“Who knows who will be on board? A couple of spies, for sure. At least one grand duke; a few beautiful women, no doubt very rich and very troubled. Anything can happen and usually does on the Orient Express…”
Morley Safer, Canadian Journalist

“You’re all punks hiding there, yelling in the dark… lemme tell you where you assholes stand!
First there’s God. Then the Warden. Then my guards. Then their dogs out there in the kennel!
And finally you! Pieces of human waste! No good to yourselves, or anybody else!”
Associate Warden Ranken, Stonehaven Maximum Security Prison, Alaska
Runaway Train (1985)

“I wanna tell you that you’re all that ever mattered
Want you to know that for eternity I’m shattered
I tried so hard just to protect you but I failed to
And in a prison of abandonment I’ve jailed you

I never planned that I would leave you there alone
I was sure that I would see you when I made it back home
And all the times I swore that it would be okay
Now I’m nothing but a liar and you’re thrown into the fray…”
'RWBY: Red Like Roses Part II'
Jeff and Casey Lee Williams

DORCHESTER CAPE, NEW BRUNSWICK

Clun-cl-clunk, went the wheels on a rail joint. Three bangs, one for each axle on the wheel truck tucked under 9782’s cab. After an agonizingly long wait, the same sound repeated itself as the train slowly continued to reverse itself along an abandoned and overgrown spur that looked and felt like it hadn’t been maintained since the use of steam engines. They were already a mile or more away from the main track, but it helped to be well hidden.

“Keep it coming,” crackled a handheld radio perched on 9782’s dashboard. “Nice and slow...”

Night had long fallen. After putting as many miles between the fallen city of Truro and themselves as possible, Tess Jones had finally identified – between her own haphazard knowledge, Jean’s maps, and a railroad divisional handbook – what they needed: a disused spur on which to hide themselves and the train for a few hours.

The squeal of wheels grinding against tightly curved rails eased, and Tess, alone in the cab, reached for the radio.

“We’ve cleared the bend,” she said, picking it up to speak. “How much further?”

“Another half mile or so to the treeline, from what I can see,” came Verity Carter’s answer. “Can’t you push this thing any faster?”

“No,” she replied bluntly. “Propelling stock is tricky enough, but on track like this…”

The cab rolled to one side as the neglected, waterlogged roadbed settled under the train’s weight, and she tensed, holding onto the controls as if expecting to be suddenly turned on her side.

“Fine, I get your point,” Verity admitted, her voice tinny even at this short range. “Okay, I can see the trees now, only another five minutes or so before you can haul up in the woods.”

Tess mumbled a word of thanks and dropped the radio back into a cup-holder. 9782’s motor banged and whined behind her, pitch rising and falling as she shifted the throttle lever back and forth between its two lowest settings, struggling to not let the beast get out of her inexperienced grasp. It was like trying to ease a car backwards at a crawl without stalling or flooding the engine.

‘Five minutes...five minutes and then I can sleep.’

She hoped that didn’t count as tempting fate. But she was driving blind, exhausted, and pushed past any limits she could have dreamed she had, even after the Barrier had started growing. With the cab lights dimmed and only the glow of the operations screen to provide interior illumination, she could feel herself teetering on the exhausted threshold of sleep. Her limbs and body ached from too many hours seated behind the control desk, and her eyes burned from want of sleep.

Only the dim glow of a green light, reflected in the cabside mirror, kept her eyes open. It was being waved up and down by Verity from the rearmost caboose’s platform, indicating that they could keep backing up into the brush. Branches and overgrowth scratched over the windows the further they got from the main track, the train forcing its way along rails nature seemed determined to reclaim. 9782’s headlight, pointing back along the way they had come, illustrated too well the railroad’s rough path, gouged through wall after wall of brush.

Hours. It had been hours since they laid Jean and Firelock to rest. Hours since they had discovered their additional pair of passengers. Hours since her vocabulary had grown to include the phrase ‘totem-proles’.

‘Some kinda pony computer, right?’ she sighed to herself, head too heavy to comprehend...

Even after Verity’s explanation, she still wasn’t clear on what exactly she was hauling.

And those hours had been spent driving. Pushing the train onwards across the length of Nova Scotia, running without signals or a dispatcher, possibly into oncoming traffic. After that strain, the fear of a head-on collision lurking around every curve, the only reason Tess clung to the controls so tightly now was because her hands shook like crazy when she tried to let go.

But they were safe now, at least for a few hours. Safe to rest and recover and finally steal a few hours of slee–

“STOP STOP STOP!”

Tess slammed the brake lever into ‘full emergency’ and closed the throttle before Verity had finished screaming her warning, and felt an immediate surge of compressed air course through pipes below the deck and buck the brake-shoes against the wheels.

Going at barely walking pace, the train stopped immediately, banging a few times as the couplings stretched and the consist rebounded.

And then there was silence. 9782’s engine had dropped back into a comforting hum, and Tess , sitting rigid in the engineer’s seat, tried to relax, reach out, and pick the radio back up. It took her several tries, and with every second she was struggling to hold back a wave of nausea.

“What is it? What happened? Is anything derailed…” she whispered into the mouthpiece, her stomach threatening to rebell at any second.

“No…” came the reply at last. “No, we’re fine. Here is good, we’re hidden enough here. Shut it down.”

“Roger,” Tess managed. Then, with forced, considered actions, she reset the controls into neutral, and then locked them by removing the detachable ‘reverser’ lever, the locomotive’s equivalent of a gear stick. Taking the lever out of its mounting was like setting the wheel lock on a car: now nobody could tamper with the controls.

She didn’t power down the motor though. That stayed running in idle, so that if needs be they could make a quick escape without having to worry about the startup sequence.

‘Because you don’t know how to fire this thing up properly…’ whispered the treasonous voice that poisoned her every waking thought. ‘And instead, you’re going to leave the engine running while you sleep, burning precious gallons of diesel, until at last you run out of fuel midsection in the middle of nowhere, stranded and helpless…’

She did her best to kick those pessimisms to death, focusing on rising from her seat, setting the handbrake and gathering her supplies, but the cab suddenly felt uncomfortably warm and suffocating.

‘Get out, get air, get a hold of yourself!’

Firelock’s rifle went onto her combat vest’s back-holster, while Jean’s maps and plans neatly folded up and slipped into her bag.

Helmet, coat, the reverser...

‘Useless, stupid…’

Bag, loco keys, Beretta…

‘Shouldn’t be here, can’t hack it…’

Got everything, turn off lights, head to door…

‘Foolish, childish, KILLER…’

She stepped out onto the rear catwalk and was hit in the face by a wall of cold winter air, spiced with the smells of pine, tree sap, and sea salt. It was a bracing rush, and just the shock to the system she needed to shake her out of this fuge...

Except this was the point when her stomach, already overtaxed, gave up the fight and somersaulted into full-on rebellion. Feeling the surge of backwash, Tess threw her head over the railing and sicked up into the bushes, several foul bursts of vomit jetting from her mouth and spreading over the vegetation in a steaming, fetid mess.

“I can’t do this…” she whispered to herself.

“You’ve not got much of a say in the matter,” came a blunt response.

Tess didn’t spin, or shriek, or lash out. She was too spent and hurting to do much more than turn her bleary head to see who had addressed her. It was Verity, the resilient earth pony standing on the catwalk and looking ready for business.

Her eyes, ringed with that freaky electric-blue, seemed to glow in the dark.

“You look rough,” the pony said at last, before turning and pulling a bottle of water from her saddle. “Here, wash that sick down with this.”

“Thanks…”

The cool water on her abraded, vomit-stained mouth and throat was like manna itself. After two swigs Tess found it in herself to force an upright posture, managing to mimic some of that swagger she had seen, craved and felt back in Truro.

‘Laura and Claire… terrifying women, so why am I emulating them?’

She couldn’t understand it, and yet the thought of the two she-demons gave her strength. Passing the empty water bottle back to Verity, she locked the cab door, lit her flashlight, and locked the mare right in the eye.

“What did we nearly hit?”

“Another train.”

EQUESTRIA FORWARD OPERATIONS BASE X69, ‘CAMP REBIRTH’
DORCHESTER PENITENTIARY, NEW BRUNSWICK
(3.5 miles from Dorchester Cape)

The sound of barking dogs was the perfect score to any prison tale, and they were not absent here. Vicious barks and savage snarls echoed amongst the complex, missing only the howl of sirens and the sweep of floodlights to complete the image of a desperate jailbreak.

In truth though, these animals were crying out not for the scent of escaped inmates, but for mere nourishment. Left behind when the prison had been evacuated, they had turned to cannibalism in their starvation, and none of the new population had either the courage or the heart to try and go into the kennels to feed, pacify, or euthanize the feral remainder.

‘I hate this place...’ Flash Sentry snarled in thought. ‘I hate this entire world!’

He stared through the window with a scowl. An abandoned ape prison was no place in which Equestria’s armies deserved to be billeted. Even if those armies now mostly consisted of (shudder) Newfoals.

Honestly, Flash suspected there was some irony in that, setting the humans animals free by transforming them into liberated ponies, only to quarter and house them in repurposed cellblocks and exercise yards. Some vicious part of him took grim delight in that.

Because most of all, moreso than the humans or this filthy world, Flash Sentry hated the Newfoals, and outright loathed the fact that they were now the crux of his life.

Newfoals were the reason for Camp Rebirth’s existence, and his current employment. There being no facilities beyond the Barrier to house the coming campaign's predicated glut of converts to the pony race, it fell to the Salvation Army’s Forward Operations units to locate human structures large enough to not only house a temporary population of several thousand Newfoals, but classify and segregate new ‘converts’ based on skills.

Before long, the Barrier itself would arrive and demolish the camp, freeing its residents to begin their new lives. Most would be released into the general pony population, classified as laborers or servants, working out their days either in Equestria itself or on reclaimed Earth, helping to grow ‘New Equestria’.

A large percentage however, would be retained for military training.

‘Meat shields, almost to the last… it’s only once in a while that you get a Focus Ray, or a Stalwart Heart…’

The thought of that particular stallion prompted an inner surge of scorn. Upstart little bastard, latching himself onto the Princess’s Lady like that. Death was too merciful a fate for that kind of arrogance.

‘Oh, I’d just love to kill them all, right now… sick little fakes...’

He could see them now, milling around like animals in the courtyard below, as he gazed out from his office, formerly a watchtower. He’d considered setting himself up in the former warden’s presidium, like various commanders of outfits like his had. And yet… something hadn’t felt right.

As some Newfoal – Flash could never remember their names – led him into the office, lined with wood paneling, he’d felt… a sensation. He couldn’t put his hoof on it, but upon entering, the sight of a dead monkey’s trinkets and trophies decorating the walls left him with an odd sense of trespass…

‘What was he like? That ‘human’. What had he thought as he turned his prisoners loose to save their lives. What had he felt as he witnessed his entire world collapsing, metaphorically and literally?’

He momentarily reflected on that room, now sealed and barred a little more zealously than anypony would be willing to admit. There had been photos perched on the desktop, of smiling human foals and grandfoals and other family members. A rack that must have contained some of those revolting firearms, now empty except for the outlines left in the dust.

Thinking back to that office, and its framed painting of a stern-looking human elder, he felt an oncoming sense of shame surging within him…

/LOVE! OBEY! WORSHIP!/

It broke, collapsed, and dissipated. He was here by orders of the Most High, the Throne Celestial, and that was all that mattered.

… So why did he suddenly feel so cold, inside and out?

There was a rap on the door, and he turned, glad of something to take his mind off the hollowness eating inside of him.

“Enter,” he called out, not noticing that he had clasped his wings tightly to his side in an attempt to keep warm.

The door swung open, handle wreathed in the shimmer of unicorn magic, and Flash resisted the urge to curl his lip in a sneer.

“Miss Diamond,” he said, by way of greeting.

The unicorn mare who walked in was dressed in what resembled a Royal Guard’s uniform, lacking only the helmet and correct military bearing to complete the image. Instead of a weapon, she carried a fussy little clipboard, and the letters ‘PETN’ were stamped into her armour’s side, indicating her function.

Ponies for the Ethical Treatment of Newfoals. A group of interfering busybodies who were bad enough when only imposing legislation and procedure upon the EUP’s hardworking mares and stallions from the distant spires of Canterlot. Now, they were actually attaching ‘liaison officers’ to units likely to deal with Newfoals. Such ‘officers’ were a drain on resources, useless in a fight more often than not, and that was actually the least annoying thing about them.

“Captain Sentry, I must protest the recent actions of the guard staff,” Diamond-Mint Jewelup said crossly, not saving any time for pleasantries. “Have you seen that disgusting fleshpit they’re running out of the former workshops?”

That sort of thing – that tut-tut-tutting from behind the backs of soldiers who put their lives on the line for Equestria, that profound ignorance for the needs of the Guards, that habit of placing the troops below a bunch of jumped-up nationalistic convies who acted like they were better ponies than natural Equestrians – that was the most annoying.

Flash struggled to not massage away his growing headache by judicious application of the liaison officer’s face to the floor. He was indeed aware of the thriving little business, and while he did not exactly approve of it, he had certainly not taken use of the facilities himself, anymore than he begrudged those who did. Stallions and mares of the frontlines had needs, after all.

He’d put in requests for new kinds of Newfoals, ones far more suited to the sexual preferences of a unit cut off from the simple joys of home, but he doubted that he’d get them. Equestria’s wartime bureaucracy, a stumbling juggernaut that he thanked Celestia he didn’t have to deal with, was already struggling under the weight of… something.

/It isn’t your place to QUESTION!/

And even if he did get the perfect Newfoal mares and stallions to service his unit, he wouldn’t feel up to it. His heart belonged to another.

‘Hm. Unless they had the ‘right’ kind of mare… lavender, with purple mane and eyes… then maybe.’

Bucking those pleasant thoughts of the Lady of Magic in the face, he returned to the annoyance currently parading through his office.

“As I understand, it is perfectly legal and acceptable for Newfoals and native ponies to engage in recreational activities… we are not human, after all. And I also understand that you yourself have made use of several Newfoal paramours… you favour unicorn mares, do you not?”

To her credit, she did not blush. Instead, she just rapped one hoof angrily against the floor.

“It is legal and acceptable once a Newfoal has been acclimatised to Equestrian society. This camp’s populace haven’t, which violates both spirit and word of the Newfoal Integration Act.”

Oh, what a capricious, irritating beast that little wartime law was. Flash groaned. These PETN cited it near-constantly. Before he could reflect on it any further, Jewelup came right up to him and slammed both forehooves on the table this time, snarling with contempt.

“There are fillies and colts in there that are practically foals! They may be consenting, but your vaunted troops are charging bits for the sexual services of young adults! Some ‘welcome to Equestria’ they’re receiving. Are you commanding a base or a bordello, Flash Sentry?”

That little revelation did leave Flash feeling more than a little sickened, and he mumbled something about seeing to it.

“You better!” Jewelup sneered. “Or I’ll have word of this in Lady Fleur’s hooves so fast that yours won’t touch the ground on the way out!”

She spun around and, head held high, trotted for the exit. “The Newfoals are our future, and some of us care enough to want to help them, not hold them in contempt for past mistakes.”

Unable to let her leave with the last word, Flash stuck in a parting barb.

“I love what you’ve done with your ‘look’,” he smirked, seeing to his delight that her hoof drifted automatically to an enchanted flower with which she had pinned her mane back. “It’s certainly ‘unique’. Is that covering up a past mistake, or a fresh one?”

She turned, and this time her expression was downright volcanic.

“Oh, very original, Commandant…” she hissed. “Is that supposed to hurt? Is my ‘lamentable’ resemblance and relation to our most vaunted traitor, somehow intended to injure me?”

There certainly was a resemblance. Same mane and build, with only colouration to differentiate. Flash smirked in response.

“Not intended at all… I just know that it works.”

She looked as if she wanted to hit him, and he was entertaining fantasies of returning the compliment. But no, that wouldn’t do, would it?

“You’re finished, Sentry…” she seethed. “I don’t care what you do, what bribes you offer, or how much you beg me, I will see you crawl on your belly through the filth and slime.”

This time she leaned across the table. Her eyes promised no quarter offered nor given.

“I am not Lyra Heartstrings. I’m far less merciful, and you’re going to discover that the hard way.”

With a flick of her tail, she departed. Flash sniggered, not in the least intimidated by a mare caught in her delusions of Newfoal rights. Even if they were individuals, turned against their will into smiling automatons–

/Power! Control! Dominance! Order!/

Yes… only true Equestrians had real worth. The Newfoals were simply a resource, a tool. Useful, deserving of care, but discardable. The Royal Guard and the EUP knew that, and would close ranks around any pathetic attempt to discredit him.

“Canterlot Ponies,” he spoke aloud, clucking his tongue in disgust. “What do they know about life on the Earthfront?”

No, they couldn’t understand, not like a guardspony could. Only a remarkable, glorious few had any semblance of real wisdom, like the Lady Twilight–

/Love! Worship! Adore!/

And Her Majesty Celestia, of course.

He shivered again, suddenly feeling chilled, and seating himself behind his desk he instinctively moved his hooves towards the warmest part of his anatomy, like a colt huddled under the blankets on a cold winter’s night…

And then came another rapping at the door, somewhat louder than before. Whipping his hooves away from his crotch, Flash admitted a flustered pegasus guard, and demanded an explanation.

“Ser! One of our scouting parties to the east has picked up four Newfoals in the human community of Oxford Junction. All mares.”

“So, how is that demanding of my time? Run them through Processing and place them in the camp population.”

“Sir…” the guarded whispered, almost pleading. There was a manic glint in his eye that Flash, to his surprise, recognised as horror. “You have to come see these four. They’re...not natural.”

Afraid. How could a pony, whom Flash knew had faced down some of the worst horrors of the Crystal Campaign and the conquest of Europe, be afraid of four Newfoal mares?

A lesser stallion, one drunk on his own confidence, would have brushed him off. But Flash had learned in this war to trust not just his instincts, but those of the ponies under his command.

“Alright,” he said, donning his helmet. “Show me.”

‘Processing’ was located in what had been the prison’s administrative building, a imperialistic block of masonry that managed to combine elegance and threat in the same instance. However, with none of the human amenities running, indoors lighting was being provided by firefly lanterns, aided by Moonstones.

As they crossed through the Newfoal shanty town established in the courtyard, Flash demanded more information, occasionally kicking away a particularly enthusiastic supplicant.

“They’re… they’re just not right. All smilin’ and worshipful like a Newfoal should be, got on the chariot and came back here as pretty as you please. But there’s something about them, and then there’s the way they act, the way they behave…and the way they’re dressed.”

“Dressed. What do you mean by–”

Flash’s words trailed off as he stepped into Processing, only to be confronted with four mares lined up with near terrifying precision.

“Oh,” he finished, lamely. “Yeah, I see what you mean.”

The four mares were, to put it simply, wrong. Yes, each had the familiar manic smile of a Newfoal, but carried themselves with a surety and alertness that Flash was more used to seeing in his own troops… a kind you just didn’t see in Newfoals. Asking a Newfoal to do something was like working one of the old punch-card computers, the kind that were being phased out in favor of totem-proles. Slow, methodical, devoid of that spirit of individuality.

They were armed too, and armored. Each wore a matching suit of lightweight armour matched with a cape, customised only to complement their individual colouration. Some of them had mounting points for weapons, and had made use of them. He noticed one of the Earth Pony Newfoals had even armed herself with a pair of human firearms, and felt his inner pony recoil. Revolting.

But the eyes, it was the eyes that stood out. As wide and staring as any other creature of their ilk, yet bright, active, and aware, gleaming like the golden tiaras each of the four mares wore. He could see thoughts churning within their minds as they silently tracked his approach, and the very concept of what thoughts lay behind those eyes sent chills down his spine.

“Attention!” trilled the obvious ringleader, and the quartet snapped themselves to attention with a crisp, lethal fluidity and efficiency of movement.

‘Weapons…’ he realised. ‘It’s like looking at a sentient armory. They’re not ponies, or Newfoals. They’re weapons… Where’d they come from? Who or what made them? Did they come from a potionshaper unicorn? If so… what happened to him?’

“Hi there!” they chirped in unison, hooves forming a salute. “We’re the Pretty Privates, reporting for duty!”

Tess shone her flashlight on the filthy mass of steel that she had nearly run the train backwards into, revealing strokes of blue and yellow paint beneath the grime. The entire machine appeared wedged into the overgrowth, trees pressing on from both sides as if in a possessive embrace. It was another six-axle locomotive, but similar to the 9782 only in the most rudimentary of details, being clearly much older, and from a different manufacturer. In fact, it looked more like the 1810, except on steroids.

‘A Super Diesel…’

“An SD40,” she said, directing the beam onto the unilluminated number-boards, which brooded like steepled eyebrows over the cab windscreen. “Number 8888…”

“There’s more back here,” called out Verity, who had already clambered over the top of the abandoned locomotive and proceeded aft. “The line divides into two, and both head off in different directions, parked nose-to-tail with old freight cars. It’s like a junkyard.”

That made sense. The notes in Jean’s divisional handbook said that this spur, the Dorchester Cape branch, was a political pork-barrel, built along with a brand-new deepwater pier and fertilizer factory to stimulate the local economy back in the 1960s. Nothing had ever come of it, and so the port, factory and rail-line had simply been left to rot.

“Canadian National must have been using this place to store unserviceable rolling-stock,” she concluded, clambering onto the 8888’s leading catwalk to try the cab door.

‘Locked.’

Curious, she peered into the windows and saw that the cab itself looked pretty clean and free of dust. There was even a faint glow of LED bulbs on the rear bulkhead’s circuit-panel, suggesting a battery charge.

“Maybe this unit was used to shunt the junkers around…” she mused, which gave her an idea. “Verity!”

“What?”

“You’re smaller than me. Squeeze yourself down the side of the engine at track level and check the fuel-tank for me.”

Verity complied with a grumble, and after several minutes worth of rustling branches and curses, called out to confirm that, according to the bobbing float in the fuel-gauge, the tank was still half-full of diesel.

“Oh, thank you God, or Jean, whichever one of you’s watching out for us,” Tess muttered, before running a hand over the bonnet to reveal the reporting marks of the Super-Diesel’s owner. “And thank you CSX Transportation as well.”

“What was all that in aid of?” groused Verity, who had squirreled her way out of the undergrowth, and was now pulling lengths of branch and briar out of her mane and tail.

“One piece of equipment in our train’s manifest is a portable fuel pump and several lengths of hose…”

“So, what? You want us to siphon this thing’s fuel?”

“It’ll stretch our range a bit, so yeah, why not. And fuck, the Barrier’s coming in just a few days. I doubt anyone’s coming back for ‘crazy eights’ here between then and now.”

It was a sensible plan, and yet Tess could barely bring herself to stay on her feet. And from the haggard expression on Verity’s face, she suspected she felt the same way.

“Buts let’s… let’s sleep first,” she managed, stifling a jaw-breaking yawn.

“Yeah… sleep sounds good…”

As they headed towards the serviceable caboose, Tess paused and shone her torch back at the silent 8888. The locomotive seemed to glower at her through the darkened windscreen windows, and she suppressed a shiver.

‘It’s just another engine, a power-plant mounted on a wheeled chassis. You’ve worked with them all your life. Driven and mastered steam, and apprenticed on diesels. It’s no different...’

And yet the sight of the machine, parked in the middle of nowhere, sleeping in the wilds like a predator in hibernation, put her hackles up. The only word to describe it was ‘sinister’.

Shaking her head, and turning nervously away, she climbed the steps onto 9782’s leading caboose, and followed Verity out of the winter cold into…

Home, or something much like it.

Warmth, light, and the unmistakable smell of something burning on a hot stove. Tess stumbled, caught in the moment, and looked around, properly taking in what before she had only had the briefest chance to inspect.

Railroad cabooses, or ‘guards’ vans’ as she knew them in the UK, were odd vehicles. Back before the days of ‘continuous brakes’, operating on every wheel in a train and remotely controlled from the locomotive’s cab, the only way of adding braking power to a freight train was by tucking something like this at the tail: a ballasted chassis fitted with powerful brakes, on which a wooden body was mounted for the use of the brakeman. Whistle codes and knowledge of the route would tell him when to apply his own brakes to aid the locomotive going down slopes, or to keep a lengthy consist in check. And if a train broke in two by accident, like say if a coupling sheared, then it would be the job of the caboose to bring the snapped-off cars to a safe halt.

In the UK, ‘guards vans’ were little more than that: vans, shacks on wheels furnished with little more than a flag locker, bench and pot-belly stove. In the Americas however, where journeys could be transcontinental in length, more was provided. Cabooses often served as offices from which the train’s paperwork could be conducted, and fitted with facilities to cover multiple shifts of men: sinks, toilets, hot-plates and beds.

It was a romantic ideal, of men whose work took them the length and breadth of a nation in these rolling homes, like the precursor to modern truckers who lived and slept in their juggernaut rides.

Time never stopped for romance however. Automation and continuous brakes had steadily made the old cabooses redundant, and those which had not been scrapped had been repurposed. Some stayed in service fitted out as mobile bunkhouses for maintenance-crews, while others were sold for conversion into holiday homes, never to turn a wheel again.

Honestly, Tess could not tell whether this particular caboose had been ‘retired’ in such a manner and then called back into service, or if it had just been well-cared for. All she could perceive was the polished luster of wooden furnishings, the welcoming allure of several bunkbeds mounted against the far wall, and the sight of the tiny Chinese girl - Mary, no, Maddy - pouring mugs of hot chocolate from a battered saucepan into a collection of tin mugs.

After weeks of living hand-to-fist, bartering her way across the railroads, and the insanity, burden and chill of the past two days, this pocket of sanity and home was a tiny drop of heaven. Tess struggled not to break down and collapse right there, and instead busied herself with hanging up her gear on an equipment rack, masking the tremors in her face with activity.

“Honey, we’re home!” called out Verity with false levity, the brash mare pushing her way through and scrambling into a dining nook positioned opposite the stove. “Bagged a juicy big steer too!”

The kid cut a suspicious glance at the earth pony, dark eyes squinting. Then her attention turned towards Tess, who was still lurking in the entryway, and her features visibly twisted in disgust.

‘Fuck her… fucking Rebirther groupie. Even if she’s just fucking ten…’

Not appreciating the child’s scorn, Tess stepped up to the dining nook, and spread one of Jean’s charts out on the table. Before Maddy offered it, she plucked one of the mugs out of her hands, lifted it to her lips, and then immediately regretted it as the scalding liquid burned her lips and throat.

‘Don’t show weakness, don’t show pain…’

Hissing softly, she lowered the mug, and focused on the map, which showed the entirety of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia along with bits of Quebec, with railroads marked out in bold. Other maps bound to it outlined the track mileage in detail, right down to every bridge, crossing, siding and milepost.

“So, where are we?” asked a tired voice, and Tess flicked her eyes towards the person sitting opposite her.

Lightning Dust. Not for the first time, she struggled to bite back a curse. The pegasus mare, despite having spoken at her, was staring silently out of a side-window, peering out to where only the ghost of her reflection could be seen.

“Yeah,” prompted Verity. “What’s the deal?”

All attention shifted to Tess, even that of Maddy, who had climbed into the seat next to Lightning Dust, the teal pegasus laying one of her wings across the child’s shoulder in a light embrace.

For a few seconds Tess nursed her drink and examined the map, warming her hands by cupping them around the mug. Then, at last, she placed a finger on a quarter-inch of ink that jutted like a thorn from the main line, itself a slender black thread that connected Halifax to the rest of North America.

“We’re right here. Dorchester Cape, New Brunswick…that little stub there in the ass end of nowhere is this spur we’re parked on.”

“Hiding’s more like it,” snorted Verity, and Tess shot her a black look, feeling her inner fire rise with the warmth of the cocoa. The PHL freak could wave all her guns around all she liked, but right now, she had centre stage.

“You want to go out there and deal with unknown territory full of people that want to turn you into a pastel zombie or give you lead poisoning, be my guest. Because right there...is Truro…” she said firmly, sliding her hand six inches to the right. “Not even eighty miles behind us.”

Whatever unusual backgrounds they all had as individuals, nobody could suppress a shudder at the memory of that town...

“And it’s several hundred more miles from here to Montreal,” Tess continued. Though none of them knew just what Montreal was like, it had to be better. Hot chocolate. A rest. Some measure of security, much as you could be secure after Barrierfall. It was a hope, a destination to reach…

A destination that was days and miles away. That realisation chilled the mood a little, and Lightning Dust turned away from the window, looking down at the map with an expression Tess knew all too well from a face she often glimpsed in mirrors: the honest fear of the genuinely lost.

“And ‘Montreal’... that’s where you’re taking the cargo, those totem-prole things?”

Only a blind person could have missed the subtle tightening of her wing’s grip on Maddy. “We’ll be safe there, right?”

Tess nearly blurted out a bland ‘I don’t know’, but resisted the urge.

“Safe? SAFE?” laughed a snide voice from one of the bunks, the voice of the stallion named Prism Flash. “When Equestria realises what you’ve stolen, they’ll send every hoof under arms to destroy you!”

“There’s a drill in the tool-chest bucko!” replied Verity, icily. “Want me to pick up where Colonel Galt left off?!”

Silence. Tess felt something twist in her gut. Verity’s words sounded like a meaningless threat, but she knew the context…

‘What they did to his hooves. He might be an Equestrian, he might be Rainbow Dash’s Dad, but Iesu Grist… that wasn’t right.’

She kept her tongue however, trying to mentally focus on the task ahead of them. Little Maddy however had no such compulsions.

“What the humans did to Mr. Flash was wrong, and you know it!” the child squeaked, striking the table with a bunched fist, as if stomping a hoof. “It’s no wonder The Queen came to save them, when they spent their entire history doing that to each other!”

“Maddy…” cautioned Lightning Dust, her voice ragged, like a sail about to rip. “Talking like that isn’t going to help. Please, drink your cocoa...”

“But it’s true! Ponies don’t do terrible things like that to each other! You know that, do you?” Maddy doggedly insisted, before pointing first at Tess, then Verity.

“And you killed that poor stallion, and you, why are you helping them? You’re a pony, even if you’re a blank flank!” she accused through clenched teeth, trembling with the desperate agitation of crumbling faith bolstered with bluster and words

“SHUT UP, MADDY! SHUT UP! JUST SHUT! THE! FUCK! UP!!” Lightning snapped before Tess could respond, and Maddy spun round to stare into the shouting mare’s blazing eyes.

“What happened back at the hospital was the work of ponies!” the flier seethed, as if venting an overburden of steam. Tess recoiled in surprise, and even Verity flinched at the outburst.

Maddy’s own face had flushed white, and only seemed to pallor further as Lightning prodded her in the chest with a hoof.

“Remember what Mercy did? Remember what happened to Rio? That was done by ponies, and by people who believed ponies were perfect, like you, and decided that gave them the moral high ground to do whatever they want and still be the so-called ‘good guys’! Well I’m a pony, and ALL OF THAT WAS PERFECTLY FUCKED! THAT WAS THE MOST DISTURBING THING I’VE SEEN IN MY LIFE, AND DON’T YOU DARE SAY IT WAS FOR A GOOD FUCKING CAUSE!”

“STOP IT!” Tess interjected, banging her own hand down. “Just, stop it. I know she’s the Rebirth’s little groupie, but she’s a child and you’re swearing at her! Now cut it out!”

Lightning’s outburst of words cut off with a gasp, as if she was suddenly seeing the trembling mess that she had reduced her charge to.

“Oh no…” she said, audibly shocked at her own burst of rage. “Maddy, I’m… I’m sorry…”

She extended a hoof towards the girl, who pushed herself out of the seat, backed away from the table and climbed up into the brakeman’s cupola, over their heads.

“Congratulations,” Verity said dryly. “Now you made the ten-year old cry. Perfect poster-girl for the pony race you are.”

The sound of Maddy’s sobbing drifted down from above them, and Tess rose to try and speak to her.

“Don’t… please...” Lightning said, reaching across the table with a pleading hoof. She looked shaken. “Just, let her work it out for a few minutes. She’s an orphan, and the two people who cared for her both… well, today she got orphaned again.”

Tess remained half-standing, crouched under the low ceiling, one hand resting on a fire-alarm lever.

“Please,” Lightning pleaded. “Just, please sit down. I’ll go talk to her in a minute.”

Slowly, Tess came back down onto the bench, beside Verity. She looked down at the map, which now had a splash of spilled cocoa extending inland from the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, like probing fingers.

“... the Barrier’s coming,” she said softly, as if the realisation was just dawning on herself. “It’s at most a day behind us. Now I don’t know about you two, but if it catches up with us, Maddy and me are going to be in serious trouble.”

She whetted a finger-tip in the liquid and drew a line across the chart, tracing the railroad line a short distance up the coast to the next major settlement.

“That there is Moncton, biggest city in New Brunswick. It’s where we’ve gotta turn inland, away from the sea.”

Her finger swung away from the coastal routes, and inched up into the countryside, where after a few miles the railroad split in a ‘Y’, leaving two lines wending their way in seperate directions.

“This is Pacific Junction, the crucial point, because there the rail divides. The Newcastle Subdivision carries on north towards the St. Lawrence, but we’re shortcutting off along the Napadogan Subdivision, the mainline…”

Her hand swept northeast, slashing a cocoa-stained line right across the centre of New Brunswick.

“That’s our quickest and most direct route to Montreal, via Quebec City, right through the evacuation zone. It’s more than three hundred miles as the pegasus flies, and further by rail…”

She looked up, channeling every bit of charisma she could summon, even if it was a lie.

“I know none of us really planned this ride, but we’ve got our backs to the pink wall and we’re not going to get very far if we can’t tolerate each other’s presence, or at least act like it. I’m not asking you to trust or even like one another, but we’ve got to at least work together as far as Quebec City…”

She laughed bitterly. “And maybe, if we get there, we can be buddy-buddies and go share a meal at Aux Anciens Canadiens. Now, I’m the only one who can drive the train, you’ve all got things you can do, and I’ve got to get at least a few hours sleep tonight, so-”

She stopped, and sighed. She was getting ahead of herself.

“Look, right now, it’s…” she paused and glanced at her watch. “10.15 PM. First light tomorrow is at six in the morning, and dawn will follow barely an hour after that. By the time the sun’s up I want us to be in motion…”

“What about the train we nearly ran into?” pressed Verity, and Lightning cocked a confused ear. “How long’ll it take to pump its fuel?”

“A few hours, or so…” Tess said. Again she looked down at the map, and felt Jean’s dedication weighing down on her like an invisible burden.

‘Ah crap, I’m gonna hate what I’m about to say…”

She sighed and pinched at her burning eyes. Perhaps there was some coffee nearby.

“You guys go to sleep now...I’ll set up the fuel siphon and take the first watch, for an hour or so. Once the pump’s into it’s stride, I’ll wake one of you to take the second watch, and turn in myself. Six hours sleep or so should be enough for me, so long as I get up and start us rolling before dawn gets much advanced.”

“Alright…” said Lightning, who seemed comparatively more chipper. “I ‘kinda’ slept during the ride, so I’ll follow you on after a cat-nap, or something…”

She trailed off as if uncertain. Tess wondered what ‘kinda slept’ meant, and guessed that the pegasus was afraid of going to sleep. Nothing new there, everybody had nightmares nowadays.

“But first,” Lightning continued, finding her tongue and pointing across the table. “First, I wanna know who the two of you are. Buck, I don’t even know your names.”

“Funny,” snarked Verity, forehooves folded, “Because we sure as hell know yours.”

That prompted a ghost of a laugh from Tess, and she held up her hand in greeting before Lightning could bite onto the earth pony mare’s barb.

“I’m Tess, okay? Tess Jones… my homeland was consumed by Equestria over three years ago now, and today you find me as the driver, guard and conductor of this lashup. I’m twenty-three, single, and an orphan. By that I mean both of my parents are either dead or ponified, and the same goes for my boyfriend.”

All of that came out in a smooth stream of syllables, and she surprised herself at how blithely she had consigned Mum, Dad and Sam to a footnote. And the words were still coming.

“This charming sack of prime horseflesh beside me is Verity Carter, apparent psychopath for hire, now mysteriously a mare, and I’m sure despite her constantly changing allegiances and a streak of violence wider than the Severn estuary, she no doubt has a heart of gold somewhere under all that fur and mane.”

Now it was Lightning’s turn to snigger, and Tess found herself the subject of Verity’s inscrutable gaze.

“You really are full of shit, aren’t you, ‘Lieutenant Jones’... the playtime soldier with a body count in, what was it, the triple digits?”

Tess should have collapsed under that accusation, but exhausted and tired, and having willingly consigned herself to further sleep deprivation for the good of the ‘crew’, she was beyond caring.

“I’m also the only one who can properly use these…” she taunted back, dangling the cab keys and reverser lever in front of Verity’s snout.

“Touche…”

Glowering, Verity refocused her glare at Lightning Dust. “What’s your story?!”

“I don’t know,” Lightning said, her snorts of laughter abruptly choking off.

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?!”

“I mean, I don’t know! Any of this!” Lightning answered, swinging a hoof in exasperation that seemed only slightly forced. “I was trying to do a sonic rainboom, and suddenly BANG! There’s weird voices judging me, talking all weird and circular like I’m not even… wherever I was, and then I find myself in a storm that only an idiot weather team would make…”

Verity remained impassible, but Tess was fascinated.

“Then suddenly, I’m the enemy and beings I’ve never seen before are trying to kill me! And apparently, I’m in love with that filly that did a sonic rainboom in this world, and my home’s at war and trying to turn people into what look like zombies! I still have barely any idea what’s going on, I’ve gotten nothing but horror since I got to this nightmare world, I have NOTHING to go back to, and I’ll probably get killed if I try to go back to Equestria!”

“You think I believe that?”

“You think I do?

“Well, assuming this is true, let me tell you something. You’re not getting off this train,” Tess found herself saying, glad to see that Lightning was cowed a little by her insistence, by the sudden hardness in her voice. “You know how mad this world is, right? Anyone give you this speech?”

“Yeah,” Lighting replied, voice suddenly subdued. Tess saw the pegasus break eye contact and look up towards where Maddy had ensconced herself in the cupola. “Her name was Mercy… and I’m beginning to think she had a point.”

“She did,” Tess said, before forcing herself to take another gulp of cocoa. Lowering the mug she forced herself to speak calmly. “I don’t like you, but you’ve done more to save that little girl than I’d expect of near anypony.”

“Anypony?” Lightning asked. “Nopony else would–”

“Maybe a few. But given who you are, I’m at least inclined to believe you’re not just crazy... but get this straight, you’re in danger just from being anywhere near civilization. There are people out here who make you look like a mewling foal on your best day. People who have eaten ponies tougher than you. There are men and women out there with weaponry you wouldn’t believe, designed to kill Newfoals en masse, and very willing to use them, ponies with magic you wouldn’t believe… and some of them work together.”

“What’s your point?” Lightning glowered, folding her hooves.

“Her point,” Verity clarified, “is that there’s not much love left in the world for ponies or race-traitors… if you, spitting image of a war-criminal, and a kid with PER branded through her vocab walk into the average town and ask for help, the only thing most people will offer you is…”

She mimed being hung. “A short drop and a sudden stop.”

Lightning, to her credit, did not recoil. Tess did not speak either, letting Verity carry the conversation.

“That’s disgusting,” the pegasus seethed.

“That’s what Equestria has reduced us to…” the ex-insurgent replied evenly. “Even if I hand you over to the PHL, you’ll not have long for this earth.”

It was a faceoff between the two mares, one that Tess had little desire to see continue. Snapping her fingers in between them she broke their eye-contact, drawing attention back to her as she downed the last dregs of her mug.

“Okay, what was the first rule. ‘We try to get along’. Dust, you want to get yourself and the kid to safety, and Verity, I can only presume you need transportation away from here…”

“You’re right,” Verity answered. “I’m only here because I need a ride. Jones, you’ve got some pretty important shit tied on behind us, and you’ve gotta get it to Montreal, and that’s cool and sweet, but I’ve got my own mission…”

She tapped a hoof on the map, at a spot marked ‘Brunswick Mines’, way up north on what Tess had called the Newcastle Subdivision. “Now tell me, what are these?”

Tess frowned, but opened up the divisional guidebook and flicked through.

“Ah… the Brunswick Mines, they’re a part of something called the Bathurst Mining Camp. It says here that the railroad used to bring a lot of ore out on them before the mines closed up. They reopened them for a few years earlier in the war, but apparently production was permanently suspended this summer.”

“What did they mine?” Verity pressed on. “Was it something like ‘MS deposits’?”

Tess flicked her eyes back at the guidebook and failed to hide her surprise. “Ah, yeah, VMS ore deposits: ‘Volcanogenic Massive Sulfides’…”

Just as she’d been unable to hide her reaction, Verity seemed unable to conceal a smirk of triumph. “Then that’s where I’m going…”

“What!” blurted out Lightning Dust. “You can’t. We need you to protect us… I mean, protect the train!”

“Don’t assume that I’m going to be your ridealong bodyguard or chief of securiy,” Verity interrupted. “I was sent into the Great White Fucking North to apprehend a fugitive geologist, a key PHL agent who’s gone rogue-”

“How can a geologist be dangerous?!” Lightning asked.

“Because she has hooves in every pie from here to Equestria, and she’s willing to sell everyone out just to get what she wants. My last bit of intel had her riding towards Bathurst, looking for something called ‘MS’ deposits, and boy howdy, look what’s just turned up on the map!”

Tess frowned, and tried to think of something that would convince her otherwise, only for Verity to hold up a hoof before she could even speak.

“Don’t argue with me, because I’m going to those mines. Securing Maud Pie is my objective, and its personal… I’ll ride with you until the subdivisions subdivide, this place ‘Pacific Junction’ up past Moncton, but from there you’re on your own. I’m not playing Worf or Tasha Yar here...”

Her attitude was maddening, infuriating… all the more because Tess couldn’t think of a decent riposte that didn’t go against her own stated rule of cooperation.

“Well, either way,” she declared. “We’re all still in the same boat until we get past Moncton, which means our common interest is keeping this train underway. And that means we all need our rest, and I’ve got first watch.”

“And what do we do if something happens to you out there?” posed Verity. “What’s our plan of action if we’re ambushed in the night, ‘Lieutenant’ Jones?”

Tess did not have answer, and instead rose without speaking, dropped the tin mug into the sink, and flexed, wishing she had the muscles to back up her bluster. As it was, she looked and felt like what Verity said she was, a wannabe playing at being big.

“Both of you get some sleep…” she replied, without answering the question.

As she went, she noticed Lightning Dust staring down at the map, and for a second thought she saw the teal pegasus silent mouth the words ‘Maud Pie’...

Dragging the pump and hoses into place, and priming it, took Tess thirty long minutes. By the time she came crawling through the brush, having had to squeeze herself through the undergrowth to open up the filler cap on 8888’s fuel tank and drop a length of pipe in, she was a mixture of freezing and sweltering, lungs raw with the cold air, and arms and neck burning from where they’d scraped on countless bushes and brambles.

The pump itself she had set up beside 1810’s slug unit, halfway down the length of the train. When she’d finally brought it snarling to life, Tess’s first panicked reaction had been to immediately kill the idea of siphoning the other diesel’s fuel, fearful that the roar of the pump would bring ponies down on them from miles around.

After just a few seconds though, fuel was flowing through the lines and the pump settled down into an even purr.

Relieved, she grabbed onto a ladder and scrambled atop 9782’s long rear hood. Not only was it the highest vantage point around, but the warm air rising from the idling unit’s radiator was enough to stave off some of the cold… even if the subtle vibration of the motor was threatening to lull her to sleep.

Desperate to stay awake, at least for another hour, she fumbled in her backpack and pulled out her Ipad. Her playlist was still queued up, paused, but instead she exited from that app and opened another.

-RECORD-

“This is…” she said, before shaking her head. “It’s now November 10th, 2023. I think today was a Friday... TGIF…”

Her audio diaries. The only way in which she could justify talking to herself without coming across as crazy. Setting the Ipad down between her crossed legs she leaned back against an exhaust manifold and spoke aloud, addressing the sky and stars.

“I did it… I got a locomotive, all to myself. More than that, I’ve got a bonafide train. Now I’ve just gotta find some way of detouring us to pick up the consist… the mare riding with us, Verity, she wants to go in the same direction, up towards Bathurst...”

A pause.

“But I can’t go off course, I promised Colonel Hex that I’d get this cargo to…”

Her mind drifted momentarily, remembering the grizzled PHL officer. Then she remembered another man, the one who she truly owed a debt to.

“...I promised Jean that I’d get it to Montreal.”

She fell silent for a few minutes and then wiped away a few tears.

“I killed people today. Not just like Mum, and Dad, and Sam… I said things, and did things that got a lot of people killed… and I shot someone. I put a gun in the mouth of a decent guy and pulled the trigger. He was dying from potion, yes… but I still ended his life...”

Her hands were doing something she was barely aware of, moving to stay warm. Realising this, she looked down and saw that absently, she had pulled out the Beretta and was field-stripping it.

She didn’t recoil or throw it off the roof. Instead she finished reassembling the pistol, just as Firelock taught her, and quietly set it down beside her, within easy reach.

“This is my gun… a Beretta M9, standard issue. I killed a man named Jean-Eric with it, and I’ll probably have to do it again. And all I can feel about that, is a little sad…”

Slowly, she hugged herself. “God save me, please…”

As she began to quietly sob, the pump down below continued to thrum away, quietly siphoning away one train’s lifeblood to power her own.

Jewelup entered her quarters at a rapid trot and quickly closed the door behind her. This had formerly been the associate warden’s suite, and the lettering on the door still proclaimed it as the demesne of someone named ‘RANKEN’.

The PETN mare paid that no mind, crossing instead quickly to her bed and rummaging around beneath the mattress, until she found a small rip she had torn with her horn. A little more telekinetic effort withdrew the items she had hidden inside…

A metal key on a chain, along with a stubby socket-ended lever. A metal tag on the ring that connected them had the letters ‘CSX’ printed on one side, and the numerals ‘8888’ stamped on the other.

“My getaway…”

It had become standard policy for the Ponies for the Ethical Treatment of Newfoals to secure alternative methods for transporting Newfoals awaiting orientation and normalisation, rather than just turning the poor things loose when the Barrier overtook the holding camps.

Likewise, they tended to procure said transportation ‘on the sly’ from the EUP armed forces, which recently had become rather zealous in their rejection of any human technology. Not a smart move, she had to admit, given that winter was coming soon enough…

Securing an entire train though, and hiding it away within just a few miles away from Camp Rebirth, was one of their best pieces of work. Jewelup, having been trained in the rudiments of locomotive operation from a ex-railroader Newfoal, had taken custody of the 8888 a fortnight ago, and kept it secret.

Oh yes, she had planned to reveal this additional asset to Flash Sentry tomorrow, when they began ‘take down’ procedures ahead of the Barrier, with the suggestion that they load anything useful onto some flatbeds, hook up the stolen diesel locomotive, and take it with them…

“He’ll never have listened to me though, they never listen…”

Now though, now she had other plans. She was getting out of here tonight, whether Flash Sentry liked it or not, and she was taking those four new arrivals with her, the four Newfoal mares who had turned up out of the blue and proclaimed themselves to be ‘Pretty Privates’.

“The Pretty Privates,” she repeated aloud, and could not suppress a smile from coming to her face. “The Newfoals we’ve been hoping for…”

This needed to be documented, and a bit of searching through her bedside cabinet unearthed her most prized possession, a shard of crystal gifted to her by no less than the Lady Fleur herself. In appearance it looked like a carving of a severed unicorn horn, but a close examination showed a myriad of runes etched into the surface.

It was the very latest advance in Equestrian science, a miniaturized, hoof-held version of a totem-prole. No official name had been given to the prototype devices yet, but Jewelup had taken to referring to it as her ‘pocket prole’.

“Take a memo,” she spoke aloud, and the device lit up with a ‘chirp’ sound.

“This is Liason Officer Diamond-Mint Jewelup, and I am making this recording so that, in the event of my death as a consequence of the war effort, a remarkable occurrence is preserved for posterity…”

She began to move around the room, pacing as she dictated.

“Since before the war, PETN has championed the right of Newfoals to full recognition and equality as Equestrian subjects. To date however, the admitted deficiencies of the majority of Newfoals has hampered our efforts. Our hope has always been however that through time and careful nurturing, these former humans will began to grow and develop as true ponies…”

It was an admitted problem. But for Jewelup herself, not an insurmountable challenge. Before the war, she had been a specialist teacher, a tutor whose gift was helping ponies interpret their cutie-marks and fulfill their potential.

The Dearth of cutie-marks that had struck Equestria had, admittedly, put a cramp on that career. Until the Lady Fleur had offered her a position in PETN, helping Newfoals grow into themselves, much in the same way she had helped numerous fillies and colts.

And right now, she could not stop smiling. For her, for everypony in PETN, something long-promised finally appeared to be coming true.

“Tonight, four Newfoal mares were admitted to Camp Rebirth, the former Dorchester Penitentiary. These mares, although only hours from their transformation, show exceptional deviance from the standard Newfoal paradigm…”

For a second, her smile faltered, thinking back to what she had witnessed when Flash Sentry had ordered the four mares to demonstrate their abilities before the camp’s senior staff...

....what had followed had been several examples of simulated carnage.

“...on one level, they’re terrifying. Each is physically and magically powerful, and demonstrate creativity and flair in the way they wield that power. They also seem to have been tailored by the ponification process to military applications, which I admittedly find concerning...”

She shuddered.

“There are four of them: Harvest, Trimurti, Newspeak and Nepenthe… collectively they call themselves the Pretty Privates. Any similarity between them and the persistent rumors of ‘super Newfoals’, like the mythical ‘Reaper’ who duelled the human ‘Kraber’ in the Battle of Portland, have yet to be confirmed.”

Struggling to gather her thoughts, she sat on the bed before continuing to speak.

“Harvest appears at first to be the weakest. She’s an Earth Pony, bronze with a gold mane. Her special talent at first appeared to be the standard agri-mancy of her tribe, but when Commander Sentry ordered four guards to attack her with blunted blades…”

Vines sprouting from the ground, whiplashing across the training-space, tripping up and binding the four stallions. The feral dogs in the kennels were howling in time with the crack of the vines, and the Newfoal mare simply stood her ground, as still and silent as death, not even blinking…

“...I’ve never seen anything like it. And there’s something else unique about Harvest. She’s blind…”

Dull, emerald eyes, with purple cataracts the color of potion in place of pupils.

“It’s the first time I’ve ever witnessed a physical ailment carry across the potion-barrier, which might suggest the poor human mare was already afflicted with a magical impairment of her vision. Her other senses seem enhanced however, as if to compensate, and her attitude is extremely positive. She’s also got some skills with animals...”

The silence from outside testified to that. For the first night in weeks, no savage snarls or yelps came from the prison kennels.

Another pause, another dry swallow. Why was she suddenly feeling nervous?

“Next is Trimurti… at first glance, another Earth Pony…”

“Headcount, are you telling me that thing can split itself in three?” whispered an astonished pegasus guard, as she and a colleague peered through the bars into a holding cell.

Not ‘she’ or ‘that fellow soldier’ or anything with connotations of camaraderie. If you’d only overheard Headcount, you wouldn’t think he was talking about anything equine, or even sentient.

“Yeah, Parade… watch this...” confirmed the unicorn, before clearing his throat. “Private Trimurti, please demonstrate for us what you showed the Commander.”

“Yes sir,” smiled the silver mare, before closing her eyes.

There was a soft ‘crack’, and suddenly three Newfoals occupied the cell.

“Oh… ponyfeathers!” hissed the mare, ‘Parade’. “What are they?”

“I’m Pathos,” laughed an amber pegasus mare with a fiery red mane, blue eyes shining with fervour. “I can’t wait to fight beside the two of you! How can I help!?”

“I’m Logos,” added her counterpart, a blue-haired, aqua unicorn with the most piercingly scarlet gaze that either of the guards had ever seen. “It is a pleasure to serve beneath you, officers of Equestria.”

“And I am Ethos…” concluded the third Newfoal, wingless and hornless, her hide and eyes a neutral tan, and her mane purple. “What are our orders?”

Parade took a step back as Headcount smirked. Her eyes flicked to the Newfoal’s armor, and saw that Pathos and Logos each carried a human firearm.

“Why, the death-sticks!” she demanded, feeling a sudden wrath directed at the two freaks. “How dare you sully Her Majesty’s army with them…”

Neither mare’s grins broke. Instead, the two halves of Trimurti looked at each other, as if speaking without words, and then back at the two observers.

“A tool is a tool, mam,” said Logos evenly. “What matters is Jericho’s and Jackal’s manufacture so long as they enable a victory.”

“Yeah!” added Pathos. “And have you seen the size of the holes these things make! It’s just awesome!”

“We salvaged them for the advantage they give us in battle,” nodded Pathos. “I’m sure you’ll agree with me that we made a wise choice.”

Answers given, they fell back into grinning silence.

“What are they!” Parade repeated, almost desperate to get away from this place. That instinctive urge to run however was crushed and steamrollered beneath her Loyalty, and her Duty.

“They’re a superweapon…” the stallion, Headcount, smirked subtly. “That will be all, privates. As you were.”

Another flashbang pulse came from within the cell, and the three ponies reformed back into a single earth pony mare. You could still see hints of their presence however - she had Ethos’s tan hide, her mane was coloured in alternating stripes of aqua, amber and purple, and her eyes - violet – looked exactly as if you’d matched paint samples to the unicorn’s red and the pegasus’s blue irises, and stirred them together...

Unlike her components, ‘Trimurti’ did not introduce herself, but simply nodded with a smile, remaining ‘at ease’ inside the cell.

“What do you mean, a ‘superweapon’?” demanded Parade, turning to face away from the unnerving creature. “You can’t mean you want to see these freaks actually deployed in combat!?”

“Why not, if they give us an edge against the humans…”

“We don’t need an edge!” Parade seethed. “We have the Barrier…”

"And we all know that without the Barrier, the humans would destroy us easily," Headcount responded instantly, the certainty in his voice grating against Parade’s ingrained loyalties.

"How could you say that?!" she snapped. “That’s, that’s defeatism!”

“Parade, my friend,” Headcount sighed, “I pray the Barrier never falls. If it does…”

They shuddered. Nopony should have to imagine how terrible that would be.

“But I think we could still wi– no, we will win, even if we–” Parade started.

"Hello!” he tutted. “Have you actually studied the apes’ capabilities? Do the ABCs of ‘atomic’, ‘biological’ and ‘chemical’ mean anything to you?! No, if the Barrier came down tomorrow, the humans could immediately reduce Equestria to a smoking ruin."

"But we have Queen Celestia, ruler most high!"

"Oh, Her Majesty would survive, and I’m sure she’d protect as many ponies as possible. But the rest would die from the poisons and toxins Earth would unleash against us," Headcount said softly. “That’s why we’ve got to beat them, by any means necessary…”

“You know,” he added. “After this war is over, we’ve gotta hunt down every pony who collaborated with the monkeys. For all we know, they might have shared the secrets of these ‘weapons of mass destruction’...“

“Will you please stop going on about these fantasy superweapons the humans apparently have? The very concept of splitting the atom is ludicrous!”

“You have no idea how many ponies would die if one of those ‘nukes’ went off, do you?“

"Oh, don’t be so morbid. The Queen will protect us."

“She can’t be everywhere, I’m afraid. Ever heard of the Black Zones?” Headcount asked.

“What?” Parade asked. “I thought they were just, I don’t know, a myth or something.”

“They’re in areas that used to be human power plants,” Headcount explained. “Atomic ones. Ponies that settle there, they get terribly sick – they throw up, they lose their fur. Radiation sickness, it’s called. And that is just passive fallout, which the Barrier can’t nullify… imagine what’d happen if a weapon built along those principles went off.” He paused. “No, wait. Don’t imagine. The human regions of Washington DC, and North Korea. You think we did that?”

Headcount leaned closer.

“When you back an animal into a corner, it will fight back. You think Washington and Korea are one-of-a-kind incidents? No. If the Barrier finally, finally, manages to push the humans into that corner, they will not lay down, they will not wait for their eventual death, oh no. They still have their nuclear arms, and you can swear by the Queen’s word they will use them.”

“And Celestia forbid, they will bring us down with them”

“Oh… oh dear Celestia,” Parade said. “Still, there has to be some way to protect ourselves from it!”

“I certainly pray so…” answered Headcount. “But if these super-Newfoal ‘Pretty Privates’ can help us increase the pressure on mankind, and deny them any attempts at striking back against Her Majesty or the Barrier, then I would rather have a company of Trimurti and her sisters at my back than an entire battalion of regular Newfoals…”

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Parade whispered. “About these ‘Pretty Privates’. You didn’t see their pegasus fighting. ‘Newspeak’ she called herself...”

Her own wings drooped subtly, and Headcount turned, curious.

“Why, what did ’Newspeak’ do? Kick her opponents about with thunderbolts, or knock them down with transonic booms?”

“No… she just… talked to one of them, caught her in a tackle and whispered in her ears while using her as a shield. Then… the guard, she turned on the others and… and broke their wings.”

Now it was Parade’s time to shudder. “I heard one of them could change colours. Is it the same one, Newspeak?”

She nodded in response, and a faint blush came to her face.

“Yeah. She was… she was beautiful. I couldn’t look away from her, the way her coat and mane kept shifting and shimmering. And when she was ordered to directly engage, to fight by herself… she just began buzzing and whirring like a hummingbird, her wings and coat flashing… and the guards sent to challenge her just, stood there, dazed, until she dropped out of the sky and smashed each of them to the ground.”

“A mesmerist...” Headcount realised. “And hypnotist…”

“Yeah, but really, really docile the rest of the time. And now, now the Commander’s taken her off for a, ahem, personal debrief.”

The two of them shared a knowing look, and then a thoughtful glance at Trimurti, who still had not moved from parade rest in the center of her cell…

“No, darker…” Flash Sentry insisted. “The mane has got to be darker, and straighter.”

“Anything you desire Commander!” chimed Newspeak, still grinning inanely, like all Newfoals. Her wings were folded in tightly at her side, and had turned lavender, as had her coat.

The eyes… after some very specific instructions, she’d matched the eyes to perfection. A deep and winsome purple...

Now they were just trying to get the mane right. The curtains of his sleeping quarters were drawn, and a rose-tinted shade over the moonstone lamp lent everything a suitably amorous glow...

Flash should have been terrified by this Newfoal’s powers of disguise. Like a cuttlefish, she seemed to have an absolute command over her body’s pigmentation and texture to the extent that she could even had limited control upon her own manestyling.

But instead of terror, when he had witnessed her transform her colouration at a whim, only one thought had come to mind for him. A single, primal desire.

“Is this what you wanted, Commander?” Newspeak asked, as her mane straightened out, forming a straight fringe over her eyes and extending silkily down the back of her neck. Although it did not gain any additional volume, the fact that she had arrived at the former prison with it bunched up around her head in tight, grecian curls, like a helmet, hid just how much length it actually possessed.

Flash whetted his lips, feeling the yearning burning inside of him, the fire and want that he had felt ever since his unit had briefly served as bodyguards to the Lady of Magic.

“That’s… that’s just about perfect.”

She’d gotten the colouration matched just right, even including the stripes in the mane and tail. Admittedly she was a pegasus, but it was close enough.

Flash only wished he could wipe that insipid smile off her face, and replace it with the cool, superior smirk of the Lady.

But no, this was a Newfoal. And a Newfoal always smiled, and always took orders.

Speaking of which.

“Now, lie down on the bed, and spread your hindlegs.”

The facsimile of Twilight Sparkle bounced into the requested position with glee, giggling as she did.

“I’m happy to oblige sir, this is my first time. Please buck me good!”

Oh, Flash would, he would…

And just to make sure they were not disturbed by that interfering witch from PETN, he had sent her a very special toy of her own…

Jewelup was once again pacing, pouring out a fervour of thoughts to her pocket-prole.

“...these four mares, they represent something new about Newfoals. They’re not just machines, they’re unique,” she said, on the edge of panic. Though she couldn’t rightly say why. “I feel like we’ve stumbled into something bigger. They’re-”

“Hi there!”

She had not heard the door open, caught up in her hopes and dreams. Now though, Jewelup spun in surprise, noticing the mare who had intruded into her quarters.

“Oh, hello there. You’re the Pretty Private, Nepenthe, correct?”

“I am…” the unicorn mare trilled. “And you’re the Lady Diamond-Mint Jewelup, of the Pee-Eee-Tee-En.”

Jewelup breathed a sigh of relief and smiled.

“I am, and it’s wonderful to see that you’ve come to speak with me. My colleagues and I have been hoping for Newfoals like yourself and your colleagues to manifest for some time and we have high hopes for the ex–”

“Sisters.”

“–ample you can set.... I beg you’re pardon, what was that?”

“The other Pretty Privates are my sisters,” Nepenthe explained, her smile not shifting by an iota.

And with that, she telekinetically swung the door shut behind her, and began to advance into the room, towards the bed.

Jewelup felt her heart sink. “You’re not here of your own accord, are you?”

“Nope! I’m here under orders!” was the reply.

Nepenthe was now standing just a few feet from Jewelup. Her ever-present grin, without a single muscle shifting position, suddenly seemed… hungry, predatory. It was then that Jewelup noticed just how, even with herself stretched out upon the bed, she only came up to the Pretty Private’s eyeline.

She suddenly felt small, and easily squashed

“On Flash…” she swallowed, eyeing the pair of swords holstered on Nepenthe’s muscled hips. “On Flash Sentry’s orders, right?”

And then, not breaking that smile, Nepenthe spoke the words that, for years now, had always cut Jewelup deepest.

“You look just like the traitor.”

The traitor. Her mother’s niece. Her cousin, Lyra Heartstrings. The nag that had ruined her life. Ponies pointed at her and laughed, Newfoals mocked her in the streets. It had been little things, to begin with. Small, indistinct annoyances that piled up till it was too much to take.

Oh, how bright did the sun seem to shine, the day when the masked unicorn mare they called the Queen’s Justice, the Sword of Celestia, finally brought the Betrayer to face her reckoning! After that momentous occasion, Jewelup was sure her lot in life would improve.

It had not very much. That Celestia-damned cousin was the reason she was here. Out in the flank end of nowhere, miles and miles from the nearest team capable of setting up a portal, surrounded by pricks like Flash Sentry… she couldn’t prove it, but she knew he’d screwed up somehow. Not many ponies volunteered for this sort of thing.

… And now it looked like it was going to get her killed.

Nepenthe’s horn glimmered, and her pair of swords lifted into the air.

“Did he, he...” Jewelup struggled to speak, her throat frozen in fear. “Has he sent you to kill me, because of that?”

The Newfoal’s grey eyes seemed to shine with some inner light, or was it a madness? The blades of the levitating swords seemed to carry the same bright sheen along the edge.

Jewelup felt her heart slow. She tried to think of what words to say, what pleas would save her.

“No silly! I’m not here to kill you!”

The swords dropped to the ground, discarded.

“I’m here under orders to show you a good time!”

Before Jewelup could even process that, Nepenthe’s burgundy-red cloak shred itself into thousands of crimson flakes, that billowed around the room like droplets of blood…

… Actually, rose petals.

They swarmed on Jewelup, brushing her flanks and swirling in her mane, chastely kissing where they touched her fur, her cheeks, her lips…

“Stop…” she whispered, even as the cloud caressed her. “I don’t… don’t want this…”

A hoof touched her gently, and she found herself looking into a pair of grey eyes, framed from above by a slender circlet of gold.

“But you do want it… you long for it. To feel loved, to feel adored and worshipped…”

Another shimmer of magic, and the tiara slipped from Nepenthe’s head, spun around, and gently settled onto Jewelup’s…

“... my lady.”

The petals were pressing on her from behind, elevating Jewelup into an upright, regal pose, seated atop the bed and looking down upon Nepenthe. At the same time, they were weaving their way through the buckles and clasps of her battered PETN barding, removing each piece and casting them aside.

She looked down, and saw that the same had happened with the Pretty Private, leaving Nepenthe clad only in her breastplate. The peach-coloured amarezon sank into a low bow, looking every inch the loving supplicant.

Suddenly feeling dizzy, Jewelup touched the tiara that now rested upon her own brow.

“Why, why do you wear a crown…”

“A tiara, to show I serve the Unconquered Sun,” came the reply, Nepenthe not even breaking her bow. “But tonight, I serve yourself, Princess…”

“I don’t…” she breathed, unable to hide a flush. “I’ve never seen any Newfoal show so much… romance…”

“I’m not any Newfoal,” Nepenthe replied back, looking up from her bow, eyes shining with devotion and submission. “I am an exception Newfoal. I am the definitive Newfoal. It is my function to serve the ponies of Equestria, to ensure their safety and happiness…”

Jewelup suddenly felt a weight upon her shoulders. The swirling petals had reformed into a single garment, that draped across her back and clasped gently at her neck.

“...and tonight, I have been ordered to make you happy.”

Jewelup’s eyes flickered across to a mirror on the opposite wall, and she swallowed a gasp.

In it, she could see herself…but not herself. Nepenthe’s magic had shaped her mane into an elegant plait, tied off with red coils of ribbon. Coupled with the cape and tiara she now wore, she looked like…

A Princess. Neither the PETN annoyance nor ‘the Lyra lookalike’ that ponies whispered about when they thought she was out of earshot… she had transcended that mare. Had somepony like Jewelup seen this mare in the street, she wouldn’t be recognized.

Regal, powerful, beautiful. With a knight in armor, an amarezon, kneeling at her hooves.

“I don’t have any choice in this, do I?”

“No. I am your servant, and I shall service you...and I promise you, your Pretty Private is very skilled…”

Her heart quickened.

“This…” she whispered. “This is wrong. You shouldn’t have to do this… you’re more than a Newfoal… you’re unique…”

“No,” Nepenthe shook her head. “I am a Newfoal, and I am a slave…”

She leaned forward, opening her mouth.

“And I belong to Equestria…”

Jewelup felt her heart break, one dream shattering and another coming true…

... Nepenthe extended her tongue, lowered her head in between Jewelup’s open legs, and went to work with all the energy and precision of a machine sheathed in organic flesh…

Pleasure filed the world.

Then Passion.

Oblivion....

TO BE CONTINUED...

Author's Notes:

Part 2 of this 3-part update. Have fun!