companion coming over to help the unicorn back onto his hooves, “wow, who knew that she’d have moves like that, eh?” there was a brief pause, and then, “I think that actually makes her a little hotter somehow...let’s go back to the room for another round, eh?” his friend said something that was more coughing than words but sounded approximately like an agreement.

I rolled my eye and sighed. As drunk as they must already be, they were actually going to go and have another drink? Amazing. Then I frowned. Why would it have surprised them that The Wonderbolt would know how to fight? That was, like, my whole ‘thing’!

Morons.

It didn’t take me long to find the Feed Bag, and even less time to notice Ramparts. No longer hiding away in a booth in the back of a bar, this time he was seated at what appeared to be a collection of tables that had been pushed together in order to accommodate the group of nearly a dozen ponies that were seated with him. These were presumably the mercenaries that I’d been called here to speak with. Studying the congregation from afar, I noted that the attires of most of them matched in styles and coloring to one or two others in the group. In all, I estimated that I was seeing representatives from about five unique groups of ponies-for-hire.

Though, I very quickly noticed, not all of them were actually ‘ponies’. Two of the beings seated at the tables were griffons, and at least one was a zebra. Both demographics were rare in Neighvada―especially griffons―but I guess that caps were a universal language that just about any being was willing to respond to.

Even though Ramparts wasn’t wearing his courser barding either, I was feeling a little ‘underdressed’ without Foxglove’s modified Wonderbolt attire. If nothing else, it would have helped to not make me feel as young and small as I felt while stepping amidst them. A lot of eyes instantly locked onto me when I seated myself next to my brown earth pony companion, and most of the looks that I was getting were far more critical that I appreciated.

“Ladies, gentlecolts,” Ramparts began by way of introduction, nodding his head in my direction, “this is Windfall, The Wonderbolt; and your prospective employer.”

He received hardly any reaction at all from the members of the group, though I noticed a few scowls deepen significantly. I supposed that I could understand their displeasure with being called upon by a young pegasus who was barely out of fillyhood. The patch over my scarred eye notwithstanding, I wasn’t particularly intimidating looking without my reinforced barding and twin submachineguns. If anything, the bit of black leather on my face might even make it look like I was ‘trying too hard’; especially if they didn’t think I legitimately needed it.

One of them, a burly earth pony mare dressed in refurbished combat armor that sported a crimson horseshoe, marking her as a member―and likely leader―of a local mercenary group who called themselves The Bloody Broncos, dropped her silence in favor of a derisive laugh, “this is ‘The Wonderbolt?” she leaned back in her seat and sneered at me, “aren’t you supposed to be ten feet tall and farting lightning bolts or something, kid?” this comment earna laugh from a few others as well who began to mutter similar sentiments.

I couldn’t say that I was too surprised by that kind of reaction. The fact of the matter was that I didn’t look particularly intimidating without any barding or weapons. Heck, a little pony like me probably didn’t set a lot of knees to wobbling even when I was kitted out. I wholeheartedly acknowledged that Ramparts had me beat out in the intimidating department when he was dressed in his Republic best. Arginine, too, was the kind of pony that’d make a raider think twice with just a look.

In my case, what I couldn’t accomplish through mere visual intimidation, I had to do through other means. To that end, I leveled a glare at the much larger mare, “what does it matter to you who I’m claiming to be or how big I am? You’re here because of the size of my bank balance, isn’t that right?” these were all the same mercenaries that wouldn’t even give Ramparts the time of day prior to today. They weren’t here because they wanted to protect the valley or the rest of the Wasteland, and that was assuming they even believed Arginine’s stable was any actual kind of threat at all. ‘Stable ponies’ as a rule, weren’t considered particularly dangerous to surface natives, after all.

“If you don’t want a piece of this, that’s fine,” I went on, waving a wing at the other creatures seated at the tables, “I’m sure that they’ll be more than happy to get a bigger cut,” my hoof gestured to the bar’s exit, “so you can go ahead and excuse yourself. Sorry to have wasted your time.”

The flare of the earth pony merc’s nostrils and her own baleful eyes suggested that I’d hit quite the nerve by being so casual about dismissing her and her band like this. I could see the aside glances that she was getting from the others, as they waited to see how this big, bad, commander of the Broncos was going to react to my not-so-casual slight. There were a few ways that she could save face, I figured. However, there was one means in particular that I was hoping she’d pick.

The horn of a unicorn stallion seated directly to her left lit up with a pink aura. His barding matched that of the burly mare almost perfectly. He was either one of her senior officers in her mercenary band or just a bodyguard; in either case, it was pretty clear that he wasn’t very happy about my ultimatum either. I saw the matching magical aura form around a rifle strapped across his back.

The mare jerked up out of her chair, sending it clattering across the floor.

The rest of the table, which was comprised of seasoned combat veterans who could pretty much smell a fight coming from a mile away, were all moving away pretty swiftly. They knew what was about to go down, but they also didn’t want to be dragged in, if for no other reason than because it was too risky for them to pick any particular side in this altercation. They risked either antagonizing the pony they hoped to get a small fortune in caps from, or make enemies of another mercenary company, which was pretty bad for business in general.

Inter-company feuds weren’t very profitable, after all.

Ramparts was up and ready to fight too, though I imagined that―assuming we both lived through what was about to happen―we’d be having quite the talk about my behavior later. I didn’t really care all that much about how he felt about what I was doing right now. My head was still throbbing and my emotions were running a little high on the tail of last night’s revelations. Throwing that unicorn around at the cafe had been a little cathartic; this should prove even moreso.

The two members of the Bloody Broncos were both up and ready in less than a second. The unicorn with his automatic rifle leveled at my seat, and his earth pony commander with a rather grievously stained machete clutched in her teeth. The unicorn balked as he realized that my seat was on the move, and heading directly for him at a high rate of speed. To his credit, he managed to swat it away before the wooden frame could connect with his head. That was fine, because it was simply a distraction.

Both ponies flinched as splintered pieces of wood filled the air, and then they focused back on where I’d just been. However, I was no longer there. It actually took both of them a full second to comprehend where I’d gone, since they were used to fighting grounded foes. Any other pony might have been to the left, right, or even coming at them from over or under the table. So these were the first places they checked. While I was technically coming at them from ‘over’ the table, it was substantially more ‘over’ than they were used to seeing.

I was flipping through the air at them, springing off the bar’s rafters with my hooves and diving down at the unicorn stallion with outstretched hind legs. A deft twist of my wings sent my whole body whirling through the air, smacking the rifle aside with enough force to wrench it from his magical grasp with one hoof, and carrying on the motion to strike him hard across the jaw with the other. I didn’t let up there though. He was momentarily stunned, but his magic made him very dangerous if I let him get his mental bearings. I knew nothing about his magical arsenal of spells. For all I knew, he’d be able to paralyze me with a coherent thought.

So I continued to rip into the stallion, delivering blow after blow as I spun around, windmilling him with hooves and wings alike. Most of the blows landed on his face and head, further disorienting the stallion. He was very nearly finished off when my ear twitched at the sound of the wooden floors of the bar straining beneath a shifting weight. My wings flipped out, immediately halting my twirl, and instead pumping down in an effort to flip me up and over the stumbling stallion.

I landed upon him with my back down against his and reached up to encircle his neck with my forehooves. My wings went out to either side, and with a mighty strain of my pinions, I rotated the both of us around so that our positions were switched, with his body now over top of mine. My wings flapped, continuing to help me keep my balance now that I had the much greater weight of the unicorn atop me, and I vaulted forward, towards the charging earth pony mare wielding the machete. With a flex of my back and hooves, I threw her subordinate at her.

My body followed through with the throw until I was once more oriented rightway up, hovering in the air. As I did so, my head ducked beneath my wing and I drew out my pistol. The Bloody Broncos’ commander had sidestepped the unicorn stallion with deft ease considering her massive bulk, but she drew up short in her charge now, seeing that I not only had my pistol drawn on her, but that I was also managing to backwing just out of her reach with no trouble at all even as she charged me. The fact was pretty apparent that I could move a lot faster than she could, even going backwards. This wouldn’t have been true for pretty much any earth pony or unicorn trying to backpedal on the ground.

Pegasi, however, operated under our own set of rules.

She fixed me with a glare, almost daring me to shoot her. It wasn’t hard to figure out why that might be: an outsider killing the commander of a mercenary group could become quite the issue, regardless of the politics involved. If the leader was well-respected, then the rest of her group would undoubtedly come after the killer, seeking to avenge their beloved former leader. Even if they were despised, whoever assumed command would want to make sure that the word didn’t get around that ponies could just kill them and not have to worry about reprisals either.

If I shot her dead, here and now, the Blood Broncos would come after me, regardless of who might have pulled a weapon first.

That’s what made mercenaries such a dangerous element, honestly. Their chief bargaining tool was their company’s reputation. If ponies weren’t intimidated by them, then they were the next best thing to worthless. It was connected to why they wore such easily recognizable uniforms, unlike a ganger’s sense of solidarity. Mercenaries wanted to be recognizable to avoid fights. Fighting cost ammunition, which cost money. If you could complete a protection contract without firing a shot because raiders recognized who you were, and were intimidated enough by your reputation for being superb fighters, you made more money.

I’d already experienced first-hoof what getting on the bad side of a mercenary band could lead to, and I had no desire to relive it. Besides, I felt that I’d basically made my point to both this mare, as well as the other merc leaders present.

So I holstered my pistol again, “so now that you’ve established that one tiny little pegasus is more capable than the best two fighters that the Broncos have to offer,” I growled at the mare, noting the scattered amused chuckles from the other mercenary leaders who were once more seating themselves at the table, “you can either sit down and listen to the contract, or go home and plot your revenge. On the chance that you’re inclined to pick the latter, I want you the remember that the Lancers are conspicuously absent from...well, Neighvada.

“Please don’t make The Wonderbolt have to wipe out another mercenary company,” I paused for a moment and then nodded at the others, “though I bet that they’d be happy to have even fewer groups competing for contracts around here. Isn’t that right?” I piped up, directing the question at the now seated ponies.

“Sit down, Licorice Whip,” a slender unicorn mare wearing some leather barding that, in my opinion, offered...questionable protection from harm. It did a lot to flatter her figure though, “if you didn’t research the client, that’s on you, not her,” the unicorn mare shifted her violet eyes to me, “I, for one, want to hear what the Wonderbolt―of all ponies―could possibly need help with.

“From what I’ve heard, you’ve taken on jobs that most of us wouldn’t send in anything less than a platoon-sized element to take of. Don’t tell me that the zebras are about to invade here too,” she cast a glance at the lone striped figure in the group, “anything you want to tell us, Keri?”

The zebra, a stallion with broad stripes that barely extended much past his own backside returned the unicorn mare’s gaze with a stoic look that would give Arginine a run for his money and and shrugged, “if war was to come, then it would come as the wind; silent and swiftly.”

“Ah, so like one of my first husband’s orgasms,” the unicorn giggles, “noted!”

“If it’s a long and loud night yer after there, Hemlock,” a heavily scarred earth pony stallion seated a few chairs down from the leather-bound mare piped in, “the lads and I would be happy to oblige!” he and the stallion next to him shared a hardy laugh and a hoof-bump.

She rolled her eyes, her smile still curling her lips, “oh, so you’re a crier too? I should introduce you to my third husband then; you two would have a lot in common,” this prompted a chuckle from a few of the others at the table, and a grumble from the scarred stallion.

Sensing that most of the tension had finally been lifted, Ramparts cleared his throat rather loudly to get their attention, “if we’re all done with the dick-waving, metaphorical and otherwsie?” his glare lingered on me for a second or two as well, earning a frown. The fight hadn’t been my fault! Heck, I’d even ended it without killing anypony! Right?

I glanced at the unicorn stallion, who was still laying on the floor. His chest was rising and falling, so he was breathing. Though, even a swift kick from his commander didn’t seem to do much to revive him. She scowled again and snorted in his direction, resuming her seat at the table and leaving him to lay motionless on the floor. He was alive though! I flitted over to the table, snagging the unicorn’s chair as I went since he wasn’t using it anymore, and plopped back down next to Ramparts.

The leather-bound unicorn mare, Hemlock, didn’t drop her whiley smirk, but she did at least begin the discussion by asking a serious question, “very well. So, what’s the job, Wonderbolt?”

“There’s a stable in the western mountain range,” I informed them, “they’re going to launch an attack on the surface any day now. I’m hoping that we can organize some sort of first strike before they’re ready for a fight.”

“Figures,” the larger of the two seated griffons grumbled, “more stable ponies stirring up trouble. First that Stable Dweller bitch starts parading around, ruining a good thing a lot of us had going back in Manehattan, then we hear about some other stable mare in Hoofington starting the war with the zebras all over again or something, now we’ve got a whole stable that wants to start shit?”

I looked over to the pair of griffons, focusing on the larger hen that had spoken. She looked more raider than mercenary, to be honest, as most of her beak looked to have been cleaved off at some point, replaced with a none-too-aesthetic steel prosthetic that look like it had been made by hammering sheet metal into the rough approximation of a beak. Her armor was worn and battered, as was that of her smaller tiercel companion. A faded silver profile of a griffon head was stenciled on their chest pieces, an emblem that I didn’t recognize at all from my years in the valley.

“That’s about the gist of it, Miss…?” I didn’t particularly care for her appraisals of the other two mares I heard DJ Pon3 praising during her broadcasts, but I wasn’t going to comment on it either. I could sort of see how ponies trying to make the Wasteland an overall safer place could be bad for the mercenary industry. They pretty much depended on a certain level of chaos being maintained, so that they’d always have clients needing their serviced for protection and such. For my part, I was hedging my bets on the notion that they’d also realize they’d need a surviving populace in order to stay employed too.

They could hate me for making Neighvada safer later, assuming I somehow managed to pull something like that off.

“Griselda,” she replied curtly, “my company’s the Razor Beaks,” her gaze flashed along the other gathered mercenaries who were all regarding her now, “yeah, we’re new to the area, but don’t worry; we don’t plan on staying long. We just need to earn some caps for supplies and we’ll be out of your feathers―er, manes―or whatever.”

I cocked my head to the side, “so what brought you here in the first place?”

The griffon hen studied me in silence for a few long moments, considering whether or not she was even going to answer my question at all. Apparently, she decided that the query was harmless enough and not worth antagonizing a client over, “we came here as a favor to another griffon I knew back east: Scratch. He sent me a message, said he was setting up shop in Neighvada and wanted some muscle he could trust.

“Then I finally get here, and I find out he’s already dead―shot right in his office!” she snarled, sounding more annoyed than anything else. Knowing of only the one griffon who had ever taken up residence in New Reino who could have possibly been in a position to hire out an entire company of mercenaries, I made a concerted effort to keep my expression as impassive as possible. To the best of my knowledge, my involvement in Scratch’s death was still completely unknown to anypony, and I was especially keen to keep it that way at this precise moment, “and of course this damn desert is already rife with mercs,” she waved a clawed hand at the other representatives seated with us, “so contracts are hard to come by. So I figure I’ll go back to Hoofington. I hear there are ponies just throwing caps and gear at any creature that’s willing to help them fight both the zebras and that Security bitch!

“I just have to actually get us there first,” she finished with another irritated growl, “if nothing else, wiping out a stable full of ponies should take care of our provisions for the trip...” she and her companion shared a snigger, the tiercel licking his beak and casting a glance at the gathered equines.

Mine was one of several wary expressions. I’d certainly heard that griffons didn’t care much for vegetables in their diets, but it hadn’t crossed my mind that they’d be quite so, um...versatile in their diets where sources of meat were concerned, “right…”

I suppressed a small shudder at the thought of any thinking, talking, creature eating another and tried to power onward with my description of the duties I intended to hire them for, “fair warning: these ponies aren’t pushovers. They’ve got a lot of advanced tech―magical energy weapons mainly―and they’ve been preparing to invade the surface for a long time, so they know how to fight.”

“You’re not very good at negotiating,” Hemlock noted with a smirk, “that right there is going to drive our asking price up a fair bit. You know that, don’t you?”

“I also know how us surfacers tend to feel about stable ponies: that they’re weak and ignorant,” I pointed out, seeing a few nods from a the other mercenaries, “I don’t want you guys walking in there thinking this is going to be a cake job and get overpowered when you discover that these stable ponies actually know which end of a gun makes the ‘boom’ sound.

“This is a fight we need to win the first time, because we probably won’t get any second chances.”

“So what’s the offer?” Licorice Whip sneered, still looking at me like she’d have liked nothing more than to strangle me with my own intestines.

Ramparts spoke up this time, “We’ll take however many fighters you’re willing to provide for forty-thousand caps apiece. Half paid now, half when the stable is destroyed,” the courser informed them, “there will also be full salvage rights on any arms, gear, or equipment, that you wish to claim from the stable.”

The burly earth pony mare started cackling now, “forty thousand?! HA!” she stood back up and turned for the door, “I can’t believe that you even bothered calling the Bloody Broncos here for anything less than six figures. The rest of you lot might be in the business of charity work, but we’re too busy with real jobs that actually pay something!” she reached down and snagged her still unresponsive subordinate with her teeth and tossed him onto her back, stomping out of the bar as the rest of us watched.

I found myself biting my lip. I’d thought that nearly a quarter of a million caps would have been more than enough to hire a substantial number of mercenaries! If this amount wasn’t going to cut it, then what could I possibly do to―

Hemlock was laughing now too, and I felt my ears wilt as I sensed another of these groups was about to walk out the door. However, there wasn’t anything particularly derisive about her mirth, “I wondered how Whippy was going to weasel out of this one,” she chortled, wiping away at the corners of her eyes where her laughter had begun to generate tears. That was when she noticed my look of abject worry and confusion and her laughter redoubled in intensity.

Fortunately, the scarred stallion seemed perfectly willing to explain things to me on her behalf, “don’ mind Licorice. After the trouncing you gave her and her boy, there really wasn’t any way she could accept yer contract. She’d look like she was strong-hoofed into it, and that would play havoc with her crew. They’d lose respect for’er.

“So she had to find a way to refuse, but not look like she was just upset that you outfought her. Saying the contract wasn’t paying enough won’t ruffle anypony’s tails in her crew, and it makes it look like her groups doing well enough to turn down even high-paying gigs if they don’t like the smell of ‘em.”

I brightened up a bit, “‘high-paying’? You think this is a ‘high-paying’ contract?”

“Assuming that main course’s leaving means we’re all getting fifty thou now...” Griselda cast a questioning glance at Ramparts, who nodded in the affirmative, “then you’ve got my whole company: sixty-odd griffons and a half-dozen pegasi,” she glanced at her companion, “how about that, we’ll be out of this hellhole after just one job!”

“If the duty’s pay, fifty kilocaps exceeds, Hecate three score.”

I blinked at the zebra, the brow of my scarred over eye threatening to crawl all the way up into my mane as I tried to puzzle out what he’d just said. He was harder to figure out than Arginine!

“He’ll give you sixty ponies,” Hemlock translated, “I’m afraid that I’m going to have to low-ball you guys and only chip in thirty from the Harlots of Hades. Most of us are already on contract with New Reino,” she offered an apologetic shrugged.

“Aye, you’ll only be getting two dozen o’ my boys too fer the same reason,” the scarred stallion said, “but know that every Housecarl is worth three o’ any of these rabble,” he jerked his head in the direction of the other mercenary leaders, his teeth gleaming in a wide grin as they frowned at him.

I did a quick tally in my head. That brought our numbers up to just over one hundred and eighty ponies, including our own group. I still hadn’t heard any word on what Homily was going to be able to round up to help us, or how many might have responded to our call for volunteers, but I doubted it would be more than a couple dozen. There was just too much going on in the valley to hope that many more ponies than that would have nothing better to worry about than helping The Wonderbolt fight. So, if we were lucky, that gave us the better part of two hundred able fighters. Not too shabby, I thought, daring to be just a little optimistic. There was no telling how it would be able to compare to whatever Arginine’s stable, but I felt like it was a respectable showing, if nothing else.

Ramparts and I exchanged looks, and I saw the courser give me a curt little nod. He at least seemed to think that we were getting a good bargain. I turned back to address the mercenaries, “alright, agreed. You’ll all have the twenty-five thousand caps on you by the end of the week,” Double Down would need at least that long to cash out all of Jackboot’s―my―holdings, “I’ll need those ponies to be in Shady Saddles as quickly as possible. We’re moving out for their stable in…about ten days.”

“We’ll fly there the moment we’ve got our caps.”

“Shady Saddles? I’ll have to send word ahead to my second husband to reserve me a suite at the inn...or I could just stay at his place,” the unicorn giggled.

“Beckoning battles, becoming the desert wind; timely rendezvous.”

“Somepony better tell the bars there to stock up on their liquor, so my boy don’t drink the town dry!”

We bumped hooves―and talons―and the mercenary commanders made their departure in order to assemble the promised troops, leaving me and Ramparts alone in the now empty bar. I slumped back in my seat and let out a long, relieved, sigh, “we’re finally on track,” I said, allowing myself a little smile.

“I can’t speak for the griffons, but the other three groups have solid reputations,” Ramparts agreed, “two hundred is about what I expected to get for the funds we have. Although,” I felt myself wince at the newly acquired critical tone in his voice, “I think we should have avoided antagonizing the Broncos. Especially after seeing what lengths the Lancers were willing to go when you crossed them.”

“The Lancers were more raider than merc,” I rebutted primly, “I don’t think anypony’s sad to see them gone. As for the Broncos, well, I guess I could have handled that a little better. Maybe,” I acknowledged.

“You all but pushed those two into a fight,” the earth pony said, regarding me with a stern expression, “and all because they, what? Basically said you weren’t what they expected?”

I averted my gaze and frowned. Okay, so maybe Licorice Whip’s comments hadn’t been particularly disparaging or anything like that. I could certainly think of a lot worse things that ponies had said about me over the years.

“Is this something to do with Arginine?”

“What? No!” I snapped at the stallion, and then immediately winced. That sort of response wasn’t particularly suited to convincing somepony that they hadn’t struck a nerve, “he’s the furthest thing from my mind right now,” I insisted, not liking that Ramparts didn’t seem as convinced as I’d have preferred, “I just felt like I had to prove to them I could hold my own.”

“Windfall, mercenaries don’t care about that sort of thing,” the former courser sighed, “as long as you’ve got caps, they genuinely couldn’t care less about how capable their client’s are. Do you think all of the New Reino casino barons are super bad-flank fighters?” I thought back to Tommyknocker, who had looked like the only adversary he regularly defeated in battle was a pallet of Sugar Apple Bombs, “exactly.

“So, if something’s up, and it’s something that’s going to keep steering you towards knee-jerk reactions like that; I’d like to know what it is. Because we can’t have you doing anything impulsive when we confront that stable. Understand?”

My lips curled back into a grimace. Ramparts certainly had a point, there was no denying that. However, at the same time, I genuinely wasn’t feeling bothered by anything related to Arginine. At least, not enough to have prompted me antagonizing that big mare earlier, “I’m just...tense, I guess. Like you said: we’ve got a really important fight coming up. One that we can’t afford to lose.

“I guess it’s eating at me a little.”

That answer at least seemed to satisfy the stallion, “that much I can understand. It feels like a lot of us have emotions running high right now,” he let out a heavy sigh, “every time we get one problem solved―like Moonbeam and Selene―it seems like another pops up,” the earth pony looked over at me, “and this latest mess with you, Arginine, and Foxglove, is something that could get a lot worse before it gets better.”

“I already told you: Arginine and I don’t have a problem,” I insisted. Then I frowned as I processed the other individual that he’d included, “and what’s Foxglove have to do with it?”

Ramparts frowned now, “what she went through in that orb...it shook her up a lot more than she’s saying. When both of us were in there, it was like we were aware of each other’s thoughts. I could feel exactly how much those memories were affecting her,” he swallowed, “it was...pretty bad.”

I now recalled that the courser was a relatively new addition to our ranks. He’d might not have spent enough time talking with Foxglove to be aware of her history like Jackboot and I had. In fact, I wasn’t sure if she’d ever spoken about her Wasteland experiences with anypony else since. As a result, I wasn’t sure how much I had a right to tell on her behalf, but Ramparts should know something of what she went through to give him context about what she was feeling the other night, “Foxglove was a slave when I first met her. Jackboot and I helped her escape. She used to be owned by one of the barons, who had her ‘entertain’ his guests.”

“Ah,” the stallion said simply, nodding, “I see. That certainly explains it. If I’d’ve known that, I would have stuck around last night. How’s she doing?”

I shrugged, “I guess she’s alright. I mean, I assume she is. I haven’t spoken to her today,” Ramparts cast me a disapproving glance, “what? She didn’t seem like she wanted to talk!”

“Wanting to talk and needing to talk are two different things,” the stallion affirmed and then sighed, “I’ll have a word with her later. For now: you and Arginine.”

“Ugh! I already told you that there’s no problem! Was I upset? Yeah! But then I thought about it and I realized that it was more my fault than his. He doesn’t know about how regular ponies see things, and his stable is really weird about a lot of stuff.

“He didn’t know that he was ‘cheating’ on me, and he was just trying to help.”

Ramparts kept his expression neutral as I spoke. When I was done, he merely nodded and prompted, “so, you two are still together?”

I squirmed slightly, “well...no. I guess we’re not. At least, I think it’s best that I end the...intimate stuff. It’s not like I want him to go away or anything. He’s just...not coltfriend material, you know?”

“I certainly suspected,” the stallion quipped, his lip turning up in a wry smirk that bordered dangerously close to ‘I told you so’ territory, prompting a scowl from me.

“Look, I already got an earful from Moonbeam last night; and―Celestia, help me―I bet Foxglove is going to have some things to say too. The bottom line is that who I do what with is my business.”

“I’d be inclined to agree,” the stallion said, nodding, “unless it starts affecting your judgement and leading to stunts like that one,” he gestured at the vacant table and the destroyed chair, “at that point, it becomes an issue for all of us.”

“Arginine had nothing to do with that,” I insisted.

“If you say so,” Ramparts threw up his hooves in mock surrender, but his expression was far from amused, “but I suggest that you figure out exactly what is bothering you, then, and address it. We need you cool and clear-headed for what’s ahead if we’re going to win this thing.”

I supposed that I couldn’t argue with the stallion too much on that point. In hindsight, challenging that mare was more likely to have ended poorly for us than in our favor, and I wasn’t just talking about the fight itself. She’d just really irritated me. Maybe it was just the hangover still talking, but I didn’t like her baiting me like she had.

I let out a sigh, “fine, yeah, whatever. I’ll keep us out of trouble from now on.”

“Good. It was hard enough to find interested mercenary companies as it was; we can’t afford to antagonize them like that too often.”

“Do you think we have enough?” I posed to the earth pony, trying not to sound too concerned. Not that we had any funds left to approach any additional groups, but Ramparts was correct that we would need prospective companies to have heard positive things about our hiring practices if we ever did try to recruit more of them.

He didn’t immediately answer, which wasn’t a great sign, I decided, “in a straight fight with ponies built like Arginine? No,” well, that was about as discouraging as it could have gotten. I frowned at the stallion, but he continued on with a caveat, “however, if we get to choose the time, location, and deployment, of the battle, we’ll have a better than even chance, I think. You’ve proven that they’re as vulnerable to surprise and a blitz attack just like anypony else.

“Honestly, our best case scenario is to catch them still in their stable. We’d be able to bottle them up,” he frowned now too, “I don’t think a true siege would work, since they’d just be trapped in a self-sufficient bunker, so they couldn’t actually be starved out or anything. But we would at least be able to keep them from conducting any worthwhile attacks until we figured out some other way to get at them or wreck their stable.”

“Maybe we could gas them,” I suggested, remembering what I’d seen these ponies do when trying to invade a stable themselves.

“Possible. There’s a lot we won’t know until we see their stable for ourselves, but getting there before they come out is key. If they go on the offensive first…” Ramparts shook his head and said nothing further.

I grimaced. True, we’d emerged victorious in the past when confronting ponies from Arginine’s stable, but we’d had surprise on our side. Either because Arginine had betrayed them, or because they hadn’t been prepared to counter an airborne threat.

My eyes widened at that thought.

With those griffons, we had a pretty sizeable air force at our disposal, which was something that no many other groups in the valley could say. It was also something that we knew those stable ponies had trouble with. Griselda’s company might be our ace in the hole. If her griffons and pegasi were at least half the fliers that I was, they’d be able to fly circles around those grounded ponies, and arcane weapons actually made for pretty poor counters to an air assault. They were slower to fire, on average, than conventional weapons, and their brilliant beams made it easy to see where the user was firing and avoid them.

“We might not be as screwed as you think…” I said, casting the brown earth pony courser a wry grin.

“I’m getting the initial reports back from my team at the hangar,” Homily’s voice crackled over my pipbuck’s transmitter as she gave me her report, “it looks like the problem was that one of those settler groups that moved into the dump tore down the communications tower that the place had been using to stay in contact with McMaren. My team’s working on building a replacement.”

“How long will that take?” getting those drones into the fight would effectively cement our victory over those stable ponies. They’d been built with the intent to use them to fight off the whole of the zebra military. I refused to believe that they couldn’t handle a single stable’s worth of ponies.

“Hard to really say: two weeks...three? It depends on whether they can find a suitable dish in the yard or if they have to build one from scratch,” the radio jockey informed me, “I’ve put word out to prospectors in the valley that McMaren’s in the market for a dish and that we’re paying top cap for it, but who knows when somepony will come by with one that’ll work?”

“But that’s the only hold up; the dish?”

“It’s the only hold up at the moment,” the mare stressed, “we can’t know that the two facilities will be able to communicate seamlessly until we have the ability to even try. We could run into all sorts of bugs and glitches after that,” she warned, “these two places have gone two hundred years without maintenance, remember?”

“I’ve really been on a roll here with good news, Homily; please don’t be the pony to end my streak. We could really use those drones, and I’d especially like to have them before that stable makes their move,” an ace up my barding in the form of them griffons was nice and all, but those drones would be the ultimate trump card in this fight!

“Hey, I just don’t want you to think they’ll be ready at the drop of a horseshoe,” the earth pony countered, “I’m an engineer, not Princess Celestia returned.”

I let out a heavy sigh, “I know, I know. I just...we’re up against the clock, but I don’t know how much time is left and it’s really starting to get to me.”

“I understand,” Homily said, and then was silent for a moment before quietly adding, “we’re getting more reports, by the way; White Hoof sightings in the valley.”

“Celestia,” I snarled, “that’s the last thing we need: the White Hooves raiding again…”

“That’s just it, there haven’t been reports of anypony actually being attacked by the White Hooves. Ponies have just seen them. Small groups here and there, all heading east. It’s like they’re all going somewhere beyond the valley.”

I felt a small knot form in my gut, “...or they’re just trying to get out of the valley,” it was a depressingly short list, the things that would prompt the valley’s oldest denizens to spontaneously emigrate somewhere else.

Homily didn’t have a response that time. She was thinking the same thing that I was: that it might already be too late to box in Arginine’s stable. On the other hoof, “we know they recently underwent a change in leadership,” I pointed out. I’d actually be present for the event, “this could all just be the new chief purging threats,” I had to believe that was the case if I wanted to hold onto my optimism.

“Maybe,” Homily agreed, “hopefully. I’ll keep an ear out.”

“I appreciate that. Thanks, Homily.”

“No problem. Stay safe, okay? All of you.”

“Will do. Windfall, out,” I cut the transmission. With a sigh, I let myself slump back against the slightly mildewy couch in the shed that we were all still staying at while in New Reino. I wasn’t sure which of the two most likely possibilities I was dreading more: that the White Hooves were on the move and raiding again while the valley was just about to have to deal with a serious crisis…

...or that they weren’t.

“Please just be a power struggle,” I murmured under my breath.

“We’ll need to be ready in case it isn’t,” that point was made by Foxglove, who was just now beginning to disconnect the leads that she’d had plugged into Moonbeam in order to conduct the most recent of her diagnostics. The violet mechanic was satisfied with the firmware changes that they’d made to Selene, and saw no sign of the AI trying―or that it even could―to retake control of Starlight’s daughter; much to the profound relief of both Old World ponies.

“We just recruited nearly two hundred of the toughest mercenaries in Neighvada,” I responded dryly, “that’s as ‘ready’ as we’re ever going to get,” especially since the Steel Rangers and the Republic weren’t going to be offering up their support any time soon, “it’s not like I’m really ‘worried’ about the White Hooves, per say. The worst they’ll do is raid a few caravans or farms. I just don’t want them to become some sort of distraction that ponies are going to expect the Wonderbolt to do something about.”

“Especially when the valley hears about you hiring on an army?” Starlight asked.

“Exactly. If Ramparts is right and most of the ponies in Neighvada really don’t see Arginine’s stable as much of a huge threat, then they’ll probably assume I’m recruiting all these mercenaries to go out and finally deal with the White Hoof threat once and for all. After all: sightings of White Hooves are on the rise. That’s got to have the whole valley on edge.

“They’re almost certainly expecting me to be doing something about it,” I said, shaking my head in resignation. In the end, any grief ‘The Wonderbolt’ might get for not dealing with the ‘White Hoof threat’ soon enough was immaterial. I knew what the real threat was, and so did the ponies I was hiring. Once Arginine’s stable was dealt with, then I could go ahead and clear out whatever was left of those tribals once and for all.

If Homily’s ponies got those drones in the MoA hangar working again, I’d be able to clear out the White Hooves in pretty short order.

Heck, I wouldn’t even have to stop there. With a thousand machines that could do what I’d seen Moonbeam unleash on those Rangers the other day? I’d be able to eradicate the White Hooves, every gang or raider group, Ebony Song, and any other group in the Neighvada Valley that was causing problems.

There wasn’t any reason I’d need to limit myself to this one little valley either. It sounded like Hoofington and Manehattan could make good use of a thousand Luna-bots. Who knew how many other places in the Wasteland that I hadn’t even heard about might need us too?

By this time next year, maybe I’d be able to actually fix the Wasteland!

I found myself frowning slightly now. The concept of sweeping the Wasteland and removing every raider, ganger, slaver, and violet monster from the face of the world, thereby securing the safety and security of all the good and decent ponies in it, is the aspiration of pretty much every pony who’d ever styled themselves a hero, from the Mare-Do-Well and Lone Ranger of yesteryear, to the Stable Dweller and Security Mare of today! I would soon have the ability to do what ponies like them could only have dreamed of! It was the ultimate good.

...so then why did I sense so many tiny eyes looking upon me with disappointment?

“―right, Windfall?” I heard somepony who sounded very far away saying, “...Windfall?”

I shook my head and look over to Foxglove, who was now standing much closer to me, a look of concern beginning to spread across her face, “I’m sorry, what were you saying? I’m still a little hung over,” I lied, rubbing the front of my head.

The emerald-eyes unicorn frowned, but repeated to question, “I said: we are going to deal with the White Hooves at some point though, right?”

“Of course! Heck, I might even be able to talk one or two of those merc companies into detouring into White Hoof territory right after we finish off Arginine’s Stable,” unlikely, but there was a possibility of it. Funding might be a bit of an issue, since I was effectively back to being as broke now as I’d been a week ago. But, “we’ll have just gotten our hooves on a whole bunch of weapons and barding and stuff from the stable. Why not put them right to use doing some good for the valley?”

Griselda and her griffons would almost certainly not go for it, of course. The Razor Beaks didn’t have any stake in Neighvada and would likely just want to go back east as soon as they felt like they could. I wasn’t even going to try to pretend I had a clue what went through that zebra stallion’s head. Hemlock didn’t strike me as being of a ‘noble’ disposition, but I still might be able to negotiate some sort of accommodation with her. As for the Housecarl’s...I was confident that I’d be able to appeal to them in such a way that they’d take on the job with me.

In any case, I received a much more positive response from Foxglove than I had from my own inner demons, the violet unicorn smiling broadly, “that’s good to hear,” she thought for a moment and then chuckled, “you know, if you do become known as the mare that ended the wHite Hoof threat to Neighvada once and for all, ponies in the valley might start to think of the Wonderbolt as more than just some folk hero.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Ponies respond to a leader who produces results,” she said, “that’s why Homily and the rest of us follow you, after all.”

I felt my cheeks warm slightly, clearing my throat, “I mean, Homily doesn’t follow me exactly…”

“You’re joking, right? Everypony in McMaren would do anything you asked them to,” Foxglove pointed out, “they idolize you for all you’ve done for them. Getting rid of the White Hooves would earn you that kind of clout with most of the valley. They ponies of Shady Saddles would hold a festival in your honor, for sure!”

“That’s a bit over-the-top, don’t you think?”

“I’m not so sure,” this time it was Starlight who spoke up, drawing the attention of both of us, “you’d be surprised how often ponies elect to follow somepony’s directions just because it’s clear they have the power or ability to protect them,” her expression soured somewhat now, “none of the Ministry Mares had anything that might be called ‘formal’ leadership experience, but they all jumped into action, and had the ear of the Princesses, so most ponies didn’t hesitate to follow their orders to the letter.”

I wasn’t sure if I liked being compared to those mares any more than the pink unicorn mare appeared to like making that comparison, given the state of the world that those six ponies had led their followers into creating; but I at least acknowledged her point, “just so we’re clear: I’m not trying to become the leader of anypony, alright? I’m just...trying to make the Wasteland a better place,” I said with an anemic shrug.

Starlight smirked, “that already makes you a much better leader than any of the Ministry Mares in my book.”

I offered the pair of ponies a smile. Moonbeam was up and about now, craning her metal head in our direction, “you couldn’t be any worse than Ebony Song!”

All four of us shared a chuckle, “I guess that’s high praise?” I posed, earning a redoubled laugh from the others.

It was about that time when we all heard the garage’s main door eek open. We all turned now to see a familiar gray head poke through, followed shortly by the rest of his great bulk. The stallion turned his golden gaze in our direction, focusing specifically on Foxglove―whose expression had instantly soured―as he seemed to be appraising how well his return might be received by the rest of us.

I let out another sigh. Well, I suppose that this wasn’t a confrontation that could have been put off forever. Sensing that Foxglove had grown quite tense, and seemed like she was going to once more launch herself at the stallion at any moment, I raised a wing and gently brushed her shoulder. The violet mare glared at me for a brief moment before her features softened―slightly. She looked back to Arginine, snorted hotly in his direction, and finally turned away, heading for the shed’s workbench, “I’ve got some projects to finish,” she growled.

That was probably the best that I could hope for, honestly. Starlight smiled wryly and stepped over to lend the mare a hoof. Meanwhile, Moonbeam was pretending―badly―to be looking through one of Homily’s old technical magazines. As the publication was floating in front of her upside down, I was dubious as to how much sense she was making of the articles.

For myself, I stepped out into the garage and walked up to the stallion, “welcome back,” I began, “Starlight said that you’d been out all night,” there was a slightly pause before I managed my question, but I somehow brought it out, “were you...out working, or…?”

“My understanding was that our financial situation had been resolved,” Arginine said, quirking his head at a slight angle, “was I in error? Should I have resumed my vocation?”

“No!” I immediately winced at the urgency with which I’d responded and began again in a much more controlled tone, “no, you don’t need to go back to...whatever you were doing.”

“Engaging in sexual congress with other ponies,” the stallion supplied, as though he thought that I wasn’t aware of the details that his ‘job’ had entailed. I glared at him. To his credit, Arginine managed to even look almost slightly cowed. Given how little of his emotions actually made it all the way to his expression, he was probably feeling genuinely ashamed of himself. That realization did a lot to sooth my own rising annoyance. I once more reminded myself that he hadn’t meant anything malicious with anything that he’d done. Quite to the contrary, he’d been doing his utter best to help us.

I shouldn’t hate him for that, “yeah, that. We’re good on money,” I assured him, “in fact, Ramparts and I just secured almost two hundred mercenaries.”

Arginine’s lips tensed, “you believe those numbers will be sufficient?”

“Honestly? Probably not,” I was forced to admit, “but it’s the best that we’ll be able to do. It’d take years to raise enough money to matter, and I’m going to guess that your stable won’t give us that kind of time?”

“No, they will not.”

“Then there you have it,” I shrugged, “hopefully, with your inside knowledge, and Ramparts’ tactical expertise, we’ll be able to make those numbers really count,” I paused, and then sought the answer to my original question yet again, “so where were you last night, if you weren’t...earning caps?” was I really so immature that I still couldn’t bring myself to talk about exactly how he’d been doing it? Though, I supposed it was better to obfuscate than risk blurting something less kind like, ‘fucking around’.

“I was under the impression that my presence would not be appreciated,” the stallion noted, nodding his head in the direction of the shed. Both of us ignored the synthesized chortle from the nearby metal alicorn. Arginine continued by floating a small sac out from one of his saddlebags and passing it to me, “I also sought to correct an action I now realize might not be well received.”

Now quite curious, I stretched out a wing and collected the offered cloth sac, hearing it clink around as it was released into the grasp of my pinions. From the sound and feel, I immediately recognized what the contents must be, but I opened it up and peered inside just to confirm. Sure enough: I beheld a half dozen faintly glowing memory orbs.

I looked back up at the stallion, “you went out and collected all the orbs you made?”

Arginine actually blinked in surprise, “should I have? I’m not sure that would be possible. Approximately three hundred orbs that feature me in some capacity were distributed prior to last night. Even if it were somehow possible to track down their locations―assuming they have not already been resold by their original purchasers―I am quite positive that we now lack the funds to buy them all back. That also assumes that all of their owners are willing to part with them.

“Unless you are suggesting that I should retrieve them by force?”

“What? No! I’m not saying tha―wait, three hundred?! How did you eve―not important!” I forced myself to take a deep breath and calm myself. Once I was again confident that I was composed, I rephrased my question, “okay, if these aren’t all the orbs you made, then what is on them?” Surely he wasn’t trying to ply me with porn. Arginine was that dense…

“You,” the stallion answered with a nod, “those are the orbs that were made from my extracted memories of our fornication the other night.”

I heard the sound of a magazine dropping to the floor, followed by a not-so-quiet, “oh, fuck!”

“Exactly,” Arginine confirmed without even a trace of sarcasm.

“I’m sorry, what?” I managed to finally ask, my eyes not having budged from the tall gray stallion.

“Do you not recall? After dinner the other night, the two of us retired to a room above the Flash in the Pan Casino where we proceeded to engage in numerous sexual activities for the next two hours and―”

“I know what we did!” I snapped at the stallion, only peripherally aware that there was at least one other pair of eyes regarding our conversation from the direction of the shed. The next words out of my mouth were said in a very strained tone as I attempted―valiantly―to keep myself restrained, “what I want to know is: why your memories of...us were even on memory orbs in the first place!” Well, at least I’d almost kept my cool, “when did you even do this?”

“I returned to the production studio immediately after you passed out,” Arginine responded. For a supposedly super-advanced breed of pony, his self preservation sense was the least refined that I’d ever seen in a stallion, “my supervisor was constantly lamenting the lack of pegasi performers under his employ. He repeatedly mentioned that customers responded well to ‘exotic’ partners, like zebras and griffons.

“I knew that I’d be able to get a large number of caps for my memories of our sexual encounter,” the stallion continued, apparently quite oblivious to my utterly stupefied expression, “that was why I utilized such a variety of positions and techniques, in order to capitalize on the opportunity. It worked out very well, in fact.

“I received five thousand caps for the memories. I was about to say as much yesterday, but Miss Foxglove interrupted me,” Arginine gestured to the sac that was still being held in my not quivering pinions, “it actually took a good bit on convincing to return the caps for those orbs; but I was very insistent.”

Silence hung in the air. Mostly because I was still trying to figure out where I was going to begin with all of this! Where was I even supposed to start? Was it with the fact that he’d sold his memories of fucking me for caps? Did I bring up how indescribably wrong it was for him to have apparently gone into the whole thing thinking about how best he could make money off of what we were doing?

Yeah, let’s start with that one, I decided, seething. Let’s start with how it was bad enough that he didn’t even care about sex as it was, but that he was so dispassionate as to be thinking the whole time about using me to make caps!

“You pimped me out?!”

“Oh, this is going to turn into a murder―”

“Shut up, Moonbeam!” I screamed, whirling around and hurling the sac of glass orbs at the alicorn in a fit of rage. The metal mare winced, but a cyan barrier sprang up an instant before they would have hit her, shattering into an explosion of shards and wisps of memory against the magical wall that her mother had thrown up to protect her daughter. Likely more out of instinct than any thought that those memory orbs could have genuinely damaged the combat drone.

I wheeled back on the stallion, “do you have any idea how wrong all of that was?!”

“I did not, until you informed me of as much last night,” his calm response even in the face of my blatant rage was somehow so much more infuriating.

And yet...he had a point. A damnable, insufferable, point: he hadn’t known. He had been genuinely ignorant of the fact that I might have been upset by what he was doing. As much as I needed him to, Arginine somehow didn’t actually deserve my ire.

At best, all I could actually ding him on was, “well, you would have if you’d mentioned what you were going to do with your memories of that night with me beforehoof,” I growled at the stallion through clenched teeth.

“You are correct, of course,” he acknowledged, “in hindsight, I was not as forthright as I could have been. I simply was not aware that the specifics of sexual interactions between ponies was considered privileged information. Most of the residents of this settlement act as though the opposite is true. Indeed, all of my coworkers were quite open about their exploits.”

“Stop agreeing with me!” I screamed at the stallion, earning another surprised look from him, “fuck’s sake, RG, let me be pissed at you for one damn minute, will you?!”

“...no?” the stallion ventured cautiously, glancing between the others in the room to gauge if he’d made the correct response.

I facehoofed and just collapsed to the ground. My body could only take quivering with this much rage for only so long. It was either go limp or risk beating somepony to within an inch of their life...again. I buried my face in my wings and unleashed a muffled agonized yell in an effort to vent some of my frustration. Then I took a breath and said flatly, “just go away and come back in the morning.”

Again, the stallion hesitated, “...no?”

“Yes!” all four of us yelled at him. Arginine actually jerked in surprised, glancing around at the angry mares around him. Some deeply hidden survival instinct must have finally overcome all of that genetic engineering, because Arginine briskly backed out of the garage and closed the door behind him.

The other three ponies wisely maintained their silence as I lifted myself back up onto my haunches, glaring in the direction of the door. That silence endured as I reached into my saddlebag, withdrew my remaining bottle of Wild Pegasus, uncapped it, and proceeded to chug. Half of the contents were gone by the time I finally took a gasping breath. Wordlessly, I turned towards the shed and headed for the mattress within.

“Windfall?”

“Not now, Foxglove,” I sighed, relishing the burn of the alcohol that lingered in my throat. I fully intended to drink myself back into another coma, just like I did last night, and hope that my frustrations were gone. True, that hadn’t seemed to work very well this time around, but if at first you don’t succeed...!

I took another pull from the bottle.

Footnote:...

Thank you so much for reading! As always, a thumbs up and comment are always greatly appreciated

I've set up a Cover Art Fund if you're interested and have any bits lying around! You can see what I'M capable of, heh; professional assistance is clearly needed here!