Now there is nothing left but the pain. -Gladius

I had been sitting in silence for hours now, staring. It was all I could desire to do during my nights, since watching the past like it was here would be a better alternative to suffering the night terrors that plagued me those first few days since the War's end. Since those nights, this was what I would do; and now I had company here as well. Applebits still hadn't spoken since our initial words, but I can tell she was very much so thinking on all I'd shared as I glanced at her out of my one eye. But it was not just her, I too was still considering our exchange deeply as I waited for the long hours to fade eventually into another peaceful day for Hearthfire.

Tonight though, I heard something unusual coming from outside. Strange voices, whispering what sounded like commands. The faint hoof-steps outside accompanying in response, I knew something was up as I turned and headed for the door to the first floor. Applebits I sensed was looking at me oddly, but I shook my head in response and gestured for her to follow. Sneaking upstairs and through my home was relatively easy, I'd been doing it for years now; and as such I didn't make a sound to wake or rouse any of the other sleeping denizens in our parlor. Moving to the door, I glanced out the window adjacent to it and first was shocked at what I saw. Standing outside was a squad of Steel Rangers, moving quietly through the street with silenced weapons toted on their flanks. Ducking down quickly and quietly, I managed to alert Applebits with a single signal and she moved as silently as she could to wake the others.

"Hm...Huh..What?" Bulls Eye grumbled after being jabbed in the side to be woken.

"Quiet...Steel Rangers outside." She hissed, instantly getting his attention as he glanced to the window.

"Ah Hell." He muttered in reply before getting up and joining me by the window.

After a few gripes and grumbles from the others, they were eventually all roused and brought up to speed as we watched the squad sweeping through the streets. "Looking things over for technology most likely." Applebits whispered.

"But how'd these jack-wagons get in?" Lightning asked.

"Tha Guards at tha gates change shifts about this hour. Tha bastards likely slipped in unnoticed while tha relieving soldiers were coming from tha barracks in town." I answered in blood, trying to resume my oath I'd taken so long ago. Even so, I still hadn't sown my mouth back yet and likely wouldn't get a chance for a bit as I slowly made my way to the door.

"Where are you going Gladius?" Applebits questioned.

"Going to try and reason with them. See if they will leave peaceably." I replied, taking my blood within myself as I opened the screen door silently and stepped outside.

The squad was further along the street, so they didn't notice as I was following behind for quite some time; tailing them down every twist and turn in the shadows and out of their sight. Eventually, they paused before our armory; the old house where we housed the many firearms and technology that we collected for we'd made it secure to the point of being nigh explosive-proof.

"Objective is located within the building Sir." A mare Ranger whispered.

"Good. Let's hope these folks don't mind us reclaiming what they cannot be trusted to wield." The stallion to whom the mare had spoken of responded as he stepped towards the armory.

Before he could take another, my single eye darkened and seemed to fill with blood as I called fully upon the extent of my powers. Within an instant, I could tell I was latching directly into the commander's mind; feeling and seeing everything he could as his blood now was becoming mine to control. Quickly, I had made him essentially a slave to his own body as I forced him to stop mid-step and turn back to his comrades. "Now, this is how I shall reason with you fools." I thought as I had him speaking quietly to his soldiers about how he realized just ow foolhardy this mission was. How they'd not come with reinforcements in case the guards would be by the gate out and that the snipers would shoot them dead should they try to leave now.

The soldiers I saw were giving dissent, but I ended it sharply when I made him slam a hoof in frustration and silence them. "We should leave, come back another night with support. Let's get out of here now before we're found."

"Yes Sir." the mare responded in a slightly annoyed tone before I ordered the leader to form them up and retreat back the way they came.

I ducked out of sight, following them to ensure my control until we reached my house once more. This was where I knew something was going wrong, for I saw our AT specialist out and about. He was never a night pony, never would be. Always went to bed early and slept in late with his wife and their filly. He was walking about, seemingly confused with his cannons armed and ready as he looked about. When I could see his eyes, I knew it all too well. He was in the earliest stages of going Feral. The radiation finally had eaten away enough of his brain to disable cognitive control over his actions to a degree, and now he was walking the streets with his weapons.

"HIS WEAPONS!" The thought hit me like a freight train as I realized just how close we were to my home and so many others. If he was going Feral, and had indeed not been to the monthly healing sessions with our town doctor he could easily take the Steel Rangers approaching him as hostile and would unleash his firepower to destroy them. I knew my blood control wouldn't work now on him, and I couldn't let my control on the leader lessen any; lest his well trained mind break my control and attempt to return to his mission.
"Sir, there's one of the ghouls ahead." The mare said.

"He's got AT cannons as well Sir." Another Steel Ranger whispered as he aimed his two rifles towards my friend. "Do we terminate Sir?"

"No." I made him answer. "No reason to make the populace angry, lest we desire to all be dead when we return."

"Sir you are acting awfully strange." The mare whispered as my friend drew closer.

Before they could move to escape, or speak further; he suddenly let out a deep, agonizing wail. I knew then that he was suffering terribly, and that he also could scent the Rangers as they watched with weapons prepared. Without the critical control normally needed to keep his weapons, I watched as my friend's cannons went off in different directions; one towards the Rangers, and the other pointed at my home. He fired before I could scream, and most of the Rangers were annihilated by the splash of the explosion; while my house's second floor was struck directly by the blast. Only the mare remained, and she was injured; laying by the crater with a piece of shrapnel dug into her side as I rushed towards my friend. He was still reloading and firing randomly, his weapons striking other houses and detonating a massive area of them.

Upon reaching him, I slammed him into the ground and smashed his cannons to bits. He was snarling now, bucking and snapping at me as his mind was consumed by the Feral desires left behind from the radiation eating away. I absorbed every hit he threw, tearing up as my thoughts even still were occupied on what was going on behind me. I could hear Applebits shouting for the others to get out, to go help those that had been hit in the other buildings. What I also could hear was somepony leaping from the second floor, where the shell had hit. I knew it was Shield and Tenebris, but I had to focus on getting my friend under control.

"Stop! Please Gods stop Corporal!" I shouted, keeping him pinned at last as I stared into his eyes. He was losing it, but I could still see a sense of his former self as I appealed to every last bit of magic within me to absorb and heal what had been done to him. My own mind never suffered the ill effects, thankfully because I believe my own magic kept refreshing my body slowly and forced out the radiation as I felt his pain running through my mind. "Corporal...You have a family that needs you...Please just stop." I whispered.

Slowly, the fight drained out of him as the pain subsided and was drawn into me through the blood trail from his ears. Eventually, he slipped into unconsciousness and I left him there in the road as I turned back and galloped for my house. All the while fighting the pains of the radiation until I was in front of the burning husk that had been my home. The others were helping other injured neighbors, while my wife was laying down next to the unconscious mare with Tenebris cradled next to her. She was injured, I could tell that she'd been pierced straight through her abdomen by a large piece of jagged planking that had been our ceiling. She was in pain, but I could see she wasn't crying because of that as I saw just what she was cradling Tenebris close to her chest.

The wail of agony that came from the Corporal couldn't even attempt to match my own as I rushed to her side. My tears nearly blinding me as I held Tenebris and looked her over. She was scorched nearly from head to hoof all across her body, and at several places shrapnel had pierced her small frame. She was bleeding terribly on both of us, and I knew after what I'd done for my friend I could not save her as well as she gazed at me with glazed eyes. "D...D..." She tried to say, "W...What happened?"

"Oh my little girl...." I whispered despairingly.

"Daddy...P...please don...don't cry." She said. "I...I'm okay....I'll be alright...Won't I Daddy?"

"Y...Yes my little one...You're going to go to a place far from here....Where everything is just perfect and nopony every has to worry about a thing." I responded softly, watching as she seemed to look past me and to my surprise she was smiling as her last breaths came rapidly.

"I lo...love you...daddy...mommy." Was the last thing she whispered to me before she gasped a final breath and her eyes closed for the final time.

The world around myself and Shield was gone now. Destroyed. Nothing remained. Our little girl now dead in our hooves as we hugged her and sobbed together. Not a thought from either of us given to the suffering of others, not even the Ranger mare that was being treated by the town doctor or my neighbors helped by Applebits and her friends. We grieved, our voices giving way to our pain unified; the sound both despairing and yet beautiful as everypony was alerted to our loss. Nopony bothered us as we sobbed and cried together with Tenebris in our hooves.

Author's Notes:

Death strikes again, and more sorrow has come to the story, poor Tenebris.