I was alive. How? What benevolent force had pitied me so much that they would restore my miserable existence?

My eyes opened to see a muted red unicorn tipping a bottle, helping me swallow the last of my healing potion.

She turned to a companion out of my view. “He’s alive.” Then to me. “Can you stand?”

I tried. I was absolutely exhausted from being on the brink of death, but I managed to get my hooves under me, wobbling only a little. I must not have been out for too long. It was still the middle of the night.

“Holy shit,” a steel blue pegasus mare approached. She looked younger than me, her gray mane in braided pigtails, a six-shooter strapped to her side. She had rainclouds as her cutie mark. “You looked so dead.”

“Well, I’m not.” Silver Bell was still out here. “Were you two sent from New Appleloosa?”

“Yeah. I’m Rosemary.” She offered a hoof to me, her big, dull-green eyes looking out at me from a messy mahogany mane. And glasses. She actually wore glasses. I was shocked.

“Cloud Chaser,” the pegasus offered me a hoof.

“Ebonmane,” I said. I shook neither of them, urgency overtaking me. “Those raiders kidnapped Silver Bell. How long have I been out?”

“Couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes,” Rosemary informed me. “Otherwise you would be dead.”

“Wait a second,” Cloud Chaser interrupted. “Do you even know where they were headed?”

“All they said is that they were taking her to Greaves’. Does that mean anything to you?” I prayed it did.

Prayer answered. Cloud Chaser spoke. “I think he’s talking about that old military outpost between here and Ponyville.”

“Well point the way,” I said. “There’s only two of them, and if I’ve only been out for fifteen minutes we can still catch them.” I checked my PipBuck’s map to see if the auto-mapper had located Ponyville or Greaves’. Neither, but I was anxious to save Silver Bell, so I started walking anyways. “What are you guys armed with?”

“I have my revolver,” Cloud Chaser piped up, “And I brought a knife.”

Not the best loadout for what might be a nest of raiders, but if she was careful it could work. Perhaps Rosemary was better off.

“I have a shotgun.”

A shotgun? I looked back at it. I wanted to facehoof.

“You brought a double-barrel?” I asked her.

“Don’t even start with me,” she said. “Like your weapons did you any better. Is that really a sword on your back?”

I groaned. I wasn’t going to get into it. I kept walking.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Rosemary said forcefully.

“Are you joking? There’s a mare who’s been captured by raiders, and we’re less than twenty minutes behind them. What the hell do you think I’m doing?” I was starting to lose my temper, which wasn’t like me, but when I thought of what might be happening to Silver Bell at this very moment… how could they not understand the urgency?

“Oh no,” Rosemary issued her ultimatum. “You, young stallion, are staying here. You’ve gotten shot enough as it is for one day.”

“Young stallion?” I whipped around to face her, puffing out my chest and rising to my full height. She barely reached my shoulders, but she stood resolute. And she couldn’t have been that much older than me. “And the two of you are going to take out a bunch of raiders? By yourselves? If you’re going to go after her we have to work together. Even the three of us are probably outnumbered pretty badly.”

“He has a point,” Cloud Chaser said. “And besides, it looks like he got three of them by himself. That’s not bad.” Thank you, Cloud Chaser. It was about time I got some credit.

“Still, we can’t just go rushing in there,” Rosemary said. “We need a plan.”

“A plan? Do you know invisibility spells, maybe? Can you teleport in?” I noticed that Rosemary’s cutie mark looked like a small swarm of fireflies. I doubted that translated to magical talent.

“No,” she returned, taking a tone with me that matched the one I used with her. “But a little deception goes a long way. Take one of the raider armors.”

“They’re not going to believe I’m one of them,” I said. “If the two that got away see me, they’ll recognize me on the spot.”

“Even so,” Rosemary asserted. “If they’re in the business of kidnapping mares, they’ll be more inclined to believe you if you come with two young mares to sell.”

Cloud Chaser turned to her friend with contempt. “You would think of a plan like that, Rosemary.”

“Yeah, because it’ll work.” She turned to me. “Well? Get dressed and let’s go.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said bitterly. In my head I told myself, “Just deal with it. For Silver Bell.”

Cloud Chaser and I were flying above Rosemary, looking for this old military outpost the raiders had spoken of. The night air was warm and clean, which I was very thankful for, because the raider armor I had filched off of the dead body reeked. Even before I had put it on, I knew my pristine white coat was stained with a lot of my blood, but that mixed with the scent of what must have been weeks’ worth of sweat and filth made me want to gag.

“You know, you’re kinda lucky,” Cloud Chaser piped up.

I was still in a surly mood about this whole situation and how easygoing the New Appleloosa mares seemed to be about it. “How do you figure? I almost died and the pony I’m supposed to protect could be getting raped right now for all I know. You call that lucky?”

“You’re not dead,” she said cuttingly. “And I get that you’re worried about her, but you have to relax. You’re just going to get yourself in a mess again if you don’t keep it under control.”

I had a million retorts lined up to that, starting with her age and combat experience, but I held my tongue with much difficulty because she was right. I snorted my frustration but said nothing.

“Feel better?” she offered.

“I’m fine.”

“Embarrassed that you got saved by two mares?” she asked in perfect honesty.

“Perhaps a little, but maybe rubbing it in would help,” I thought. I ignored her. “Do you see anything?”

“Hold on.” She shot up at a dizzying speed. Just as fast she returned to me. “I think it’ll be about a half hour more before we’ll see it.”

“How do you know?” I asked her. I didn’t see anything on the dead earth below.

“Just trust me,” she said tiredly. “Let’s get back to Rosemary.” We dove down to rejoin the little unicorn with the double-barrel. She had been marching almost directly below us.

“So what is this Greaves’ place?” I asked.

Rosemary answered me. “Some pre-war military outpost. What else is there to know?” She turned to me with a bit more sincerity. “Better?”

“No. Not until Silver Bell’s safe.” Rosemary responded with a long breath. I wondered what her problem was.

We didn’t say much more for the rest of the journey. The sky turned to a hazy, gray dawn and we saw the smudged silhouette of a crumbling building on the horizon. At that point, Rosemary and Cloud Chaser handed their weapons over to me. The closer and closer we got, the more and more I began to think that this plan was a surefire way to get us all killed. But I couldn’t think of anything better, so we’d just have to hope for the best.

By the time first light broke, I could see that there was only one guard posted at the doorway, and I didn’t recognize him. Half of the building lay in a heap of bricks on the ground, and the other half rose in three stories before us, blackened and pitted, windows blown out long ago. I had Rosemary’s shotgun out but lowered as we approached.

“Stop right there, pal,” the unicorn called to us. “What’s going on here?”

I looked at Rosemary and Cloud Chaser, and they cowered before me. But would the guard buy it? “You buy mares? I think these two got separated from some kind of caravan. Found ‘em wandering around unarmed.”

“You don’t say?” he said skeptically, eyeing them both.

“Yeah. Talk about my lucky day, huh?” I said in a hopefully friendly manner. He then gave me a hard look. The chocolate unicorn had blood red eyes.

“They don’t look too roughed up,” he said to me.

“Rusty told me a while back that you guys don’t like damaged goods,” I replied.

The name drop worked. “You know Rusty?”

“Not too well, if you catch my drift.” I was on fire.

“I hear ya,” the guard responded. “Small doses, right? C’mon. I’ll get you in to see Chain Gang.”

He led us into a dismal building with low ceilings, dim lighting, and cracked tile floors. The brick walls were covered with profanity and smashed furniture, metal even, littered the floor, a small path in each of the halls dividing the wreckage. The whole place smelled like shit, to be honest. I would have been more disgusted if it hadn’t been so expected.

The guard led us up the first flight of stairs. Before we reached the second story hallway, in an instant Cloud Chaser slid past me, knife in mouth, and slipped in front of the guard, slicing his throat along the way, cutting through the voice box. Blood sprayed her face and mane, but he died without a sound.

There was a long tense moment where Rosemary and I stood wide-eyed, open-mouthed in pure shock. I hadn’t even felt her take the knife from my side. She had killed so easily.

“What the hell Cloud Chaser?” Rosemary yelled in her quietest voice.

“Listen,” Cloud Chaser whispered back. “I don’t think there’s anypony on this floor.”

“What about the plan?” I asked.

“I’m not going to be thrown into the manticores’ nest unarmed. Now give me my pistol. The time for deception is over.”

I levitated it to her, and Rosemary took her shotgun from me. “And I suppose now’s the time to kick the door down guns blazing?” Rosemary was furious.

“No,” Cloud Chaser responded. “Now is the time for stealth.”

This seemed to appease Rosemary. We peeked down the corridors and saw nothing but door after door both ways, and the stairs to the third floor weren’t in sight either. My EFS came up blank, except the green dots that were my two companions.

“I bet they’re on the top floor,” I said. They agreed with the instinct, so we looked for the next staircase. My armor had a tendency to rattle, but if I moved slowly I could keep it to a minimum. We scanned each of the rooms and found the same story as downstairs, heaps of broken material, and the occasional toolbox sitting on a bent shelf or even a filing cabinet.

Cloud Chaser’s eyes lit up. “Not now,” Rosemary warned her.

“It’ll just take a second. You guys look ahead.” Before I could say anything about what might be happening to Silver Bell right this very second, she was gone. I tried not to get as frustrated as Rosemary. I remembered Calamity’s kleptomania. There was no stopping her.

Aside from some spare ammo and some caps, she really didn’t find much. But she always came back with a smile on her face. Rosemary and I shook our heads.

We stopped when we saw the first mattress that was occupied by a pegasus mare, sleeping in on this fine morning. We all froze, Rosemary giving me a “What the hell?” look. I guess my PipBuck had a hard time detecting targets that weren’t moving or making noise. I saw the red dot now.

Cloud Chaser mouthed to us. “Kill or no kill?” she looked fearsome with the blood still splattered on her face.

“No kill,” Rosemary and I answered her. The mare was out cold. It would be riskier to open the door.

We found five more sleeping in this hall. I knew that they would be up soon enough. The sunlight was getting bright through the open windows.

As soon as we found the stairs my compass came up red. I held up a hoof, telling them what I saw. Cloud Chaser seemed to be drooling over the device on my foreleg. “What I wouldn’t give for one of those.”

“I don’t think they’re directly above us,” I told them. “Just be careful.” I took the lead, pistols out.

The third floor landing was half gone, the landscape below open to us. The other half looked mostly complete and stable with a heavy door, still on its frame, in the wall. My compass indicated that the raiders were beyond that door.

We stacked up alongside the entrance. “I’ll open the door very slowly,” Cloud Chaser whispered. “And peek inside. You ready?” We nodded.

Guns out, Cloud Chaser turned the knob. After a moment with no reaction from within, she peeked out.

“I think the coast is clear,” she said.

“Not according to my PipBuck,” I informed her. I was counting at least five ahead.

“There’s a door on the other side of this room,” the pegasus said. “They’re probably all in there.”

Carefully we entered the next room, our ears straining for signs that we had been spotted. As I rounded the corner, my heart broke. At least five mares were chained to the floor, attached to heavy iron spikes, blood and dirt staining their coats in the dusty sunlight. Some were badly starved, and all looked to have suffered a lot of abuse and trauma.

Except for one.

“Silver Bell,” I said, going to the purple unicorn, crouching in front of her. “Please tell me you’re alright.”

“I’m fine,” she said. “They haven’t laid a hoof on me.”

“We’re getting you all out of here,” Rosemary told the other mares.

I wrapped my telekinetic field around her chain, gripping it with my mouth for extra leverage. I strained, but I couldn’t get it out until Silver Bell used her own magic as well, which had grown a lot stronger since her childhood. We felt it wiggle for a bit, then come out with a reverberating thud.

We froze, and I checked my compass. There was one ally and one enemy who weren’t in the room with us. Otherwise, all hostiles seemed to remain in place.

Carefully, we undid the chains of the other mares. Every pop of the spikes coming free from the tile caused us to wince. My eyes never left my compass. Any moment we could be up to our necks in raiders, and it was by luck that we had survived this much.

I breathed a sigh of relief once they were all free. But there was a question I had to ask Silver Bell. “Why didn’t they touch you?” I asked her.

The question brought tears to her eyes. “Their leader came in this morning. And he was going to take me. But a pegasus mare took my place. She volunteered to save me.”

Our gaze went to the other room. One green light and one red.

I unsheathed my sword.

“Ebonmane,” Rosemary cautioned. “Let’s at least get the other mares out first.”

“How?” I answered.

Cloud Chaser explained. She and Rosemary seemed to have been planning. “Rosemary and I can get out this window. From there, the mares should be able to jump, and we can catch them and levitate them down.”

There were two other pegasi that were in the group. “And they can just fly down. Let’s do it quickly,” I said.

Rosemary shook her head. “Their wings are broken.”

I exhaled in shock. Bastards.

We commenced with the plan. Everypony was afraid to make any noise, and every hoofbeat sounded like a gunshot. Still, I kept my eyes and ears trained on that other door, where the pegasus mare was with their leader, whose name I’m guessing was Chain Gang. I was dreading going into that room, knowing what I might see once I opened the door. Still, I had some hope. As of yet, I hadn’t heard any noise come out from the other side.

Once the last mare had jumped, I turned solemnly toward Chain Gang’s room, stepping quietly towards it.

“Hey,” a whisper sounded behind me. Cloud Chaser had flown back in through the window. “We have a problem.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Those ponies in the other room,” she motioned towards where the five on my compass were still sitting, “They’re all snipers, or at least long-range gunners. They can’t see us now because we’re so close to the building, but the moment we start to leave they’ll pick us all off.”

“Shit. How come they didn’t notice us before?” I asked her.

“It was twilight, so it was kinda dark, and there were only three of us,” she answered. “I don’t think they thought anything of it.”

I nodded. “We have to save the last one,” I said. “We just have to do it quietly. Open the door, and I can take him out with my sword before he can even say anything.”

“No,” Cloud Chaser said. “Ebonmane, I know you have this white knight complex, and you want to save the mare, but I’m quieter than you. Plus, if we get caught, you’re the big guns. Once they start coming out of the other room to check it out, I won’t be able to do anything.”

She was right. Again.

“Fine,” I said. “But I don’t have a white knight complex.”

“You’re right,” she said pacifyingly. Damn her.

Again, we stacked up on the door. I drew my pistols, placing my hoof on the handle. I mouthed the signals. Cloud Chaser took to the air, hovering in place. Flight was more silent than hoofbeats.

“Three… Two… One.” I opened the door.

It all happened in an instant. She flew in, I heard the metal sound of her knife. Then I heard it again. There was a subdued, male voice. Then silence.

I exhaled after a long moment. No one seemed to have heard.

Entering the room, I whispered, “We’re in the clear.” Even in the darkness of the office, I could see the mattress lying on the floor. Under the blankets were the dead body of a black stallion, his throat and chest ripped open, blood soaking the sheet, and a dark pegasus mare, holding her hoof over his mouth. Her coat was a deep violet, and her mane a dark indigo. She reminded me of the pictures I had seen recovered of the Princess Luna, but with her colors reversed.

“Let’s go,” Cloud Chaser told the pegasus. She nodded, withdrew her hoof from her dead rapist, and stood shakily. I didn’t see any blood on her that didn’t obviously come from Chain Gang, and I foolishly hoped that I could take her clean flank as a sign that she hadn’t been used after all. I noticed another similarity to Luna, in that her cutie mark was a full moon.

“Ebonmane,” Cloud Chaser said to me. But I wasn’t looking at her or the mare we had saved.

There was a terminal sitting on the desk near the window.

“Just a second,” I told her. “This could be important.”

“We have to go!” she hissed at me.

“Not without knowing what’s going on here,” I told her. “They’re running an operation. They don’t just keep these mares for themselves. They’re selling them. What if we can find out where they’re taking the mares from, or who’s buying them? We could shut this whole thing down.”

She nodded. “Stupid white knight complex.”

I went to the terminal. I had learned a few tricks from reading Littlepip, but it still took me quite a bit to guess the password, and I had to back out several times. Hacking was not my forte.

But eventually I did get it. I knew every second we spent here increased our danger, so I downloaded everything I could to my PipBuck.

Heading back into the prison room, I asked Cloud Chaser, “Do we have a plan for the guards?”

She nodded. “Hit and run. Rosemary’s waiting for the sound of gunshots.”

It seemed a shame to sneak all the way through this pit only to blow our cover at the last minute. On purpose.

Again, we stacked up on the door. The night pegasus moved behind Cloud Chaser.

“What are you doing? Rosemary and the other unicorns can levitate you down if you jump. Get out of here.”

“I can help,” she asserted calmly.

“You don’t have a weapon,” I reasoned.

“I know some zebra techniques,” she came back. “I don’t need one.”

I wasn’t convinced. She couldn’t be that good if she wasn’t a zebra who had been training for years. I looked at Cloud Chaser to back me up.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Midnight,” she answered.

“Figures,” Cloud Chaser huffed. “On three.”

I protested. “Hold on,”

“Three.”

“Cloud Chaser, it isn’t safe-”

“Two.”

Fuck it.

“One.”

She opened the door and I charged in, pistols out. Five ponies, sitting on a broken ledge with the wasteland before them that would all have to go down in one instant.

I slipped into SATS. At this range I couldn’t really miss, but the ease at which I could pick off multiple targets with the spell was unparalleled. Six bullets, three from each of my pistols. I killed the two targets to my right and wounded one in front of me.

Gunshots ripped into my left side, but I was still standing thanks to the armor. The bursts of fire were cut off as Cloud Chaser came out behind me and fired three of her six shots. Midnight jumped on another, but I didn’t turn my head to see how she fared.

The unicorn stallion in front of me, a sickly green, fought through his wound well. He levitated his sniper around, pointing it straight in my face.

I ducked my head as he fired, grabbing my sword in my teeth. In the same motion it took to free it, I cut into him. He fell backwards, and with my right pistol I finished him off. With my left, I turned to see Midnight pivot around, trying to evade the barrel of her combatant’s pistol.

Cloud Chaser and I fired at the same time, and he slumped, dead.

The raiders downstairs would be up here in a matter of seconds, and we wouldn’t have the element of surprise. “Jump!” I told Midnight.

Whether she trusted me or acted on instinct, Midnight jumped. Cloud Chaser and I spread our wings and flew to catch her, grabbing her under her forelegs after she had fallen about a story.

My hoof slipped.

My heart stopped as Cloud Chaser lost her grip with the sudden weight. Midnight began to plummet. I couldn’t believe my eyes when she hit the ground, rolling gracefully, and picked herself up, completely unharmed.

Rosemary and the other mares were galloping into the distance as fast as they could. We rejoined them, Cloud Chaser and I flying above them.

I looked back at Greaves’. I exhaled when I didn’t see anypony coming after us.

Travelling toward Greaves’ had actually put us more than a full day’s walk away from New Appleloosa. We travelled far enough to lose any raiders that might be tracking us, but by noon we were all exhausted, and we set up camp, passing out our food to the starved mares.

I offered my last healing potion to the others, but I was the only one who had sustained wounds. To tell the truth, I was glad I got to drink it. I don’t think I would ever get used to the crippling pain of being shot.

Once we had all settled in, I got a chance to talk to Silver Bell. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“Really, I’m fine,” she assured me. “To be honest, I didn’t think I would be rescued. I thought you were dead.”

“I almost was,” I admitted. “Rosemary and Cloud Chaser came in the nick of time.”

“Why didn’t you get more reinforcements from New Appleloosa? Charging in with three lightly armed ponies is suicide,” Silver Bell said.

I sighed. “We thought we could reach you before they got a chance to… you know…”

“Rape me?” she finished.

I cringed. “Yeah.”

She turned and nodded. “I owe Midnight a lot.” Silver Bell looked at the dark pegasus, who was lying down away from the group. She seemed to be thinking.

“I guess I should thank her, too,” I said. “She protected you better than I could.”

“You did your best, Ebonmane. You came and you did get me out of there. That’s what matters.” I nodded, but I decided to leave Silver Bell alone for a moment. I wanted to talk to Midnight.

I approached her, but she didn’t even look up. I lied down next to her. Unintentionally, my hoof grazed her foreleg. She jumped like I had bit her.

“Are you alright?” I could feel the weight of the other mares’ eyes on me.

“Yes,” she said. “Just… stallions, you know?”

Oh. I flattened my ears in embarrassment. My face felt flushed. I shifted away from her and she sat down again, a healthy distance between us.

Despite the awkwardness already, I had to ask my question. “Midnight?” She finally looked at me. I spoke quietly. “Why did you do what you did for Silver Bell?”

She took a long moment before she answered. I could tell she was uncomfortable, but I had to know. “She was new. And I had been there for over a week. I had been used before. I knew I couldn’t protect her forever, but I knew things would be easier for her if she had time to turn it over and adjust. So I seduced Chain Gang. I told him I wanted it.” The tone in her voice told me how disgusted she was with herself, with what she had to do. But I don’t think she regretted it.

“That was very brave of you.”

“Or very stupid,” she returned. “A lot like you. Taking on a band of raiders with three lightly armed, inexperienced ponies?”

“It all worked out.”

“You got lucky.”

I sighed again, crestfallen. She was probably right. I looked over at the other mares that I had helped to save, but I couldn’t feel proud of what I had done. If it hadn’t been for my incompetence in protecting Silver Bell in the first place, the three of us would have never been there to rescue them, and Cloud Chaser and Rosemary wouldn’t have had to risk their lives to do it, either. It was all a stroke of luck, for us and for the mares, that we had made it out alive.

I knew in my head I had done some real good. I had killed a bunch of sex-trafficking slavers and saved a lot of mares, all without casualty to my party, but I didn’t feel good about it.

None of the mares gave more than a thanks for saving them. None of them said they owed me their lives. And I’m glad they didn’t. I didn’t deserve it. I knew I wasn’t a hero.

I spent the rest of the day reading what I had gotten off the terminal while I walked. Chain Gang had written a few entries it seemed, and I found an audio log that seemed to date from before the war.

I started with the slave records, with the most recent at the top, dated a few days ago, the last one about six months.

Just my luck. Just when things are starting to look up, I get screwed. I should have known Thunderfall was trying to fuck me over. “More pegasi,” he says. “Zebra if you can get it.” Like finding these mares is just like going to the farm. Like I can fucking pick them off the pegasi tree, then just skip over to the zebra tree for him so he can fucking collect ‘em all. Exotic my ass, do you know how hard it would be to catch a Zebra out of Glyphmark? And I sure as hell ain’t dragging my ass all the way out there. He can say he won’t buy the unicorns or earth ponies, but he’ll just have to buy what I fucking give him. Supply is short, and suppliers even fewer. He doesn’t have a choice.

It looks like I got some small-time buyers interested in New Appleloosa. Not the corporate stuff like Thunderfall, just some personal-use buyers, but caps are caps, and mares ain’t cheap, especially when we had to go all the way out to Sweet Apple Acres to get the latest bunch. Selling to pimps is what keeps the caps coming, but I’d bet that with a little outreach, I could start raking it in from all over. Friendship City to Fillydelphia. Now that I look at the numbers, these dumb bastards don’t know the first thing about business. They’ll probably pay anything, long as it’s good quality and kept quiet. I could retire in a month if this works out.

It’s a good thing Thundefall comes all the way out to me for his mares. Manehattan ain’t a walk in the garden, but I guess it’s hard to hide an operation like mine when you’re under the nose of Tenpony Tower. I think he knows that he’s our stallion out here, because he doesn’t even bother to haggle. Just names a price and it’s take it or leave it. I can’t deny him, it’s still kind of a deal, but I think about the caps I could be making and I start thinking that I have to start coming at this from a different angle.

Craziest shit happened today. After we raided that caravan from Fillydelphia, we decided to keep a couple of the mares. Good for morale, you know? Then wouldn’t you know it, some fat old unicorn comes waltzing along with a whole fucking entourage. Thought he was from Junction Town or something. He comes right up to the door, staring down all our guns, and says, “You woudn’t happen to be business ponies, would you?” Two hours later, I got a case with sixteen hundred caps sitting in my desk. Some of the boys were bitching about it. “I can’t believe you sold the mares, boss!” I told them that there would be more mares soon. A lot more. This racket’s a gold mine.

I have to be smart about this, though. Now that I got the password to this thing, I’ll keep track of the numbers and where the mares are going. Thunderfall’s got a real business pony on his hooves now.

When I read about the cap stash, I regretted not possessing Calamity’s kleptomania. They had probably been very close by. The rest was a bunch of numbers that I didn’t care to know.

My blood boiled at the thought of what he was going to do with Silver Bell and the rest of these mares, but I stayed calm, and told Rosemary and Cloud Chaser. They were concerned, but I was already planning. Manehattan would come later, though. First, we needed to get these mares someplace safe, and New Appleloosa was close by. From there, I figured I could round up a group and see if I couldn’t pay a visit to this Thunderfall. That’s why I told Rosemary and Cloud Chaser. Even if they weren’t willing to make the trek, they had to have some pull in New Appleloosa.

My mind was agitated that night as I tried to imagine every detail, every scenario that I would encounter in Manehattan, or what I would say to the sheriff of New Appleloosa. I was exhausted after sleeping so little last night and getting shot at so much this morning, but my thoughts pestered me.

As I tried to push them away when it began to get really late, I heard Rosemary and Cloud Chaser talking. They had volunteered to be sentries during the night in case the raiders managed to regroup and track us down.

“You look worried,” Cloud Chaser said. There was a pause. “Ebonmane?”

“Yeah,” she admitted. “He’s going to do something stupid, isn’t he?” I stayed still. Didn’t want to interrupt this.

Cloud Chaser defended me. “You don’t know that. He just wants to help these mares, and the mares in Manehattan. He might find something in New Appleloosa, especially with all those Harmony folks running around.”

“I doubt it,” Rosemary said. “No pony’s going to want to grab their guns and march all the way to Manehattan to stop a pimp. Ponies have enough to worry about on their own as it is.” Rosemary paused. “He’s just so young.”

“Hey,” Cloud Chaser came back. Good for you. Young does not mean stupid.

“Yeah, I know you’re quite a bit younger than him, but you’re an orphan. You were raised on the streets. Him… not so much.”

Cloud Chaser was an orphan? The sting of Rosemary’s insults were softened by that information.

“You’re not a whole lot older than him, though,” Cloud Chaser continued.

“But I’m not the one who jumps at the chance to be a hero. Who does he think he is? Littlepip?”

Cloud Chaser chuckled. “He has got a PipBuck.” I could feel Rosemary’s withering glare. “So what do you think he’s going to do?” Cloud Chaser continued.

Rosemary paused. “Give up, probably.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Well, if you ask me, I think a lot of this was done to impress Silver Bell. And she’ll be in New Appleloosa.” The contempt in her voice cut me like a blade.

“Really? Didn’t you just say that he wanted to be a hero? It might not have been smart for him, but his heart was in the right place, don’t you think?”

Rosemary sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ve got him all wrong. What do you think?”

Now Cloud Chaser paused. “I think you might be right. He thinks with his dick too much.”

Rosemary made an embarrassed noise, but didn’t say anything more.

Now I really couldn’t sleep. I was too angry and frustrated and insulted and embarrassed and… hurt. I realized that, for a moment, I thought at least Rosemary and Cloud Chaser believed in me, in the decisions I had made and my efforts to correct my mistakes. I knew they weren’t terribly impressed with me, but I had hoped that they had seen the best in me. Even if I was inexperienced, my heart was in the right place.

Wasn’t it? Silver Bell was pretty, but anypony would have gone after her in my position, right? After today’s ordeal, I certainly felt closer to her. I didn’t have feelings for her, but maybe I could. And after today, I thought that she could, too.

I brooded on this for the longest time. The part that hurt the most is when Cloud Chaser had said that I thought with my dick too much.

“How can they not see that I’m not like that?” I raged in my head. “I’m a good stallion. I didn’t think of mares as things for sex. Hell, I’m still a virgin! How could I?”

And then I stumbled upon why it had hurt so much.

“I’m not like those raiders,” I decided. “I’m not like Chain Gang. I would never use a mare. How could they think that?”

I looked over at Midnight, who seemingly blended in with the darkness, her body rising and falling peacefully.

My thoughts and feelings tortured me. I may have been a killer, but it was necessary. Necessary to save the lives of ponies like Midnight. Surely she appreciated what I had done for her?

“She jumped when you touched her,” a little pony in my head told me. “To her, you’re not much different than those rapists.”

That was one of those nights when I felt like crying, but couldn’t. I fell asleep, my breathing ragged, and my dreams blank.

Author's Notes:

For the curious, Cloud Chaser is not at all related in any way to the existing pony. I thought up the name before I even realized there was a background pony with the same name, but by then it had stuck. It was just her name. Whoops.

If you want an in-story reason for her name, old Cloud Chaser may have been rather famous in her life and warranted pegasi parents naming their daughters after her, and the tradition caught on.