“All a matter of semantics but yes, kill them.”

“Mister Boot,” I suppressed a wince as I followed the black unicorn through the halls of the hospital. 'Mister Boot'? Really?, “I want to apologize for last time. The behavior of my staff was unprofessional, and I am sorry to admit that my own opinion of yourself was...unkind. I let what I initially saw of your daughter's state cloud my judgment.

“Even when I saw that she was indeed unharmed, I still thought little of you. That was unfair of me. I recognize that not everypony's life is as...comfortable as my own. You are doing what you can, and I acknowledge that. I am sorry.”

“No hard feelings,” I replied, forcing back a grimace and putting a pleasant smile in its place. I didn't need a lot of talking and apologizing. I just wanted to pass off this information, collect my money, and get out of this place before the Med-X wore off and they saw me limping. Limping meant pain, and pain meant an injury. Doctors treated injuries. Seeing as how I was just about to do them a huge favor by selling them a bunch of medical texts that they desperately needed, I just knew that if they suspected I was hurt, they were going to offer all sorts of complimentary treatments. It would be hard to explain why I was turning down free medical care for my wounds.

“I appreciate that,” the physician nodded, “you are a better pony than I am, to forgive so easily,” Whiplash was cackling hysterically in the back of my mind.

I squelched the mental noise, “let's just say I'm used to it.”

“Well, that will likely change very quickly,” the unicorn smiled warmly, “I'll be spreading the word around town about this, you can count on it! You've saved lives with these files that you're bringing us, Mister Boot; don't doubt that.”

“Please, just, 'Jackboot'.”

“Of course,” he nodded through an open door, “this way, please.”

I found myself in a room containing a number of computers, all of which looked to be in good working order. A couple of blackened and charred husks that used to be similar terminals were piled off in a far corner of the room. The likely victims of the defunct spark batteries that Windfall had mentioned back at the stable.

“Please, have a seat, and we can begin the transfer process,” I was directed to a chair in front of one of the computers. I set my pipbuck encased arm on the table near the keyboard and watched as the doctor hooked it to a small port in the side of the machine with a length of yellow cable. A few taps of a sequence of buttons and I saw words flashing in front of my eyes.

>>TRANSFERRING FILES: /CACHE/STABLE_108/MEDICAL/...

“This should only take a couple of minutes. While we wait, I was wonder-”

A hesitant knock at the door interrupted whatever question he had been about to ask. The doctor frowned briefly, and then, with an apologetic nod, “I'll only be a moment,” headed for the door. I saw a white earth pony with a brown mane, dressed the the blouse of a nurse waiting outside. My ear twitched in their direction, listening idly to their conversation. I wasn't expecting to hear much of vital importance, but Windfall had already demonstrated that sometimes what the ponies here said could mean a hefty bag of bits for me later.

Their voices were faint, as they spoke in quiet tones, but I picked up most of their conversation. The nurse was asking about where to store a body that had just been brought in. Apparently their morgue was full, and would be for the rest of the day until they were able to complete the examinations of some soldiers that had been killed in a recent clash with the Steel Rangers. The doctor didn't want to use up a room with a dead body, but he didn't want obvious corpses just littering the halls either. According to the nurse, the dead pony was a mare who'd committed suicide by overdosing on pills. With minimal effort, they could make it look like she was just sleeping. That seemed acceptable to the doctor. They'd keep the body on a gurney in the hall just outside until a spot in the morgue opened up.

The nurse excused herself to make the arrangements. The dark hued physician made his way back to the set of terminals with a sad look on his face. Upon seeing my own expression, he either guessed at what I had heard, or simply felt a need to vent a little to what he took to be a sympathetic ear.

“Suicides,” he sighed deeply, “I'll never understand the urge that some ponies have to end it all.”

I shrugged, “life in the Wasteland ain't easy, Doc. Sometimes, a pony'll get to where it don't seem like it's worth trying anymore. White Hooves'll take their family, raider's might destroy their livelihood; maybe they lost their foal to the Taint. A lot of bad out there. Trust me, Doc, there are a lot of days when munching on a bullet seems like a good idea.”

“Speaking from experience?”

“I've had a bad day or two,” I admitted.

“But I see you're still walking about. You must have found something worth sticking around for,” he noted, “you're daughter, I assume?”

There was a no-brainer answer that I might have missed, “yep. She keeps me going. It was rough after losing her mother though. New father, raising a newborn foal on my own,” really hoped I was putting the right kind of emotional expression into my voice. I had absolutely no idea how a real father was supposed to sound while talking about this sort of thing, “but, it did give me a purpose. And that can make a bullet seem rather unappetizing.”

I wasn't talking completely out of my ass that whole time though. There had indeed been a good while there when ending it all had seemed like the right thing to do. It had been shortly after Whiplash had run me out of Neighvada, in fact. I was alone, destitute, and I'd been betrayed or abandoned by everypony that I'd ever know. I lost a lot of hope, and a lot of will to live. The only thing that had kept me going back then was a desire for revenge. A dream that I would be able to raise a gang of my own and take back what my sister had stolen from me.

Then the years had gone by, and the reality of my situation had set in. I wasn't going to be able to drum up the forces that I'd need to take Whiplash on in a straight fight. Heck, even if I did, there was little chance that any of the more respected warriors of the tribe would follow me anyway. After all, I was the pony who let himself get bested by his little sister and then run off with his tail between his legs. The White Hooves would never be mine, and that was a fact.

So then I moved on from revenge, to spite. I was going to go on living for no other reason than to spite my sister. Even though she'd have no way of knowing that I was still alive, and I wasn't about to make my continued existence public knowledge to the likes of the White Hooves, it was enough that I knew I'd survived. I'd eluded her and her goon squad, and had been living it up in Flank for nearly a decade before I'd been forced to return to the Neighvada area. Maybe I'd had to pay for it, but I was never at a loss for a mare's company, much like it would have been for me as leader of the White Hooves. Alcohol flowed like a Hoofington downpour. I worked only when I wanted to, and did only the jobs that I chose. I was a master of my own life, beholden to nopony.

It was a gaunt shadow of the life I would have had as chief, but it was the closest facsimile I could achieve.

That was why I put up with the bullshit that the Wasteland threw into my lap every chance it got; because I wasn't going to give that little apparition of my sister that lived in the back of my mind the satisfaction of seeing me quit before I knew for certain that Whiplash herself had been taken out. Even if I wasn't going to get to be the one that ended her, I was going to outlive that piss-yellow bitch.

>>TRANSFER COMPLETED.

My pipbuck beeped audibly. The doctor standing beside me glanced down at the display and disconnected the device from the terminal, “thank you, Jackboot. My staff can disseminate the files to the remaining terminals. We will also be arranging some sort of 'off site' data storage as well. Once bitten, and all that.

“Let's go and collect your fee.”

“Right behind you, Doc,” I said, with an audible shift in my mood. There was never a downside to collecting bits. If there was enough of them, I might even be able to by the discretion of an accommodating mare tonight. White Hoof brand or no, somewhere in this town was a mare who would be willing to come down with a convenient bout of amnesia for the right price, and it had been a long drought thus far...

We hadn't made it three steps out the door when I froze. There was a wheeled hospital bed sitting outside in the hall. A pony lay upon the bed, a dingy off-white sheet pulled up to her neck. The pony's face was turned towards the wall, and anypony could have easily been forgiven for thinking that they were merely sleeping. Even I wouldn't have suspected anything, and I'd been around enough dead ponies to know the difference. Of course, I did know better, having overheard the conversation from earlier. This pony was definitely dead.

What was more, this pony was somepony that I knew. A unicorn mare, with a cyan coat and a blonde mane.

Golden Vision.

The doctor looked back at me when he noticed my sudden stop. A curious look spread across his face, “I would have thought that somepony like you was used to seeing death. It's alright, we'll be tending to her soon enough when the space is available.”

“I know her,” I mumbled, numbly, “knew her...” You don't forget the pony who saved your life.

“Oh,” the doctor's ears perked up, “my condolences then. Perhaps you could help us? We don't know that much about her beyond her name, I'm afraid. Is there a next-of-kin that we can contact?”

“No,” I supplied. I didn't exactly know everything about the mare, but I knew enough to know that there were probably only going to be two ponies aside from myself that even noticed she was gone. Windfall, and maybe that Collard pony who ran the bar she frequented. Beyond that, “she didn't have anypony,” otherwise she wouldn't have been desperately begging me for a place to stay.

“You said she committed suicide?”

“You overheard that, did you? Yes. She got into the medical cabinet of the stallion she was working for and swallowed half the pills in there. He was taking a few medications, as older stallions do, and they are quite potent. She was dead when they found her the next morning.”

“Working?” I quirked an eyebrow, “last I saw, she was being arrested,” then some of the details of that memory clicked, “indenture.”

The doctor nodded, “non-violent offenders are often put to work on community service projects or custodial duties,” he explained, “this one was assigned to Councilpony Filibuster’s residence,” his expression darkened slightly, “poor soul.”

“What?”

There was a moment of hesitation, then he cast his eyes around the corridor briefly to ensure nopony else was around. When he finally spoke, it was in slightly hushed tones, “Councilpony Filibuster is known for...exploiting certain ponies assigned to his personal staff. He finds it easier with indentured mares, since they are in a bit of a bind. Under the law, if a pony in indenture is found to be performing their duties in an unsatisfactory manner, they are moved to work camps with the more violent offenders.”

“He blackmails them for sex,” even though I had tried to do something very similar to Vision not a week ago, I somehow found the idea that somepony else had done this to her repulsive. Granted, I hadn't realized at the time that what I was doing was a lot further from the arrangements I often made with 'working mares' than I'd thought. There was a lot that I'd do to a pony, even a mare; but I couldn't force them that way. More than that, I didn't particularly care for ponies that did, “and that's legal?”

“Of course not,” the stallion with the black coat snorted in disgust, “but proving those sorts of allegations is nearly impossible without the victim coming forward. And they won't, of course, since they'd be sent to a work camp before any sort of trial could be arranged; and likely die in that camp before the actual indictment,” he then added in a low tone, “it's been tried before.”

My eyes hadn't left the body during our conversation. I'd seen a lot of dead ponies. A fair number of them mares. This was the first time that a body made me feel angry. Golden Vision had been an innocent. She hadn't even had anything worth stealing. Nothing that she had ever done in her life could have justified what happened to her.

Somepony's growing soft in their old age, the voice of my sibling whispered in my mind.

It wasn't my concern. This mare's death wasn't my fault. She wasn't my responsibility, and neither was seeking justice for her death. It wasn't like I was the sort of pony that had any right delivering justice anyway. If I was going to go around making others pay for crimes, then I might as well start by showing the guards the brand on my back. What the fuck did I care that she was dead, anyway?

A little yellow pegasus in my head knew exactly why I cared. It wasn't that Vision had died, that was just what happened in the Wasteland. It was knowing why she had died. How many times had that councilor touched her before she'd given up hope? I knew there would have been tears; had he enjoyed her crying?

Of course he did, Whiplash commented, all bucks like him enjoy it. They get off on it. Dad loved my crying...

Besides, Filibuster was a well-to-do pony in this city if his title was any indication. Just imagine what sorts of valuable trinkets he'd have in that home of his. A house well worth burglarizing. Invading somepony's home was dangerous business of course. Why, what if the owner were to discover that I was there, robbing him blind? He might try to raise an alarm! Couldn't have that, now, could we? If I were to break into his home while the councilor was still there, I might be forced to kill him in order to keep my involvement in the crime a secret...

...And what a shame that would be.

“Well,” I finally said aloud, “I guess we just need to hope that a pony like that gets what's coming to him.”

I'd debated telling Windfall about Vision's fate. The little pegasus filly had seemed to respond to the blind unicorn mare. Telling her that Vision was dead was just going to upset her. Which, the more I thought about it, was something I wanted.

Not that I wanted the filly upset for the sake of it, per say; but I did want her to have certain opinions about various factions in Neighvada. She already had a healthy hatred for the White Hooves brewing, which I was pleased with. I had little love for that group as well. So we agreed that the group belonged on our respective 'shit lists'. However, where I felt a long-standing animosity towards the Commonwealth-turned-Lunar Republic, Windfall regarded them with a level of innate respect borne of being raised to consider them the 'good guys'. Her parents had been Republic citizens, and Windfall was not treating the uniformed guards with the level of thinly veiled contempt that I did. If I was going to cement the filly's loyalty to me, it would help if we agreed on our disposition towards other groups.

So, when I got back from the hospital with our pay, I let Windfall know what I'd seen in the hallway; and what the doctor had confessed about the cause.

Telling Windfall about what those guards had been arresting Golden Vision for had been a good first step; but then being able to relate the ultimate fate of the good-natured unicorn, how she'd been raped by a Republic official until suicide was seen as her only escape, pushed the filly firmly into my court where agents of the Seaddle government were concerned. Her tears of loss shifted almost instantly into vicious hatred upon hearing the news. Arrested for sleeping outside? Getting raped as part of her punishment? In Windfall's mind, I was confident that the Republic would take a close second to White Hooves and gangers on her 'vile-meter'.

This would hopefully mean that if any of our future jobs required tangling violently with NLR soldiers, that the filly wouldn't be inclined to put up a fuss. They were servants of an organization that had done such horrible things to a mare that she had risked her life to help. A mare that the filly had killed to protect; and the NLR had been responsible for her death anyway! The same NLR that had been unwilling to protect the Golden Vision from Adz and his gang in the first place!

Her reaction was almost vehement enough to compel me to inform her of my planned excursion that night. Giving the filly a taste of revenge, letting her sate her rightful indignation with a little blood, might also help to bring her around even more. However, a little yellow pegasus mare with blue eyes pleaded with me not to include the filly in tonight's affairs. She was young, prone to taking rash actions, and not as disciplined as I was on something like this. Windfall would be a liability without more training. So I caved to my psychoses' pleas, and didn't mention anything about my intended visit to the councilor that night.

The likeness of the statuette also tried to dissuade me from killing the councilor at all. As if he were the sort of pony that was deserving of an act of kindness. He was a wealthy bastard with a lot of power and no respect for a mare in his care. The sort of pony that my father would have made quick friends with. So, with that in mind, why not arrange a little introduction for the two of them in Tartarus?

I left Windfall in our apartment to stew on her ire at the NLR's leadership. DJ PON3's tales of the Mare-Do-Well could keep her company until I got back. I also offered to bring the filly back something tasty in order to make her feel better. This seemed to score me a few more points with her, which was the intent of course.

The wealthy side of Seaddle. Also the seat of the New Lunar Republic's governing body. In the time before I lost my birthright, the rulership of the Commonwealth belonged to an oligarchy of ponies that were nominally elected into their offices by the populace. Of course, during the course of my early life in Neighvada, I'd never heard of that leadership changing hooves in any meaningful fashion. They might have passed the titles around every once in a while, but the names of the senators on the whole changed little unless somepony died or found themselves out of favor with their cohorts.

Now these ponies were ruled by the lunar goddess returned. I'd yet to see her with my own eyes, but stories of her triumphant return in the midst of a battle with the White Hooves was widely told by the residents. According to witnesses, the princess' black form fell from the cloud layer that hung over the wasteland and immediately began to blast away at the tribal pony attackers with deadly blasts from her horn. A coat that was blacker than the dead of night, a mane that shimmered with a pale light that it seemed to generate all its own, and pale blue eyes that glowed bright with power. Her likeness, and shocking display of destruction, had ended the battle decisively.

The ruling elected official at the time, one Ebony Song, wasted no time in bending knee to the princess. She assumed her place as head of the government, appointing Ebony Song as her Prime Minister. Since then...well, little had really changed. A few royal decrees here and there, and of course the Royal Broadcast every day; but as far as I could gather from the locals, nothing had really...changed.

Which, was actually a little disappointing to hear. It was Princess Luna! The goddess returned! Shouldn't this have meant that the nightmare that was the Equestrian Wasteland would be ending and the Equestria of old would be reborn? I mean, I guess that wouldn't do me any favors in terms of my preferred lifestyle, but...even I didn't want to have to spend every day of may life pawing through dangerous ruins or ambushing caravans to make a nice stack of caps or bits. Maybe I didn't know how I'd want to earn a living in a reborn Equestria; but even if it might not help me, wasn't it still what Luna should be doing to help everypony else?

I guess it might have been asking a lot to expect the Wasteland to be changed in a few years; even from a goddess.

At any rate, Luna was not my concern tonight, one of her councilors was. Filibuster. An undersecretary of agriculture or something like that. I had no idea what he was supposed to be doing to help run the Republic, or even what an 'undersecretary' was, but whatever he did got him some of the nicer living accommodations in Seaddle.

His house was an example of the architectural expertise that could be farmed from a stable population. Obviously built in the last few decades, as it lacked any of the degradation or ruin that plagued repurposed structures of the Wasteland, the councilor's mansion boasted sturdy walls of adobe, and a slate roof. From the outside, it seemed incredible that a single pony lived there alone. Most of the apartments in the complex that Windfall and I lived in could have fit inside this single pony's abode. Well, 'alone' might have been a bit inaccurate. He had a house staff. Though, the smaller and significantly less well-kept building off to the side of the mansion suggested that the ponies who tended to the councilor's home did not live quite so grandly.

Unless he was blackmailing them into his bed, of course.

I spent several hours observing the house from down the street, feigning a great deal of interest in an Old World magazine that extolled the virtues of keeping one's head low during explosions. Pairs of ponies, dressed in the dark blue and silver accented liverly of Luna's Republican Guard made periodic rounds of the area. After watching two passes, I judged their presence to be meant more for show than much else. They were always far more engrossed in their own conversations than what was actually going on around them. Their gaze barely even touched on the large homes and businesses around them. They certainly weren't checking to ensure that doors were still locked or that windows were closed securely.

As long as I entered and left the house out of sight of the patrols, they'd never know that somepony was intruding on the councilor. So long as no alarm was raised from within by the owner. I'd have to make certain that he stayed quiet.

Ponies without throats were often very quiet...

I waited patiently for the latest pair of guards to pass by and round the corner, then I discarded my magazine and made my way swiftly towards the councilpony's mansion. I went for the back entrance, which I guessed was typically used by the staff. I tentatively tried my hoof at the latch, and found it locked. I had anticipated as much. I looked around once more, just to ensure that the guards hadn't decided to spontaneously double-back on their route, then I turned on the door. With a carefully lined up buck, I splintered the wood of the door-jam and felt the portal give way with a sharp CRACK! My eyes once more scanned the area for several seconds, my ears joining the search for signs of movement nearby. Hopefully, when anypony who might have heard the loud outburst and then heard nothing else, they'd write it off as their imaginations.

With a gentle push of my forehoof, I nudged the door open and slipped inside. I closed the broken door as best I could and turned my attention to the home's interior. I was in the kitchen. Made sense; the councilor wouldn't want the grubby servant ponies to dirty up the rest of his house right off the bat. Beyond was the dining room. A large wooden table with ample seating for over a dozen ponies sat in the middle of the room. Faded examples of Old World art and statuary lined the walls. Little of this would be valuable to anypony who wasn't also a Seaddle high-roller. Not to mention that all of it would be impractical to stuff into my saddlebags.

More pocket-friendly valuables would likely be deeper into the house. Perhaps I would even find something worthwhile in the master bedroom. No way of knowing for certain unless I checked.

A grin crept onto my lips.

Inside my head, the voice of my father suggested I try to claim the mansion for myself after I disposed of the current owner. My sister snorted derisively at the ludicrousness of that idea and merely encouraged me to kill the councilor as brutally as she had ended our father. He was guilty of a similar crime, after all.

The yellow pegasus urged me to turn around now and forget about killing the stallion. His death wasn't going to bring back Golden Vision.

Maybe the newcomer mare was right; killing the councilpony would serve no great purpose in my life. Realistically, anything of extreme value in here that wasn't cold, hard, currency was probably going to be too recognizable to sell openly. I didn't have the underworld connections here that I'd developed in Hoofington...yet. Windfall and I didn't even really need the money anyway. As it stood, with the finder's fee that the hospital had paid, the two of us could live pretty for the next six months or more. All the big expenses we'd had early on, the weapons and armor, were taken care of. Food here was cheap, and the rent on our place was relatively low.

Killing Filibuster wouldn't gain us anything that was worth the risk that I was taking. Not materially anyway.

...but killing him was going to make me feel good. An abusive, raping, no good son-of-a-mule dying at my own two hooves? I'd missed out on the chance to kill my father for what that bastard had done. This might help me make up for that in some small way.

Whiplash approved. Steel Bit scowled. What's-her-name sulked in the back.

I really should come up with something to call her, since it seemed that she was a figment that was going to be hanging around for a while. Creeping through a mansion in a heavily patrolled district of Seaddle probably wasn't the best time to be brainstorming names though. For now, I'd call her: Yellow Bitch. Since she was yellow and, well, a bit of a bitch when it came to speaking out against things that I really wanted to do.

Not that she did a lot of speaking, come to think of it. She either just said those two quiet words, or looked at me with those big blue, tear-filled, eyes. Ugh...

It wasn't hard to find the master bedroom. I just had to follow the snoring. This guy had sinuses that would make a Diamond Dog cower in his hole. It was bad enough that his blackmailed mares under his care into sex; but to subject them to that all night too? That was cruel.

I nudged open the door, only now realizing that I might encounter a complication in the form of his most recent carnal companion. I might have to kill her too if I didn't think she'd be able to keep quiet. It'd be a shame, but if I had to, then that was the way it was going to be. I just hoped that she wouldn't beg me to spare her life if it came to that. Killing somepony while they were looking up at me with that pleading expression...ick. Those images stuck with me for, like, a week before I got a decent night's sleep again.

Fortunately, I lucked out. Councilpony Filibuster turned out to be alone this night. He turned out to be an awful lot of councilpony too. Sweet Celestia! No wonder he needed to extort sex from his indentured staff! Though, my mind was still boggling at the mechanics involved in how this stallion got down to business. As I quietly approached his bedside, I idly debated if my knife would be long enough to reach his jugular through all of that neck fat...

He hadn't so much as stirred by the time I reached his bedside. I was now able to get some idea of how he got around. It turned out that Filibuster was a unicorn. Probably had to rely on his telekinesis quite a bit for mobility, I imagined. His snoring didn't falter.

Make him suffer...

My ear twitched at the suggestion of my younger sister. I could. Wake him up, flash the knife in front of his face a few times, listen to him beg for his miserable life. Might feel good to hear somepony blubbering, knowing that I held all the power and that all of his begging wasn't going to do him any good.

No. He was a unicorn. He was a loud unicorn. For all I knew, he had a spell that summoned the guards right to his front door. Magic was a force that I barely understood, and I wasn't going to underestimate it.

Awe...

I'd just stick him, watch him sputter around for a bit while he bled out, and then search the room for some things that I could feasibly pawn off without many raised eyebrows.

Spoilsport.

Fuck you!

With a cleansing breath to squelch the voice, I drew my recently purchased replacement steel combat knife and sidled close to my target. A series of quick jabs into the side of his neck to ensure that I got something vital. He jolted awake at the first stab. A geyser of blood sprayed forth by the third. His blubbery form stopped convulsing by the sixth.

I finally stopped on the ninth.

Panting, half my face dripping with crimson fluid, I wiped the knife off on the bedsheets and slipped it back into its carrier. I wiped the warm fluid away from my eye with my fetlock and looked down at the dampened arm with a frown. This might be a bit of a problem. Even at this late hour, I was almost certain to be seen by somepony on my way back to the apartment. I had to get cleaned off.

This house would have a washroom around here somewhere...

I left the bedroom and began making my way back through the house, scanning open doorways for signs of a sink or shower.

A sharp intake of breath from off to my right brought me to a rigid halt. I turned my head quickly in the direction of the errant sound.

...Horseapples...

A small dappled colt stood in the doorway to the dining room. Where the fuck had he come from?! There was no way that Filibuster had been a parent! Was he a member of the staff? An opportunistic burglar like myself?

Did it matter? He'd seen me. He'd seen the blood. He could identify me to the guards...

The colt turned and ran for the kitchen.

Get him!

This was probably the only time I was going to listen to the voice of my dead father. How could I not? I had to get the foal. If he escaped...

The little legs of the smaller pony flailed madly as he made his best efforts to flee from the house, but my gate was far longer than his own. In only a few loping bounds, I'd tackled the colt to the ground with the full weight of my body. His breath escaped him with a heavy grunt. I took advantage of his stunned state to wrap my hooves around him in a choke hold, applying just enough pressure to keep him from calling out in anything more than a quiet gasp as I quickly debated my next course of action.

What are you waiting for, my father demanded severely, he's seen you. Kill him!

The colt gasp and flailed in my grip, struggling to escape from the pony that was so very nearly crushing his throat. The sheer panic in his squirming was obvious.

Yeah, do it, Whiplash joined in, though her own tone was less serious and more mocking, it's been a while since you killed a foal. You're overdue...

Fuck you! I didn't want to kill the kid, I had to. I couldn't let him tell the guards about the blood-covered stallion he'd seen in the house that belonged to the councilpony on the same night of the murder. If this colt hadn't gotten a clear look before, he'd surely have a good description to give out now!

Which is why you need to end him! Steel Bit seethed, perplexed at my hesitation.

I couldn't afford to run. I had nowhere left to go. How would I explain it to Windfall? Probably best that I leave her behind. Just disappear and let the filly make her own way in life.

The gasps of the foal in my arms were beginning to shift into choked sobs. I could feel his cheeks becoming damp.

Good thing he's not a filly, my sister snickered, you'd have turned yourself into the guard yourself by now!

Shut up.

Kill him! My father was screaming at the top of his lungs.

Shut. Up.

You know, I bet I struggled a lot too...

SHUT UP!

Be ki-

“Shut up! Shut up. Shut up. Shut. UP!”

I was screaming aloud now, and I didn't care. I just wanted the voices to stop. I needed them to stop. Just for one fucking second. I had to think, and I couldn't do that with a chorus of ponies chattering away inside my head. A moment of peace and quiet so that I could think and come up with a plan, that was all I needed. Just one moment...of...

The foal in my arms wasn't struggling anymore. Why wasn't he struggling? I let my grip go slack, and saw the dappled head loll to the side at an unnatural angle. I heard the feint sound of vertebra grinding against each other.

I'd broken his neck.

In shock, I released the body and watched it slump to the floor at my hooves. The colt was sprawled out before me, bathed in the faint light of a distant street lamp that was spilling in from the ajar kitchen door I'd broken earlier. His eyes were wide. Frightened. His coat was streaked with blood that had rubbed off of my own face and arms.

For a long few seconds, I just stared at the body.

This...this was a first for me.

Not my first kill, obviously. Not the first time that the kill had been a young colt, either. This was the first time that I'd ever killed anypony...and not meant to.

Maybe I was a monster, but I was a calculating monster, damn it! This stallion had to die because he was shooting at me. That mare had to die because she had something valuable that I wanted to sell so I could afford some passionless sex with Saffron. Those foals had to die because my father told me to kill them. There had always been a clear and decided reason in my mind why I was killing somepony. Always!

But, this time...it had been an...accident.

I...sure, I guess I was probably going to decide to kill him. I mean, I had to, right? He'd tell somepony what I'd done. I was going to decide to kill him, wasn't I?

Or were the ponies in my head going to decide for me? I knew where Steel Bit had stood on the matter. Whiplash had been her usual sarcastic self, which had been no help at all. Yellow Bitch was a no-brainer on the issue of foal-killing. So that vote had been...a tie. Mistrial. Jackboot gets the final word for once in his miserable life. And what had I chosen to do?

I hadn't chosen to do a damn thing. I'd freaked out at the ponies yammering in my noggin and killed the foal in a fit of blind rage that hadn't had anything to do with him.

I'd killed him because I was crazy.

Slowly, I backed away from the tiny corpse, circling around it towards a nearby sink. My body felt numb. My mind felt numb. At least the voices were gone, for the moment. Well, sort of. There wasn't any sign of my father or sister, but I could feel Yellow Bitch still hanging around up there. She was bawling her eyes out in the corner. At least she was doing her wailing in silence.

I started the water talisman and splashed the ice cold liquid onto my face, gasping at the shock of the sudden burst of frigid fluid. Get a hold of yourself, Jackboot. He's dead, and that was the decision that you were going to make in the end. Running wasn't an option. He couldn't be allowed to live. It was the choice that you were going to make...eventually.

You. Had. To. Kill. Him.

That meant that it wasn't an accident. You just sort of...jumped the gun a little. It happens. Like with those caravan ponies a couple months back. That grenade trap brought attention to your presence earlier than you wanted, but you were still going to kill those trader ponies, weren't you? Same thing!

This was just a premature execution of a course of action you were going to decide to take in the future.

Yeah, that was it...

Maybe by morning, I'd even believe it.

I didn't take anything from the house. My heart wasn't really in it anymore, and I didn't feel like hanging around any longer than I had to. If one pony had managed to walk in on me as it was, more were likely to follow. Especially if anypony went looking for that colt. Probably for the best. In a burglary, the guards would be looking at a huge range of suspects. Put out word to shop keepers to be on the lookout for the sorts of things that the councilpony might have owned that were stolen.

Dead councilpony, but with nothing taken from his house? Then it was a crime that was either personally or politically motivated. Attention would be on spurned lovers—ha!—or business partners. Political opponents. Disgruntled staff. Some random stallion living in a shitty apartment with his daughter who had no ties to any of the politicos in this city? I'd be nowhere near their list of suspects.

I even made sure to swing by a couple of bars on my way home and stay long enough for a couple drinks. Make it look like I'd been bar crawling the whole night in case anyone did mention seeing a rust-colored earth pony wandering the streets that night.

Just moving on to the next pub, mister guard pony, sir! Ask at Collard's, they saw me. Bay's too. And Cottonwood's Saloon; stopped in there for a swig. Don't remember too much after that one though! Any other questions? No? Happy hunting!

When I got back to the apartment, I discovered that I hadn't been the only one to have a rough evening. It looked like Windfall had suffered some grief too. Her cheeks were streaked with tears. Hell if I knew why though. The door had been locked, so nopony had roughed her up while I was out. Maybe something to do with memories of her parents? I knew that could still be a bit of a sore spot with her. My family was a sore spot with me, and it'd been over a decade since my loss.

The radio blurted a little static. Which was when I noticed that it was still on.

“Good evening, children,” I quirked an eyebrow at the somber tone of the usually enthused disc jockey. It almost sounded like he'd been crying too! For Celestia's sake, what was with ponies tonight?

“I've always promised to bring you the news...no matter how...bad...it was going to hurt. If you weren't tuned in for my earlier broadcast this evening, then brace yourselves. The news is...pretty bad tonight.

“I already mentioned preliminary reports that Red Eye was claiming to have killed the Mare-do-Well. Well, children, I'm afraid it's true. You're old pal, DJ PON3 has some pretty reliable sources, and these sources confirmed that, earlier today, our Wasteland Heroine was...killed.

“She was lured into a trap. A dozen ponies, slaves, were being carted towards Fillydelphia by Red Eyes thugs. The Mare-do-Well leaped into action, as she always does, and fought to help free those slaves. Only...they weren't slaves. Mare-do-Well opened the cages, turned to fend off the remaining guards...and was shot in the back.”

The radio pony's tone changed slightly, becoming tinged with anger, “damn it! Buckwheat—I mean, the Mare-do-Well didn't...she didn't deserve that,” the deep voice cracked briefly. I narrowed my eyes at the radio. Had his voice just risen a few octaves at the end there, or...? Probably just static. The radio announcer cleared his voice, “I'm sorry, children. It's just...upsetting to see a noble pony like that cut down the way she was. She died believing that she was helping ponies in trouble.

“And that's what you need to take away from this, children! Yes, she died, but she did so believing that she was making the Wasteland a better place. Red Eye is a rotten bastard that deserves to burn in the deepest, darkest, pits of Tartarus for what he did; and we need to make sure that we keep working to make that happen. Mare-do-Well may be dead, but her message is not! We can do this without her, children! We can end slavery in the Wasteland.

“Look at all that one pony like the Mare-do-Well did; and then think about what all of you, all my good listeners out there, can do if we put our minds to it.

“Don't let me down, children. I believe in you!

“You can do better. We all can. Good night.”

Another burst of static, and then a soft lilting melody befitting the late hour wafted from the speakers once more.

Well, if Windfall had been awake to hear the earlier broadcast that DJ PON3 had mentioned, I guess that would explain the tears. She'd been a rather big fan of that crazy mare's exploits. Probably wouldn't be a good idea to quip an 'I told you so' at the filly. Though, I sort of had. I'd predicted that the mare was just going to end up getting herself killed for all of the trouble that she was causing.

Going around causing a stir and pissing off powerful ponies, and for what? Some sort of misplaced sense of morality? You didn't see me going off on half-baked...missions...

Fuck. That was exactly what I'd done, wasn't it? Well, look at all the good it had done! Filibuster was dead, but so was some young colt who'd probably never hurt anypony is his short little life. All so I could satisfy some warped concept of 'justice'. I could have just left well enough alone and let Golden Vision's death lie. It hadn't been my fault, my concern, or my problem to solve. Hell, if anything, I'd only made it worse.

The difference here was that I was going to learn from my mistake. No more hair-brained 'crusades'. I would reserve my killing for threats to Windfall and myself and pristine opportunities for bits.

Ponies in this town would be better off for it.

When the morning came, you wouldn't have been able to tell from how Windfall and I greeted it. Neither of us stirred from our respective sleeping spots until nearly mid day, though both of us were very much awake. For the filly's part, I suspected that her drive had been devastated by the news of her personal hero's demise.

Myself? Well, I was finding it pretty hard to want to do anything too. As much as I tried to convince myself that the colt's death had not actually been an accident, and that he'd had to die for my own sake; it wasn't working very well. The hard truth was I hadn't wanted to kill that foal. That was the whole reason why there'd been any debate going on between the voices in my head at all. I'd hesitated, giving the three of them time to weigh in. If I had simply acted the way that I would have with any other witness who saw me committing a murder in a town, there wouldn't have been a problem.

But I had hesitated. I had entertained the notion of letting him go, or at most leaving him unconscious so that I'd have time to make an expeditious escape from Seaddle. And why had I been willing to do that? Because it wasn't the colt's fault that he'd seen me. It was my mistake. I'd violated my own little 'rules'.

I wasn't at that mansion to rob it. I wasn't killing the councilpony because he was a threat to me. That whole episode was one big misguided fuck-up. Filibuster had acted a lot like my father, and I'd never gotten a chance to kill Steel Bit myself. I'd let some young mare, little more than a filly at the time, do the deed.

Because I'd been too scared to go against my father. Terrified of what he might do to me for defying him. Too frightened to help the only pony in the whole world that had needed my help. Or so I'd thought.

After learning about what Filibuster had done to Vision, another pony that had needed my help but didn't get it, I'd seen some glimmer of a chance at making up for that mistake. The mistake it had been to not kill my father when I'd had the chance. Busting in there one night while he was still in the act of raping Whiplash, stabbing him in the back while he was least expecting it, and claiming his throne for my own. How wonderful my life could have been...

...How royally I had just fucked my life up now. Like I even needed to make up for what my father had done to Whiplash for all those years. I wasn't responsible for him. Just as I wasn't responsible for Vision. None of it was my business. I should have just stayed away.

But I hadn't stayed away. I'd taken the initiative and stuck my nose right into the thick of it. Now two more ponies were dead. Filibuster I didn't care so much about. He was a scoundrel that probably earned being put down as much as Steel Bit had, or myself for that matter. No great loss there. The foal though...

He'd died because I'd fucked up. Died because I'd been too busy screaming at the voices in my head to realize that I was crushing his little neck. I think that was what bothered me the most. The 'how' of the murder, more than the 'why'.

I'd known I was crazy for a long time. Sane ponies didn't hear the voices of their dead father and estranged sister nagging them from half a world away. They didn't hallucinate phantom pegasus mares that they'd never even met before. They didn't kill ponies because the voices in their head were arguing with each other too damn loudly for them to concentrate!

Which was the tipping point, I guessed. I could handle being crazy. I'd been crazy for a lot more of my life than I'd been sane, assuming I ever actually had been sane. Being crazy was just my own little problem. Killing other ponies because of my insanity? That was more than a 'problem', it became a 'situation'. One that would need resolving. It was dangerous enough being in a place with a professionally organized security force just being a former White Hoof, without adding 'crazed psychopathic serial-killer' to the mix.

So how was I supposed to deal with this? I couldn't talk to one of the doctors. Something told me they were obliged to report murderers to the authorities. None of them had yet struck me as the type willing to look the other way for the right number of bits either. I hated ponies that had their morality intact.

I could try self-medicating with various drugs. Mix Med-X with a little Dash, or see if I could track down a Moon Dust supplier out here. Put myself out of it enough to where I didn't feel like killing anypony. Lot of good that would do me on trips to scavenge in the Ruins though. Assuming I didn't accidentally perma-fry myself while I was searching for that magically balanced dose that would mellow me out without putting me into a coma.

Try to focus my psychopathy? Let myself vent every so often on an 'acceptable target'? Yeah, because that wasn't exactly what I had been trying to do with Filibuster, and look how well that had turned out!

I could always just bite a bullet.

…

Well, if that wasn't a pleasant though.

This was when Whiplash chimed in, does that mean that I win?

I rolled out of bed and threw my shirt and saddlebags over my back. It was time that I found some suitable distractions. I strapped the sheath for my knife to my foreleg, but opted to leave the pistol. Given the thoughts that had just started trickling into my head, it was probably best that I not have it near me until I got my thoughts sorted. How I was going to do that, I wasn't sure yet. Take a walk around town, listen for any interesting news, maybe even find another job. So long as it was something that drew my thoughts away from suicidal ideations.

My eyes caught Windfall looking idly in my direction, but she hadn't stirred. While I very much doubted that recent events in her life had pushed her as close to the edge as I'd been, this sulking wasn't going to do her any good either. She needed something to occupy her thoughts almost as much as I did. Fine, 'Father-Daughter Day' it was then.

“Get up. We're going out,” wasn't sure where yet. Grab a bite to eat first, then see what drew my attention. I just needed something to occupy my thoughts. So did Windfall.

The filly didn't stir for a long moment, “where are we going?”

“Fricassee’s,” I replied, naming a little cafe that served a wide variety of pretty tasty food for most of the day. It was close by, and the owner seemed to have taken a shine to Windfall. The filly didn't entirely reciprocate—something about the way the owner pinched her cheeks every time they met—but she was at least cordial when we ate there, “then maybe look for another job.”

The pegasus frowned at that last bit, but said nothing. Instead, she rolled off of her pillow and slung her own little saddlebags over her back. As ready as she was going to be to face the day, the filly fluttered up and over to the doorway, landing daintily beside me. Her eyes peered up at me expectantly, and I opened the door for her to pass through. With another little hop, she was off the ground and out of the apartment.

I frowned her out and locked the apartment behind us. Windfall was already lazily flapping in the air beside me. I smirked to myself. I'd spent how many months wondering if the little pegasus was ever going to learn to fly? Now I couldn't get her to put her hooves on the ground for more than a passing second, “Doesn't that ever get tiring?

The filly glanced at her wings as she hovered there, and then shrugged, “Actually, no. It's weird. It's kind of like standing still, but with my wings instead of my legs,” she frowned, “it's hard to explain.”

“I remember when just doing a little hop put you to heaving,” I pointed out, recalling how much effort it had once taken the flier to give herself a little extra height when she jumped. I started us walking towards the cafe, Windfall bobbing along beside me contemplating her wings.

The filly flushed a little, embarrassed at the memory, “yeah...I don't know. I think I was just trying too hard, as weird as that sounds. I guess that actually flapping isn't as important as I thought,” frowned at her wings now, “who'd have thought?”

That drew a quirked eyebrow from myself as well. I knew very little about how pegasi flew, aside from that they did. I would have figured that their wings would factor into things quite a bit as well, so Windfall's revelation was pretty interesting, “so what, does it turn out, is important? You obviously figured it out,” I noted.

“Um...wanting to fly, I think,” the filly responded, sounding unsure of her answer. When she noticed my grimace, she tried to explain things further, “I just sort of...think about flying, and then I move my wings, and it happens.”

“So, what, all those other times you weren't thinking about flying?”

“Not really, I guess. I was thinking more about trying to get my wings to flap faster and harder to make myself fly. Not about flying itself,” her expression darkened slightly, “not until I saw you falling anyway. Then all I could think about was getting to you as fast as I could.

“Then when you fell...”

“You sure picked one dozy of a time to figure it out,” I said, adding a bit of a smirk to my expression, “but I'm glad you did. It was my lucky day, having a pegasus along.”

We passed by a couple of guard ponies that were on patrol. I noticed that they each flashed Windfall a look and then continued walking. The filly seemed to notice as well. When the guards were out of earshot, she ventured a question, “Jackboot? Why are ponies looking at me funny?”

“Because you're a pegasus,” I pointed out.

“I was a pegasus last week too, and I don't remember ponies doing that before,” she had me there.

“It's a bit more obvious, now that you're spending so much time off the ground. Most ponies don't actually pay a lot of attention to what's around them,” I explained, “they just sort of glance about and make all sorts of assumptions unless they see something that isn't normal.

“A stallion and a filly walking down the street? Normal. The stallion's an earth pony, and the filly doesn't have a horn; so she's an earth pony too, because that's normal,” as I spoke, a passing mare ogled Windfall as well, “stallion and a flying filly? Not normal.

“For Seaddle anyway.”

“Does that mean that there are places where it is normal to see pegasi?” the filly inquired.

“In the Enclave,” I replied matter-of-factly.

“The where?”

“Above the clouds,” I nodded my head upward towards the cloud layer that covered the Wasteland, “a whole society of pegasi, and nothing but.”

Windfall's eyes went wide as she stared above her, “ponies can live in the clouds?”

“Pegasi can. They walk on clouds.”

“We do?!” the filly gaped at her hooves, and then looked back up into the sky, “I want to try it!”

Horseapples!

Fortunately, I managed to snag the filly by the tail before she managed to rocket up out of my reach. The sudden tug evoked a startled cry from the flier as she was snapped back down to the ground with a rather unceremonious thump, “hey! What gives?!” she snarled at me, swiping her tail back and smoothing out the hairs.

“Don't ever fly up to the clouds,” I growled at the filly, “the Enclave ain't friendly to outsiders, even pegasi. I've heard about what they do to Dashites that try to return.”

“Dashites?”

“Pegasi they kick out,” I explained, remembering once more how little this pony had been taught about the Wasteland by her parents, “the Enclave brands them and gives them the boot. If they try to go back...” I drew my hoof across my throat for emphasis.

“So don't go up there,” I cautioned, “you won't come back.”

Windfall looked up to the clouds once more, her expression a little more sullen. It was clear that she had been rather excited at the prospect of being able to reach up and touch a cloud. Can't say that I wasn't curious about the sensation either. Of course, such a feat was a lot further out of my reach than it was Windfall's. I'd have to keep an eye on her for a while though, in case she got it into her head that she might be able to get away with a quick zip up to them to give the fluffy gray mass a tap and then make it back down before anypony was the wiser.

The last thing that I needed was for my pegasus partner to get zapped by an Enclave soldier so soon after finally stumbling onto the key asset that made a pegasus worth keeping around.

“Come on, let's go eat,” I resumed walking towards the cafe. Windfall lifted up into the air once more and floated up beside me.

“So, the Enclave hates other ponies,” Windfall started mumbling aloud, “the White Hooves hate other ponies. The Steel Rangers hate other ponies. The Republic doesn't care about other ponies. Isn't there any group in the Wasteland that likes anypony?”

I thought for a long moment, and then shrugged, “nope. The Wasteland's just a bunch of assholes looking to screw over anypony else.”

The filly frowned and groused a little more under her breath as we made our way to Fricassee’s. It was pretty late in the morning for breakfast, but that was alright. What was on the menu wasn't important so much as just grabbing something to eat and taking our mind off of the events that had depressed the two of us. I was more or less already on the right path with Windfall, what with our conversations about flying and the Enclave. She at least wasn't looking quite so despondent, despite being denied the chance to go up and touch the clouds. Even I wasn't thinking too much about that foal.

...Until about now, that is.

“Well, look at you!” came the delighted whiny of an older gray unicorn mare busing a table outside a cozy little cafe. She trotted over, a pile of dishes hovering at her side and smiled broadly up at Windfall, “fluttering about like a bloat sprite but three times as cute!”

The pegasus barely managed to suppress a shudder as the cafe's owner reached up with her hooves and cupped the filly's cheeks in a rough shake, “Murnin Miz Fricksee,” she managed to reply through her scrunched lips. I hid an amused smirk as the mare released my companion and allowed the flier to work the kinks out of her jaw with several exaggerated gyrations of her mandible.

Then the unicorn's eyes found me, a little twinkle in them, “The usual, cutie?”

My smile was far more practiced and convincing than Windfall's had been, as I was accustomed to flattering mares when it suited me. Even when they were far more aged and homely than I cared for, “Two lunch specials and your gorgeous smile, as always, darlin'!”

The unicorn chuckled and nodded towards an open table, “grab yourselves a seat over there. It'll be right out.”

We sat down at the table, the filly still massaging her cheeks idly. Her eyes followed Fricassee until the mare was out of sight and then her cynical eyes turned back to me, “I hate it when she does that.”

The smile on my face didn't falter as I made myself more comfortable on my seat's thin cushion and feigned admiring the city around us, “I can't stand her either,” I said in a warm tone that did not suit the words coming out of my mouth, “but you don't offend the ponies that make your food.”

“We could always eat somewhere else,” the filly pointed out.

“We could,” I nodded, “but I like eating here.”

“Why? You just said you didn't even like Miss Fricassee!” the pegasus hissed under her breath, “and the food's not that good...”

“No, it ain't,” I agreed once again with a nod, “but it has good view of the ad board over there,” I inclined my head towards the large standing wall covered in tacked on papers.”

“So?”

“So,” I informed the filly, “I can see who posts new offers for jobs. It's not just about what the job is, it's also about who's doing the offering. Let's you know whether or not they're likely to try to swindle you,” my expression soured slightly now, “see if I ever take another job from that cheating clerk again...”

“Don't they tell you who's offering the job?” the pegasus asked.

“Most do,” I acknowledged, “but anypony can write down any name they want and name any place they want. Then you go to meet somepony respectable sounding in a back alley and a bunch of gangers jump you to take the goods and your stuff,” I shrugged, “that kind of thing can happen.”

“...and the guards probably wouldn't lift a hoof to help either,” she grumbled. My smile became slightly more genuine again.

The sound of something heavy and soft hitting the ground somewhere close behind me caused me to jump up a little bit in my seat. Windfall's ears were perked up as well and both of us looked towards the source. I frowned as we beheld the sight of an auburn earth pony stallion that had apparently fallen off of his nearby table and crumpled into a sniffling heap on the ground. A very familiar looking bottle with the silhoette of a pegasus pony clinked and rolled away from the sad form.

A pair of plates clinked as they were magically lowered to our table and I flashed Fricassee a playfully hurt expression, “what gives, beautiful? I have begged you time and again for a morning drink, and you always tell me you won't serve booze before noon.”

The unicorn server's expression became rather somber at that moment, which shocked me a little bit. I couldn't recall this particular mare ever looking sad, “I know, and I still don't. But I made an exception for him,” she flashed me a knowing look, “poor dear's little colt died last night. Murdered, the guards said.”

I suddenly very much wanted this conversation to stop dead. No more comments, no more questions, and especially no more details. Seaddle may have been a pretty big city; but I was pretty damn sure that two colts hadn't managed to get themselves killed last night. So, yeah, I didn't need to hear any of the details. I'd come here with the intended goal of thinking about anything but what happened last night.

Of course, Windfall hadn't known anything about it, so naturally she was quite keen on learning more. The filly's head whipped around so fast I thought that she might inadvertently throw herself out of her seat. Her eyes were wide, her ear plastered back against her head, “somepony murdered a foal?! Why!”

Fricassee shook her head sadly, “nopony knows, sweetie. The guards think he might have seen the pony who killed councilpony Filibuster,” her tone soured slightly, “no secret why anypony might want him dead...”

“Do they know who did it?”

Another shake of the cafe owner's head, “not a clue. I'll go get your drinks,” the unicorn mare said by way of changing the subject. She paused and looked at the prone stallion, “and maybe some coffee for him...”

When she was away, Windfall faced her food, clearly not intent on eating any of it. Her shoulders were slumped lower than I'd seen them that morning. Her ears hung limply to the sides of her head, “why would anypony kill a little colt?”

Because he'd seen a strange pony covered in the blood of the councilpony's killer; and that pony had killed him in a fit of insanity while arguing with the figments of his imagination inside his head. All of that I thought, and none of it I dared to say. No way that Windfall was quite that dedicated to me yet.

Outwardly, I shrugged, took a bite of the lunch special—never did ask what the special actually was—and said, “ponies kill ponies. Age hardly matters,” that was how things worked in the Wasteland.

Right?

The pegasus sitting across from me looked downright offended by what I'd said, “but he was just a foal! How could he be any sort of threat?”

I actually quirked an eyebrow at that and looked directly at the filly. For a moment, I was silent, and then I said, “how many ponies have you killed again? Let's see, there was a farmer, a half dozen slavers...”

Windfall glared at me, but seemed to concede the point that age was not a correlation to the physical threat that somepony could pose. It wasn't the size of the pony, it was the size of the gun they were pointing at you that mattered. Not that the colt had been armed, but I felt that was besides the point. He had still been a threat. Sort of.

“It just...it doesn't seem fair,” the filly said quietly.

I couldn't help but snort a little derisively at that. Seriously? “'Fair'? What exactly about your life so far had made you think that the Wasteland is 'fair'? It's the farthest thing from fair that could possibly exist. You can come into this world with everything going for you, and then one day wake up and it's all gone. Somepony could kill you just to get at the scrap metal in your saddlebags, and then not even bother to take it.

“foals die young all the time. How much longer do you think you'd have lasted if I hadn't come along?”

The filly said no more after that.

Fricassee returned a short while later and set down a couple Sparkle Colas in front of us. I passed her the bits that we owed for the meal and she turned to leave. Despite myself, there was still a question about the affair with the colt that nagged at me, and I was compelled to find an answer, “hey, I was wondering,” I began, “if that was his colt that died, what was he doing at the councilpony's house?” Why had that damn kid been there in the first place if he didn't even live there?

“Fosterage,” the mare replied simply. At my quirked eyebrow, she elaborated, “sometimes a family either can't do right by their foals, or they want to give them a chance at a better life,” the unicorn server explained, “so they put their foals into fosterage. A richer family will take them in, and in exchange for doing a little housework and such, the foals are fed, cared for, and even get sent to a good school. It was one of the Princess's ideas to help the poorer foals of Seaddle.

“It's a good program,” the mare insisted sincerely, “and it does really help a lot of foals,” her expression faltered slightly as she looked back at the auburn stallion still lying on the ground, “usually,” she trotted back to the kitchen.

Fosterage, huh? You got adopted by the wrong stallion there, kiddo. Not your fault. Probably just trying to be a good ward and investigate the loud noise you heard in the house.

I looked back at Windfall and—

She wasn't there. I looked around, checking to see if she might have gone over to console the stallion that lost his son. Nope, not there. The little filly's room, maybe? I looked in the direction of the restrooms, but saw no blips that could be coming from there. Okay, had to admit, I was getting just a little concerned right about now. I looked up to make sure the pegasus hadn't decided to sneak off to inspect the cloud layer. No blips in that direction either.

Horseapples, where was she?!

Guess she got out while the getting was good, Whiplash snickered.

I was going to put a bell or something on that filly's neck...

My thoughts were interrupted by a commotion coming from the nearby market. A yell made its way to my ears, “come back here you fucking pigeon! You'd better pay for that gun before I blast you out of the air!”

Those words were immediately followed by a burst of small caliber gunfire.

My stomach grew cold. Horseapples. I had a pretty good idea of exactly who was being yelled at. I my next breath, I had bolted from the cafe in the direction of the shooting, which wasn't easy, as a whole lot of ponies were doing them damnedest to get away from the pony firing the bullets. Of course I had to be the crazy pony running towards the danger.

If what I think had just happened had really just happened, I was going to throttle that damn pegasus!

I found a gruff earth pony trader snorting and snarling at the air, a carbine strapped to his side integrated into a battle-saddle. My eyes followed his gaze, and I could just make out the small figure of something pale and teal winging its way off into the Ruins. I quickly went through the short list of things I had seen in this town that might match that description and capability and inwardly began to loose an endless string of profanity.

I ran up to the fuming merchant and pointed in Windfall's direction, “was that a little white filly with a teal mane?”

“Yeah,” the other stallion snarled, “fucking bitch stole a submachine gun from me and flew off! I'll fucking kill her that next time I see her, little whore!” then his eyes landed on me and narrowed, “why, you know her?!”

Horseapples.

Think fast, big brother, Whiplash smirked.

“Uh...yeah!,” I pumped a little bit of ire into my own words to cover up my hesitation, “the little cunt just robbed me to! I'm going to go after her and give her what's coming,” I glared in the direction of the fading filly, having no trouble sounding genuine right now, “That little bitch isn't going to get away from me!”

Without another word, and not keen on giving the merchant an opportunity to think I was being anything other than truthful, I sprinted down the street towards the city's main gates. I had a general idea of the direction she was going in, so long as she held her course. What her ultimate destination was, that was still up in the air—

Good one.

Shut up.

Anyway, as I was saying: I had no idea where the filly thought she was going to go. However, I didn't like that she apparently thought she would need a hefty amount of firepower when she got there. Hopefully, she wasn't going to need that gun, since it was only now occurring to myself that I was without mine. I'd left it behind in the apartment. I was now galloping through the Seaddle Ruins, chasing after an errant filly, armed with nothing but a knife. I wasn't even wearing my barding, and neither was she.

Fuck her, Steel Bit's voice rasped, let that little bitch die out here. She's more trouble than she'd worth.

She was proving to be a bit of a liability right now, wasn't she? I should just turn around right now and head back to Seaddle. Write her off as dead. Even if she did somehow manage to make her way back alive from wherever she was going, I should probably still cut her loose. This little escapade had to count as a pretty gross violation of our little agreement.

My pace slacked off until it was little more than a trot. This wasn't worth it. I had a generous stash of bits back in Seaddle already. I could take it easy for a good long while. Rest up. Heal up. Maybe I could even go back to working alone again, like I always had. I didn't owe that filly anything.

Except your life, Whiplash chided, but it's not like that's worth shit anyway...

What the fuck did I care if she'd saved my life once or twice? I snorted and shook my head. I shouldn't care about shit like that. I should be exploiting it. She saved my life at the risk of her own. Good on her. It didn't mean that I owed her anything. Besides, I'd saved her life first when I took her away from that farm and gave her food, protection, and a place to stay. That filly owed me!

Hard to collect debts from a corpse.

It would be hard to collect any debts if I ended up a corpse! Which I probably would if I had to go around chasing that filly through the Ruins like this every time she was feeling pouty. She needed to stop letting herself get so worked up about every little thing and start accepting how life in the Wasteland really was.

Cracks of automatic gunfire echoed off the surrounding ruined buildings. Faint, but distinct. Several deeper shot answered back soon afterward. Rifles. All of it coming from the direction that I had been running. Whatever the filly had been looking for, it would seem that she had found it.

I was in no condition to charge into a firefight, least of all one where I knew nothing about the enemy's strength and disposition. The filly was on her own for this one.

Of course she is. Fillies are always on their own when they need your help.

My legs were moving at a gallop again, but not in the direction of the Seaddle gates. I was running towards the fighting, which sounded like it was only intensifying as the sharp notes of gunfire increased in frequency. That filly was lasting longer than I would have given her credit. She might even still be alive by the time I got there!

You crazy idiot, my father seethed, the bitch ain't worth this!

Probably not, I conceded, and it certainly was crazy of me to be doing this. So, you know, par for the course...

It wasn't long before blips appeared in my field of vision. One yellow, which was sliding back and forth at a fair rate of speed, and four red which remained more or less motionless. Shots continued to ring out, announcing a wide variety of calibers and weapon types. I put a little more urgency into my pace, though I still hadn't come up with much of a plan of action other than move quickly, get in close, and stab a lot of ponies as quickly as I could.

I rounded the corner and took in the scene before me. Four ponies were scattered around the street, taking shelter behind Old World carts and piles of rubble. They occasionally popped their heads up and fired off shots into the air with their guns. A fresh body lay in the middle of the street surrounded by a pool of her own blood. There was a blur of white and teal that flashed across the sky, followed by a half dozen pops of gunfire and the sound of bullets plinking off the sides of a metal cart as a pair of ponies once again sunk low behind their cover.

Familiar green painted stripes decorated the bodies and barding of the ponies on the street. Vipers. Great. On the bright side, with their attention focused on the sky, they had yet to notice the rust colored earth pony that had wandered into their fight. Now was as good a time as any to make my move before they spotted me and decided that I would be an easier target than the little filly zipping through the air above them.

I took the hilt of the knife into my mouth and charged a pink earth pony mare with a spiked mane who was preoccupied with loading rounds into her revolver. She looked up at the last moment, but only had time to widen her eyes in surprise as I whipped my head around and plunged the combat knife in my grip up through the underside of her jaw. The mare jerked and sputtered as the metal blade pierced her pallet and imbedded itself into her brain. I jerked the knife free and watched her slump to the ground.

One down.

Sheathing the knife, I went for the discarded revolver. The weapon was a lot heavier than my 9mm was, and it felt awkward in my mouth, but it was sure to be a more effective weapon than my knife in this fight. Keeping my profile low, I fished the necessary rounds needed to finish reloading the weapon from the saddlebags of the dead Viper. My eyes widened slightly as I took note of the shear size of the bullets that this weapon appeared to take. Was this thing a pistol or an artillery piece?! Beggars couldn't be choosers though, so I loaded the tank shells posing as pistol rounds into the empty chambers of the revolver and swung the cylinder closed. I cocked back the hammer and took a deep breath. Next target.

A unicorn stallion was peering over a pile of broken concrete chunks a dozen steps away. The large caliber sniper rifle gripped in the azure glow of his telekinesis tracked Windfall's path and occasionally rocked back as it fired. The bolt immediately ratcheted back and chambered another round and fired again. A hit from that weapon would probably rip the little filly right in half if he managed to score a hit. Even a glancing blow might turn deadly if it was enough to knock her out of the sky.

I poked my head around the cart and lined the revolver up with the side of the unicorn's head and began to apply pressure to the trigger. Just then, the wail or bullets screeching past my ears, coupled with several flashes of sparking metal as the cart was struck by lead projectiles sent me sprawling for the ground. My shot went wide, barely even noticed by my intended target. Had I already been spotted by the other Vipers?

The alabaster blur that zipped overhead a moment later suggested that it had not been one of the ponies on the ground that had just tried to take me out.

Oh, for fuck's sake! It was bad enough that I had to avoid being shot at by the Vipers in my unarmored state, without needed to worry about the pony I was trying to help pumping rounds into me too!

No good deed, Whiplash chuckled in her mirth.

No good deed, I retorted in a mocking mental tone. Fuck you!

I glared up after the filly for a moment longer and then looked back in the direction of the unicorn sniper in preparation for another shot. Which was fortunate, as it allowed me to finally notice that he was looking at me as well. The other stallion was still for a moment, obviously quite surprised to see my crouched there. He blinked at me. I blinked back. His eyes darted to my side, and I followed their gaze. We were both looking at the pink mare lying dead at my side. Then our eyes met once more, and I no longer saw surprise on the unicorn's face. It had been replaced with raw rage.

Horseapples.

The sniper rifle whipped around and leveled at me, the unicorn seeming to entirely forget about the airborne threat buzzing the street. I clambered to my hooves and ran in what was perhaps the least intuitive direction imaginable: directly towards him. I was pretty limited in my options really. To my right was a cart, which climbing up would have left me exposed atop the high ground in the middle of a firefight. Not really an ideal location under the circumstances. Going left would have taken me into the open street, leaving me with no cover from the sniper or my pegasus 'ally'. Running away was hardly an ideal choice either, as it wouldn't have made me a very difficult target for this stallion.

So, towards him it was.

I at least tried my best to lope side to side in my stride. The stallion seemed to have trouble tracking moving targets with the weapon if his fruitless efforts to down Windfall were any indication. The large rifle bucked in the air, a gout of smoke and flame spewing from the barrel with a thunderous roar. The asphalt beside me jump up and splattered my face and shoulder with a spray of razor sharp debris. I winced, but maintained my charge. My recent acquired revolver recoiled several times as I engaged the trigger and pumped rounds in the direction of the unicorn.

My first shot went wide, the kick from the weapon far more than I was used to, but the next four slammed home as I moved my point of aim much lower. One caught him in the upper left side of his chest, picking the stallion up off the ground slightly. The next caved in his sternum. The third bullet pitched his head back as it caught him jut above the right eye and removed most of the top of his skull. The final shot found the center of his throat and removed his head entirely as it severed his cervical spine on its way out. The unicorn's decapitated corpse collapsed to the ground in a shower of blood and gore.

I allowed the momentum of my run to carry me to the stallion's former cover and rolled up next to the pile of rubble, panting. I glanced back at the remains of the sniper. Well, that was certainly a bloody mess, wasn't it? I looked at the revolver still clutched in my mouth with an appreciative gaze. This gun didn't mess around, did it? Of course, it was empty now, and I still had two red blips to deal with on the other side of the street.

To say nothing about the filly that could still end up strafing me from above at any moment. I needed to talk to her about checking to make sure of what exactly it was you were shooting at before you just went around spraying bullets everywhere at anything that moved.

I chanced a peek over the rubble at the final two Vipers. The pair of them were nestled in behind a pair of carts turned up on their sides, each poking from around either side of them with their weapons trained on the air. The building behind them denied the filly any chance of circling around from behind. They were dug in pretty well. Even I wouldn't stand much of a chance in an assault on their position. There was no way for me to get around them any more than the pegasus could.

In a perfect world, this would be where Windfall and I would take the opportunity to fall back and get away from this fight. However, a dive and spray of bullets from the filly that simply ricocheted harmlessly off the carts suggested that running from this fight wasn't anything that the filly was willing to do.

Crouching back down again, my eyes went to the sniper rifle laying nearby. I contemplated the weapon for a moment, but then grimaced. I'd be lucky to hit somepony standing in a wide open field with that behemoth. There was no way I was going to be able to pick off somepony sticking little more than their nose out from behind cover. I was out of rounds for the revolver too. I pawed briefly through the stallion's bags, but found little more than a smattering of rifle rounds and a healing potion—which I pocketed. So, he didn't have anything useful. Neither had the pink mare.

My eyes peeked back over the pile of rubble once more, this time seeking out that first body that I'd seen when I first arrived. A puke-green unicorn mare with black hair lying in the middle of the road. Presumably the victim of Windfall's initial surprise pass over the group of gangers. Her weapon of choice looked to have been a single-shot grenade launcher. A bandolier of grenades of various types was slung around her shoulders. I supposed that I could have made a mad dash for the weapon and tried to use it to blast the cover of those last two Vipers into slag, but I discarded the idea quickly. I'd never even really seen one of those weapons up close before. Hell, it might not even be loaded, and I certainly didn't know how to put a grenade into it if it wasn't. That would have just left me unarmed and exposed. Not worth the risk.

I did notice one other weapon that the mare possessed though: dynamite. Three of the dirty red sticks were nestled in little holders on her saddlebags. Those did present me with a promising idea. Not necessarily the dynamite itself, since I had no way of lighting them off hoof. The unicorn had likely used magic to do the trick. But, while I did not have any of the explosive sticks of my own, I did have something similar that a pony could forgivably mistake for them in the heat of battle.

My hoof groped around in my bag until I found what I was looking for. I smiled down at the crimson colored flare. Upon close inspection, it would be obvious that this was not anything like an explosive. However, I was counting on those two ponies not taking the time to chance a close inspection. Nor did I really need them fooled for very long. I just needed them to react without thinking to what they perceived to be the most pressing threat at the moment, and forget about any others for a couple seconds.

Using the pipbuck's Eyes Forward Sparkle, I scanned the skies for Windfall. The filly was coming around for another pass, and was even being obliging enough to be making it on the pair of ponies behind the cart, as they were currently the only ones still shooting at her. I removed the cap from the flare and struck the bottom of it against the road. The orange flames sputtered reluctantly to life and began to burn bright. I held the red stick in my mouth and waited patiently for the right moment, keeping my eyes on the pegasus' approach.

When I judged the timing to be right, I heaved the flare up into the air, arching it over the pair of carts the Vipers were hiding behind. The flare vanished behind them, and for a second, there was no reaction from the ponies beyond. Then one of them yelled something and dove out into the open...

...directly into the filly's line of fire.

The automatic pistol in her mouth burped out a hail of little lead slugs. The exposed Viper screamed and fell over, motionless. That left just the one left, who had not seemed to be fooled by the feint at all. He stayed low as the filly flew overhead and then began to shot up at her as she winged away in preparation for another pass. This was my chance to end things.

I scrambled over the rubble and charged around the carts, circling behind the remaining pony that was trying to take out the little pegasus. He didn't even see me coming. I leaped into the air from behind him and brought both of my forehooves down on the base of his neck. The earth pony stallion cried out, the pistol in his mouth clattering to the ground. The blow staggered him, and I pressed my advantage. I reared up and brought strike after strike down against the side of the Viper's head until I felt the skull give way. The stallion was motionless.

My eyes scanned the street once more, searching for any signs of any additional red blips that might have escaped notion. Nothing. Only Windfall's yellow blip was visible as it slid across my field of view while she arced around. My eyes narrowed in the direction of the blip, I calmly stepped out from behind the carts and strode into the middle of the street. I sat down and glowered, waiting for her to make her approach.

Celestia help that little filly if she took another shot at me...

She did not, I was pleased to note. Indeed, the white pegasus filly drew up short during her next pass over the street and hovered in the air, looking down at me, the submachine gun still held awkwardly in her mouth. It was obviously a little big for her. The two of us stared at each other for a long, silent, moment. Then the filly lowered herself to the ground and spat the weapon onto the asphalt.

“...thanks,” she said quietly.

My eyes narrowed, “what the fuck is wrong with you?” I snapped at the filly, “have you lost your little feathered mind?!”

Windfall winced, but then she glared right back at me, “I just did what I had to do,” she retorted.

I balked for a brief moment, “what?!” I gestured to the dead Vipers around us, “since when did you 'have' to do this?”

“Things weren't fair!”

Another blank look from myself. Was my insanity contagious, or had I somehow missed a huge piece of a conversation that the two of us had had? “what are you talking about?”

“Miss Vision, the Mare-Do-Well, that colt,” the filly's eyes were tearing up now, “they were good ponies, and now they're dead! My parents, my brother, they might be dead too, and they were good ponies! Good ponies keep dying, and it's not fair!” she was yelling now, and the tears had started to stream down her cheek.

“Since when did the Wasteland have to be fair?” I snapped back at her.

“Well why can't it be unfair to ponies like these?!” the filly jabbed her hoof at the green unicorn mare nearby, “they go around and hurt good ponies every day! Somepony should be hurting them!

“And that pony might as well be me,” she added in a determined tone.

“Since when was any of that our problem?” I demanded.

“Since I decided it was my problem,” the pegasus shot back, “if I'm going to be good at killing ponies, I might as well kill ponies that deserve to die.”

I had to admire the filly's spirit, if not her altruism, “you want to hunt bad ponies, huh? The Mare-Do-Well wanted to hunt bad ponies too. Look how that turned out.”

“So what if I die?” the filly screamed at me, more tears streaming down her face, “what do I have to live for anyway? My family's gone, and I'm never going to see them again, am I? Am I!” my silence was all the confirmation that she needed. No, she wouldn't in likelihood. The pegasus was quiet for a moment, “so what's even the point of living...”

I could relate to that. I'd felt very similar for a while after leaving Neighvada. There had been a time when I did stop caring if I got taken out. It wasn't until I discovered that deep well of spite within myself, and my determination to outlive the piss-yellow bitch that ruined my life that I found a renewed sense of purpose and desire to live. The filly hadn't found that yet.

Or had she? We all needed purpose in our lives. A goal. Mine was to see Whiplash dead. Windfall though, she might need a different purpose. Something to get her out of bed in the morning, and keep her fighting to see the next dawn.

“So, what, you're giving up,” I asked casually, “going to eat that gun you stole?”

The filly glared at me, “no. I'm going to kill every bad pony I can find.”

“That's a dangerous life,” I pointed out. I didn't need a suicidal partner. I needed to bring this filly back from the edge of this abyss that she was circling before she pulled me down into it with her.

“More dangerous than factories with crazy robots,” Windfall retorted with a scowl, “more dangerous stables full of pony-eating zombies?”

Touche, “you promised you'd do whatever I told you,” I pointed out.

“And you promised to teach me to kill whoever I wanted!” Windfall snarled at me, “well I want to kill bad ponies!” her ire dimmed a little, but her gaze was still hard, “that's my condition.”

I snorted, mildly amused at the filly, “you're dictating terms to me now?” she had spunk, I'd give her that. The jury was still out as to whether this was going to prove an asset or a liability though.

“I'm offering you a contract,” the filly said coolly.

My eyebrows arched, “you come into a hoard of bits when I wasn't looking?”

“There're your bits,” the filly stated, jabbing her hoof at the nearby mare once more, “you can sell those weapons for a lot, can't you? I've seen what the traders are paying for guns, I'm not stupid. There's what, a thousand bits worth of guns out here?”

Twelve hundred, actually, I hastily appraised. I hadn't looked through all the saddlebags yet, so there might even be more. The grenade launcher, grenades, and the sniper rifle would be the bulk of the haul. I was probably going to end up keeping that cannon of a revolver though. That thing was...potent. The filly did have a point too, this hadn't really been all that much more dangerous than anything else we'd taken on.

It wasn't like gunning down gangers and bandits was going to get us in trouble with the the Republic either. It wouldn't earn us a whole lot of friends on the shadier side of the law, but I'd already reluctantly decided to go more or less legitimate. My hang-up about doing this sort of work initially had been that seeking out well-armed ponies to rob was high risk when it came to getting bits. Leastways, it had been high risk when it was just me against a group of bandits. I hadn't really considered how much easier it would be with two of us. Working with a partner was a new concept to me that I had yet to fully realize to its true potential.

Until today. With two threats, it was a lot easier to divide the attention of our targets and get behind them. Windfall's flight and speed in the air added a whole other dimension that would take me time to accurately factor into our side's advantage. She could get from one side of the fight to the other in seconds with few obstacles. If I got her a decent battle-saddle...

I looked down at the filly, “so, you want to hunt bad ponies?” The filly jerked her head up and down resolutely, “you want to kill gangers and bandits and raiders?”

“And White Hooves,” the filly added icily.

I held her gaze, silent. How did the peanut gallery feel about this?

You're just going to get yourself killed, you stupid boy, Steel Bit growled.

You're one to talk, you dead bastard.

I bet the filly kills more ponies than you do, Whiplash nickered.

Bet she's already killed more ponies than you, bitch.

I was pretty sure I could guess where Yellow Bitch stood on the subject of killing evil gangers and bandits, the noble little cunt that she...huh. Judging from the sad little shake of her head, the pegasus with the pink mane actually looked like she was apposed to the idea of killing bad ponies. Really?

Well, horseapples, that decided it then. Anything that pissed that little bitch off was aces in my book! Guess that killing raiders didn't count as 'being kind'. Who knew?

A smile crawled across my face as I looked at the little pegasus filly, “deal.”

The filly smiled back at me for the first time that day. In her eyes, I saw a look I had not yet seen in the eyes of the little flier since we'd met: the eyes of a pony that wanted to kill.

Daddy's little filly...

Damn right.

Footnote: Level Up!
New Perk Added: Silent Running -- Able to sneak and run at the same time.
Sneak Skill: 50

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

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