~~~|*/\*|~~~

But after being alone for so long, it’s kind of weird to have friends with me all the time. I mean, there was Glade Skimmer and her family, and I’ve been with Rita for years, but... I wasn’t visiting Skimmer every day, and... I never really thought of Rita as a friend.

Well, Paharita was absolutely dreadful, so that’s understandable. But, if I may, you sound troubled by this turn of events. You do like it, don’t you?

It’s… different. In a good way, I think. I like that I don’t have to do things all by myself, at least, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I’ve had my ass saved by my friends more than once, it’s just—

I’m scared.

Oh, darling—

When I was by myself, I didn’t have to worry about anyone but me, and I barely worried about me. When it was just me and Rita, even if she annoyed the shit out of me, I knew that I could keep her safe... and I never doubted that Steel Trap and Anette could protect Skimmer when I wasn’t around, but then—

Then Arbu… and Rita—

Please, just relax. It’s okay.

It’s NOT okay! I can’t protect my friends! I’m just one fucking pony watching everyone I love and care about get picked off one by one! I don’t want to go back to the way things were before I met you! I can’t live like that again!

What wrong in there, pony? Why you shouting?

He’s just having a moment and we would sincerely appreciate some privacy, thank you!

Sorry, pony.

It’s alright, now. I’m here... and I promise you, it’s going to take quite a display of force to bring me down. And, you’re also neglecting something rather crucial.

What?

You’re not the only one watching over us. We all watch over one another, and keep each other safe. That’s what friends do.

I… never really thought of it like that.

Does that take a bit of the weight off your withers?

You know… yeah. A little bit.

~~~|*/\*|~~~

Chapter Ten – Unsolicited Interview

|[  7 ]|[(  ) ]|[BAR]|

“Sock-pony close,” said Leaf Marine, holding an empty can before her nose.

Paharita craned her neck forward, leaning as close as she could to the kneeling hellhound without actually stepping into claw’s reach. “You said that a day ago! How close is close?”

Leaf stood and tossed the can over her shoulder. “Very,” she replied.

Double Tap glanced up at Leaf, then around her, making eye contact with the receding griffon. “How long are you gonna keep this shit up?”

“Until Rainbow Dash rises from her unmarked grave!” Rita stuck her tongue out at the pair of them. “And you’re cuckoo-crazy for trusting her!”

“She caught breakfast for the three of us this morning!” He looked to Leaf, who smiled and nodded enthusiastically, then jabbed his hoof in Rita’s direction. “Granted, she doesn’t know how to cook either, but still, she’s still a good pon— er, dog!”

Leaf gave another enthusiastic nod.

Rita laughed and quickly said, “Yeah sure okay.”

“I have question,” Leaf said, pointing.

Tap came up beside her for a better look. They stood at the top of a hill, up high enough to get a decent look at the surrounding terrain. An enormous, sickly forest stretched across the landscape ahead of them, bracketed to the north and south by mountains. Rising out of the depths of that forest were a number of tall, decrepit buildings. The mountain range to the south sported several enormous craters, starting near the peaks and reaching down for the forest. The forest itself seemed to have taken a direct hit, indicated by an immense and patchy depression near the treeline, but the city within appeared largely unscathed.

At the bottom of the hill, in the direction that Leaf was gesturing an outstretched claw, were several bright green figures.

She looked to Tap and asked, “Why those ponies glow?”

“Oh, those aren’t—” Tap paused for a moment, taking a second look just to be sure. “Those are ghouls, Leaf.”

Leaf Marine leaned into Tap’s field of view to ask, “What’s ghouls?”

Before Tap could get a word in, Rita stepped right between them and began her own explanation. “Ghoul is slang for a pony that has been horribly deformed and mutated by large amounts of magical radiation, to the point that they’re just mindless, irradiated flesh-eating machines.” She smirked. “Kinda like you, Leaf Marine, except your kind came from diamond dogs and you aren’t very slowly decomposing.”

Tap snorted and pushed Rita aside. “Okay, first off, not all ghouls are mindless monsters. Over time, some of them experience mental de… deter—” He looked over at Rita. “Uh, what’s the word?”

“I’m not going to help you because you’re being a dumb brat,” Rita haughtily stated, her beak upturned.

“Fuck you Rita, you’re the worst.” He returned his attention to Leaf. “Pretty much all ghouls are a couple hundred years old and sometimes their brains don’t work so good after that much time.”

“Oh! I know what you talking about now, pony. No taste good at all!” Leaf let her tongue loll with a sound of disgust. “Withered, growly, hissy ponies.”

“They’re not all like that, though.” He smiled. “There’s this one ghoul lady that kinda sorta looked after me when my dad died. I’d like you to meet her some day. I think the two of you would get along.”

Leaf nodded. “I’d like that, pony.”

“Awwww,” Rita cooed. “You wanna introduce your dog-friend to your zombie-mom? Too bad she’s boner blocking you, huh tough guy?”

Tap levitated the empty can Leaf had been inspecting and pelted Rita with it. She scowled and rubbed the side of her head.

“But why they glow?” Leaf asked again.

“Oh, uh… if a ghoul soaks up enough radiation, it starts to kind of leak out of them as light I guess. I dunno.” He glanced over his withers. “Rita?”

Rita shrugged. “Don’t know, don’t care. Just go take care of them for me.”

Tap turned his attention forward again, squinting. “Unless feral ghouls have learned how to play dead, or these guys are just out sunbathing—” He fished a small pair of binoculars out of his bandoleer, peering through them. “I think someone already took care of them for us.”

There were many, less luminescent corpses sprawled out at the bottom of the hill as well, but the glowing ones stood out immediately. With Leaf at his side, he began a cautious descent, levitating his pistol out of its holster.

The closer he got, the more obvious it was that they had definitely been dispatched. Empty shotgun shells littered the scene, but there were also deep hoof marks on many of the bodies. Heads were splattered across the ground, and chests had been crushed in like rotten fruit. It was impossible to determine how fresh the kills were, since ghouls had such a ridiculously long shelf life. Tap and Leaf exchanged glances, and then Leaf knelt down to begin investigating.

“Great!” Rita fluttered over the carnage, landing neatly ahead of them both. “That’s one less thing you need to have a moral dilemma over killing. I’m so happy for you, now let’s keep moving.”

“Sock-pony do this,” Leaf said, as she sniffed one of the glowing corpses.

“Whaaaat,” Rita squawked. “No way. Fatty-Fats couldn’t fight her way out of a wet paper bag.”

Leaf looked up from the kill, one brow raised. “Sock-pony scent all over bodies, griffon. I know what I say.”

Rita shook her head. “So what? It’s not like ghouls decompose. These bodies are probably super old, and Tons-O-Fun is super greedy.” She puffed out her cheeks, spread her legs wider, and started rocking side to side. “She was probably looting these corpses, and she gave them a good stomping while she was doing it just to make sure they were dead.” She nearly lost her balance as she tried to stomp with her good hind.

“Pony following Sock-pony also come through here.” Still sniffing, Leaf started to wander away from the dead ghouls. She pointed toward the forest. “Both ponies go this way.”

“So we’re pretty near to Hollow Shades and it’s gonna get dark in a few hours.” Rita brought up her PipBuck and started clicking away. “Let’s set up camp there.”

Tap squinted at Rita. “Uh?”

“Oh,” she sighed, “let me guess; you have a problem with that, too, Mister Whiny-Whinny?”

“Maybe all the feral ghouls?” Tap droned, staring blankly at Rita. “And aren’t you terrified of ghouls anyway?” He raised a brow. “Why the hell would you want to stay the night in a place that’s full of them?”

Rita smiled pleasantly, giving Tap a sideways glance. “Because honestly, I’m already traveling with one of my greatest fears, since someone won’t just put her out of her misery. A few shamblers will be a cakewalk at this point.” She snickered. “Also it would be kinda cool to watch one big monster fight a whole buncha smaller monsters.”

“You’re fucked up, Rita.”

“Besides, it’s already on our itinerary and I’d like to sleep on a bed tonight!” Rita shrugged, flashing Tap a smug grin. “Might as well stay the night, unless you horses actually like sleeping standing up.”

Tap sneered. “Whatever. Why don’t you fuck off or something while the grown-ups deal with the scary monsters, then.” He waved a hoof skyward. “Don’t you usually pop a stealth buck and go hide in a cloud right about now?”

Rita raised a brow. “Do you see any clouds, dummy?”

“Aw, darn,” he said with feigned sympathy. “Don’t forget to thank your fucking Light-Bringer.”

“Wasting time,” Leaf murmured, pressing on without them. “Never catch up to sock-pony if pony and griffon argue so much.”

“You’re right, Leaf Marine.” Rita stepped away from Tap, though she kept several paces from Leaf. “He is wasting time.”

“You’re a waste of time, you dick,” he grumbled.

Leaf glanced back at the two of them, her teeth just starting to show. “Enough.” In the blink of an eye, she had stopped snarling. Her eyes widened and she raised a brow. “Oh, I have question!” she announced as she looked ahead again. “What sock-pony do that make you track her?”

Rita was first to chime in. “The dirt on Fatty-Fats is that she made a deal with the Enclave in an attempt to take over Friendship City, which was really stupid because I trust the Enclave about as far as I can throw them.”

She unfolded her wings and started flapping alongside them, gesturing with her claws. “Anyway, I guess she screwed up her half of the deal, and the Enclave came in with guns blazing. The city got blown up, lots of ponies got killed, and I got to do some totally sweet looting while this loser was still sulking around about Arbu.” She waggled a talon in Tap’s face.

Tap looked away, ears folding back. “Fuck you.”

“So sock-pony destroy city and get ponies killed. Like what happen to our packs, pony?” Tap met Leaf’s gaze, a sad look on her face. He nodded. She nodded as well. “That why you want to kill sock-pony.”

“Kill?” Rita dropped back to all fours, cocking her head. “I wanna haul her in for the full bounty!”

Leaf glanced back, her head tilted. Tap knew what she was going to say before she said it. “But pony say—”

“Damn it, Leaf.” He sighed and looked off into the distance, anticipating more bad noise from Paharita.

“What I do?” Leaf grumbled.

Suddenly, Rita was right next to him. “Hey,” she shouted in his ear. “We talked about this, mister!” Tap tried to push her away, but she just flew right over him and sank her claws and talons into his back. “We need the money! Don’t screw this up for me!”

After several moments of trying and failing to shake her off, he grunted with frustration. “Fucking fine! Whatever!”

“I don’t know what he told you,” Rita began as she pulled her talons out of his clothing, “but the plan is to capture her alive. We’ll get the biggest reward that way. Besides, this doofus is gonna give you what you want as soon as we find her, so you don’t even need to worry about what we’re gonna do with her!”

Leaf arched a brow at Tap, then shrugged and kept walking. He heaved a quiet sigh of relief as Rita went completely silent.

The edge of the forest stood a short walk from the scattered ghoul corpses. Two centuries of neglect had concealed any roads into Hollow Shades, but two centuries with minimal sunlight meant the undergrowth wasn’t particularly dense, either. Because of this, it was fairly easy to spot any shambling figures amongst the trees. Paharita’s PipBuck chittered softly as they came to the tree line. She reached into her jacket, producing a small pill bottle. Rita took one and Tap took one, but Leaf declined, he assumed, because she was not as susceptible to radiation. They spent a few moments more surveying their immediate surroundings and making sure they hadn’t been spotted. Once Rita had activated a stealth buck, the three of them began their cautious passage through the forest, careful not to disturb any of the locals.

|[o’o ]|[BAR]|[  7 ]|

It seemed darker behind the tree line, even with the sun still shining brightly above. Tap was reminded of the Everfree forest, but this place was diseased, its leaves struggling to cling to their branches. A dry rustling and creaking filled the air as trees were stirred by the wind, accompanied by gurgled, rasping growls in the distance. Decayed luggage littered the ground, their contents rotted away from exposure to the elements. Like the city, these possessions had been abandoned hundreds of years ago as ponies fled. The number of ghouls in the area, and the countless bones jutting out of the forest floor, made him question how many had actually made it out before radiation from the megaspells could fry them.

There were what he assumed to be more recent kills as well. A trail of dead ghouls ran just about on top of the scent that Leaf was so diligently tracking. Whoever had come through with shotgun blazing had gotten the attention of nearly every ghoul within earshot each time they fired their weapon. The number of spent shotshells dwindled as they approached the edge of the city, which gave him the impression that the shooter had caught on.

The forest did not thin out as they neared the city. Without any ponies to maintain the grounds, trees and shrubs had crept right in amongst the buildings. Ancient concrete lay in jagged and uneven slabs, uprooted by tree trunks and roots, with scrawny branches and pale leaves jutting out of crumbling shop fronts and smashed windows. Carts and wagons had been left in the middle of the road, rusted and deteriorated by time. Some of the buildings had collapsed, rubble strewn across the streets and neighboring structures, their rebar skeletons laced with sprouts.

There were fewer ghouls wandering the overgrown streets, but their mindless laments echoed endlessly. Tap wondered if they were aware of their fate; like Hollow Shades, they had become nothing more than irradiated and empty.

Leaf Marine stayed low to the ground as she continued to diligently sniff, leading them block by block into the depths of the city. As she did, they passed the occasional ghoul corpse. The killer had clearly learned their lesson. Most of them had been beaten or trampled, and past a certain point, the kills became more creative. One such ghoul had been crushed under an avalanche of barrels from the back of a wagon, its mangled foreleg jutting out from the top of the pile. Not far from that, bits of stagnant meat and bone were scattered around a small crater. Someone had laid traps and these ghouls had unwittingly set them off.

“Sock-pony scent everywhere,” Leaf whispered.

Tap was startled by the sudden break in the silence. He regained his composure and hissed, “What?”

“Over there,” Leaf murmured as she pointed. “And over there. back there—” She lifted her muzzle skyward and began to sniff furiously. “She here. Sock-pony still here. Scent so fresh I taste it.”

“Why would she stay in a place like this?” whispered Paharita.

Tap shrugged. “Maybe because it’s swarming with ghouls and too poisonous for non-ghouls to settle.”

“Other pony still following sock-pony,” Leaf said quietly. “Maybe force sock-pony to hide.”

“You think they’re the one setting the traps?” Tap asked.

Leaf shook her head. “Haven’t smelled other pony on traps yet. Think sock-pony set traps to catch other pony?”

Rita snickered quietly, stepping around an overturned Sky Bandit. “I think Lardo is a little too big to be playing cat and—”

Double Tap spotted the trip wire a split-second too late. Rita sputtered as she tumbled forward, snapping the line in the process. Tap frantically yanked her back with his levitation, expecting an explosion or some other sort of trap to spring, but nothing happened. A few syllables made it past Rita’s beak before she was completely drowned out by a revving air raid siren on a nearby rooftop. Tap went completely still as the siren reached its peak, the sound resonating in his teeth. Leaf clutched her paws over her ears and began to howl. Just as suddenly as it had started, the wail of the siren began to fade.

“Ouch,” whimpered Leaf, rubbing the sides of her head.

With a dull zap, Rita vanished. “Alright! I’m gonna take your advice.” Tap felt things being dropped into his bandoleer, and then heard the fluttering of wings. “Good luck with the scary monsters!”

Tap heard distant screeching not long after Rita had taken off. “Yeah, thanks.”

He fought to suppress the chill running down his spine as he un-holstered the forty-five and checked the load. Armor piercers wouldn’t be particularly effective against ghouls, since most ghouls weren’t wearing much in the way of clothing or armor. He checked the pocket Rita had deposited into, finding it full of magazines loaded with hollow points.

“It sucks that they don’t taste good, huh?” Tap muttered as he swapped magazines. Leaf tilted her head, and he added, “Otherwise this would be a galloping buffet for you.”

Leaf chuckled and murmured, “Awful shame.”

Tap levitated a dash inhaler to his lips and took a long hit, closing his eyes.

He stood his ground with Leaf, struggling to maintain his composure as the ghouls came in like a rising tide. She thrashed and swung, mutilating ghouls with ease, but there were so many that no matter how many he killed or stabbed, he never gained any ground. Less than a minute and two magazines into the encounter, he was separated from Leaf, overwhelmed, trampled, and devoured before she could come to his aid.

-^v-^v------

Fuuuuck that, he mused as he opened his eyes, glancing around frantically. The closest and most structurally sound-looking building stood to his left. A four story structure that appeared more residential than commercial. An uneven, uncoordinated thundering of hooves echoed to his ears.

“I’m gonna sit this one out,” he said, feeling as though it had taken him years to push each syllable past his lips, when in reality he knew that he had spoken so hurriedly that Leaf probably didn’t understand a word.

Leaf stayed put as he rushed away from the middle of the street. The front door was closed, and he didn’t want to waste time checking it or attract attention by kicking it in. Instead, he leapt through a broken window to the right of it and crouched down inside, waving his pistol around as he did a visual sweep of the room he had landed in. It was empty, and had likely been that way for quite some time. Book cases had toppled away from the walls, the furniture wearing a layer of mold and moss. He turned back toward the street, peering over the grimy window sill.

A bit of dust shook from the ceiling as he heard a rumbling explosion just a few blocks away. Ghouls were pouring in from every direction, and as the withered ponies stumbled mindlessly toward the source of the recent commotion, they tripped a variety of traps. A metallic clanging rang out on the other end of the street and he turned in time to see a construction scaffold come crashing down, its rusty beams impaling or outright crushing the ghouls unfortunate enough to be standing near it. This hardly slowed the horde down, nor did it significantly decrease their numbers. The only thing that could stop them from instinctually investigating the disturbance was death itself.

None of the ghouls seemed to notice Leaf at first. They weren’t looking for her specifically so much as they were looking for anything that wasn’t one of them. As soon as one ghoul spotted her, however, the entire swarm was alerted and charging from both ends of the street and from alleys as well. Tap considered relocating to the second floor as a shower of crumbled plaster cascaded over his back. If he was going to watch Leaf slice her way through countless ghouls, he wanted a better view.

Out on the street, Leaf Marine bared her teeth and widened her stance, her forearms bulging as she flexed her claws. She dropped down to all fours and lunged toward the advancing wave of ghouls, tackling four of them at once as she met them head on. Almost instantly, she was completely surrounded. There were so many of them that they were practically scrambling over one another trying to get close enough to bite and strike her. That didn’t seem to matter. Limbs and heads began to fly, oozing a thick, black sludge that had been blood once upon a time.

Another rain of plaster dust sprinkled down on him, accompanied by a big chunk that broke over his withers. Tap turned away from the window, glanced up at the ceiling, and froze. Milky eyes stared back at him through a jagged hole. With dash in his system, the ghoul’s gurgling, rasping screech was even more unnerving. He swung his foreleg toward the protruding face, but the hole in the ceiling widened around the ghoul’s body, and it lurched far enough forward that his knife sank into the ghoul’s back. It continued to scream as it tumbled through the air, hitting the floor with a heavy thump. A knife through the eye socket abruptly silenced the ghoul, but he knew that it was already too late.

Tap raced through the room, taking the nearest left and finding himself in a stairwell. The front door had not been barricaded, not that it mattered considering that the windows were completely bare. A hair-raising din of growling and rasping flooded in behind him. He made for the stairs, climbing in leaps and bounds. The front door splintered as he reached the summit. Without so much as looking back, he yanked the pin of a grenade and lobbed it down the way he came. The shrieking was muted by the blast, but only briefly, and the uproar swelled back to full volume as he continued to climb.

They were behind him. Not close enough that he could see them when he rounded the third floor landing, but close enough that he could feel the stairwell shuddering as they stampeded over one another in pursuit. He dropped another grenade in the hopes that it would damage the stairs enough to slow them down, or stop them altogether. The explosion shook the floor and sent fresh cracks spider webbing along the walls as he reached the fourth level. His vertical escape route terminated with a railing, overlooking just enough of the stairwell below that he caught a glimpse of the leathery equines charging in his wake.

A sinking feeling lumped up in the pit of his stomach. The railing led to a door which came right off the hinges as Tap tried to push through it. There was no ceiling in this room. Time had worn the roof away completely, exposing it to the world and weather outside. He could see the neighboring rooftop through a collapsed section of the far wall. The floor lurched under his hooves as he galloped toward the opening, and that sinking feeling in his stomach spread to the rest of his body. Even the dash in his system couldn’t prevent him from taking a plunge when the floor fell away beneath him.

He descended with a downpour of rotted debris, rusty metal, and the skeletal frames of furniture. A table broke his fall, its legs splintering to the sides as he came down on it with a heavy thud. The door from the fourth floor splintered as it made contact with the third floor, and with a loud and resonating crack, the third floor began to crumble as well. Tap slid sideways, his hooves scrambling against the table, frantically trying to find purchase. He forced himself into the air with a telekinetic shove, grabbing for the edge of the gaping hole with his forelegs. Jagged bits of wood poked into his chest, but he ignored it, trying to lift himself to his hooves.

These efforts were halted as a distorted scream reached Tap’s ears. He looked back just in time to see a ghoul hurl itself across the gap. Its withered forelegs wrapped around him before he could draw his pistol, biting into the back of his neck and dragging him away from the rough ledge. He landed on top of the ghoul, its ribs crunching like dead leaves on impact. Tap rolled away from the writhing figure, pistol out. He had landed in a bedroom now mostly buried in the debris of the two floors above it. High overhead, ghouls hissed and shuffled around the edge of the pitfall. It didn’t take long for them to start throwing themselves after him.

Double Tap hugged the walls as ghouls hit the dusty floor like sacks of rotten meat, spattering their surroundings with black, viscous blood. This only killed the ones that landed head first. The ones that had landed on their legs reached for him with their shattered limbs, still intent on apprehending him. He tried to keep his composure as he looked around the room, but there were no alternative exits, and the windows behind him overlooked a street already covered in writhing, irradiated masses. I’m fucking cornered, he realized.

The door on the far side of the room shuddered, chunks of plaster falling away from the frame and hinges. It shook and rattled with building intensity until it came off the hinges in pieces. He emptied an entire magazine into the advancing swarm—killing, crippling, wounding—but there were so many of them that no amount of casualties would slow them. The wounded vanished beneath the stampeding while he reloaded, losing precious ground in those few moments. He could feel the effects of the dash rapidly fading, leaving him too disoriented and sluggish to manage another magazine swap after squeezing off the last round.

All the dash in the world couldn’t buy him enough time. He knew that he had passed the point of no return. Gritting his teeth and squeezing his eyes shut, Tap lifted one of his last grenades over his head, putting tension on the pin.

“Come and get it you mother fuckers!”

A thunderous crash shook the building as Tap felt himself being yanked through the window. He pulled the grenade with him and whipped his head around, expecting to see an emaciated equine face with a gaping maw. Instead, he found a pair of intensely blue eyes staring back at him. Leaf Marine had her thick forearm looped under his forelegs, cradling him to her chest as she clung to the side of the building.

“Hang on, pony!” Leaf shouted as she pulled her claws free of the brick façade.

With a grunt and a blur of motion, they were airborne. Leaf twisted herself around mid-leap and braced toward the concrete rooftop across the street. Tap felt her grip tighten. Dazed as he was after coming down from a dash high, he felt the wind knocked out of him when she touched down. The hellhound lurched forward and steadied herself with one paw against the roof, then almost hesitantly, her other arm began to ease off. Tap crumpled to a heap beneath her, gasping.

Before he had even recovered, she got in his face and barked, “I right outside the whole time! Why you not call for help, pony?!”

A second face hung down beside hers, snarling at Tap. He recoiled, but Leaf just rolled her eyes and stood upright. There were still ghouls hanging from her by their teeth and forelegs. She casually ran her claws down her back and shoulders, shearing them off and flinging their shredded remains aside. Tap rolled to his hooves, considering taking a smaller hit of dash to relieve some of the comedown.

“Could have died, pony,” Leaf scolded from behind him. He was about to tell her off, but then she added, “Don’t want bad to happen to you. You my friend.”

Out of nowhere, an overwhelming sense of guilt clouded his thoughts. He glanced back at her, then down at the concrete, sighing. “I’m sorry. I’m not really used to working with a partner that can actually bail me out like that.”

Leaf took a few steps closer, and she smiled when he met her gaze. “It okay, pony.” She rested her paw on his head, one claw gently scratching behind his ear. “Just remember for next time.”

Just as Tap began to close his eyes and lean into the scratching, it abruptly stopped.

He opened his eyes to look back up at Leaf, but she was nowhere to be found. The world around him was somehow different; cleaner, and more vibrant. He turned as he searched for her, looking over the side of the building. All of the overgrowth had vanished. The sidewalks were lined with produce stands and full of ponies in suits and dresses. Passenger carriages rolled up and down the street. Tap looked up, toward the apartment on the other side of the street, and saw Lady Luck grinning back at him. She tilted her muzzle skyward and spread her forelegs. The mountainside lit up with blinding flashes.

When his vision returned, he found himself standing where he had started, and the world around him had returned to its crumbling, washed out state. Leaf stood at his side once more, with her paw still resting on his head. He was about to ask her to keep scratching when a quiet giggle reached his ears. At the same time, something moved in the corner of his vision. His eyes shifted to follow, and for a moment he could see Glade Skimmer standing at the edge of the roof. She smiled and gestured toward the enormous building that stood several blocks behind her, her hoof waving just below the trio of weather-worn butterflies that adorned it.

A hospital.

Tap blinked and Skimmer was gone, reduced to ashes on the breeze. Her laughter echoed in his ears.

“You smell something burning, pony?” Leaf whispered.

Double Tap sniffled quietly and rubbed a fetlock across his eyes. Before he could comment, the sound of feathers against the air hailed Paharita’s arrival. Disappointed, he looked over at the griffon. She was fully visible when she landed, which meant either her stealth buck had run out of juice or she had deemed it unnecessary while in flight.

“Leaf Marine that was so wicked awesome!” Rita bobbed and shook her balled claws as she spoke, grinning around her beak. “The way you just ripped through them like they were made of paper!”

Leaf smiled and shrugged. “Was nothing special.”

Rita raised a brow as she turned her attention to Tap. “And what happened with you, back there? You can’t handle some mutant ponies all the sudden?”

“Are you shitting me?!” He furrowed his brow and stomped. “There were dozens of the fuckers chasing me! I almost fucking died!”

“Well,” Rita began, smirking, “I guess it’s a good thing you were too much of a wuss to shoot Leaf Marine when she wanted you to after all.”

Leaf snickered and added, “This true!”

Tap sneered and shook his head, too angry for words. He looked to the hospital in the distance again. “So Leaf could have led us right to Raspberry Tart, but the streets are pretty much overrun right now because one of us couldn’t avoid setting off a fucking trap.” Rita started to retort, but he gave her a telekinetic shove.

“If all the old apartments and shops are as shitty as the one I tried to hold out in, I doubt she set up camp in one of them. Wherever she is, it’s probably big enough that at least some of it is still intact, so that she could barricade herself inside it to keep the ghouls out.” He pointed a hoof toward the hospital. “I wanna check that place out.”

He let his hoof drop, then glanced to his companions. Leaf nodded idly, sniffing in the direction of the building he had pointed out. Rita gave him a skeptical look, one brow raised. At any moment, she was likely to voice her disapproval.

“Do you have any better ideas, empress?” he muttered, hoping to beat her to the punch.

Rita rolled her eyes and shrugged. “We’ve already wasted a whole lot of time already, so I guess trying your dumb idea won’t make too big a difference.” She spread her wings and gave a few flaps. With a wiggle of her rump, she took to the air. “Good luck getting over there, though.” She stuck out her tongue, and then fluttered off into the distance.

“Fucking asshole,” he snorted. He sighed and trotted up next to Leaf. The street below was squirming with hissing, growling ghouls. After a moment, he mumbled, “Hey uh… could you give me a ride?”

|[BAR]|[ /_\ ]|[o8- ]|

Entering the hospital at street level would have been a monumentally bad decision. There weren’t quite as many ghouls crowded around the entrances as there had been on the street near the air raid siren, but ghouls almost seemed to behave as a singular organism. If one ghoul tried to follow them in, the rest would very quickly do the same.

This was rendered a non-issue by Leaf Marine’s exceptional agility. With Tap clinging to her back, she had leapt from rooftop to rooftop, getting closer to the hospital with every bound. The hospital itself was not a single building, but several interlinked structures of varying heights and widths. Long ago, the pillars and archways decorating the exterior might have been very extravagant, but time had not been kind to these decorations. Rather than try to land on a balcony or one of the lower sections of the hospital’s roofs, Leaf had opted to cling to the side of one of the buildings, her claws sinking into weathered concrete without any real difficulty.

Double Tap climbed over her shoulders and through a window. He stood at the end of a long, dark hallway. The light of the setting sun filtered in behind him as columns of light that glowed a golden orange. He knew that window frame wasn’t nearly large enough to accommodate Leaf, but he also knew that wouldn’t be a problem. He took a step back, and her claws raked through concrete, rebar and plaster until the hole was wide enough for her to crawl through. Once again, the height of the ceiling forced her to crouch.

“Ponies bad at construction,” she muttered, her ears and mane flattened against a light fixture.

Tap snickered and shrugged. “I don’t think they had hellho— dogs in mind when they built this place.”

From behind Leaf, he heard the sound of flapping wings. Paharita peered around Leaf without getting too close to her. “I think I saw her on one of the other roof tops while I was circling the place.”

“What do you mean you think?” Tap asked. “Did you see her or not?”

“I dunno, I didn’t exactly swoop in for a closer look!” Rita waved a claw at him. “Anyway it was on the roof with the great big pool.”

“What’s pool,” Leaf idly murmured.

“It’s like a swimming hole,” Tap answered.

Leaf gasped quietly, eyes widening. “I hate swimming.”

Tap squinted and cocked a brow. “For real?”

“I almost drown in drinking reservoir when I was pup!”

“Can this wait?!” Rita interrupted. “If we’re gonna nab her today then let’s just get it over with! I’m tired of being so poor that I have to wander around behind a hellhound.”

Leaf and Tap exchanged glances, and then Leaf began to sniff. “Trail not fresh.” She gestured toward a hoof print in the dust. “But sock-pony definitely been here.”

She slouched forward onto all fours to continue sniffing, but her sniffs soon turned to snorts, and then she began to paw at her nose. Tap ducked into a doorway just as her whole body jolted with a sneeze. He snickered and raised a brow at her, to which she responded by wiping her nose and shrugging. Rita groaned in frustration, but didn’t seem to want to try squeezing past Leaf. That suited Tap just fine, as he didn’t want Rita to stumble into any more traps and risk hurting herself or giving away their position.

Visibility dwindled as they ventured deeper and deeper into the ancient hospital, its catacomb-like passages illuminated only by the glow of Tap’s horn, the screen of Rita’s pipbuck, and the increasingly infrequent rays of sunlight that shone through windows or collapsed walls. Every so often, they came across a skeleton or two; some sprawled out, others in the fetal position, or clinging to one another even in death. There were occasional ghoul corpses as well, though not nearly as many as there had been on the way into the city. They had been dealt with exclusively through brute force delivered via hoof, or the creative use of trip wires and heavy objects with sharp points.

Eventually, they came to a reception area with a faded map of the hospital painted next to a directory on the wall. Rita spent a few minutes studying it, holding up her pipbuck for reading light. She nodded as she let her forearm drop, the click of her talons echoing.

“We’re looking for the rehabilitation center.” Rita pointed toward the directory, then traced through the air with her talon. “Just follow the green line.”

Leaf frowned.

“It’s cool,” Tap offered, gesturing for Leaf to follow.

The section of the hospital devoted to rehabilitation was in no better shape than any of the other dilapidated areas that they had passed through. It was better lit, however, as it had many windows facing toward the sunset. They ascended through a stairwell with shattered bay windows, passing through bands of pink light and deep shadow, while darkness rolled in like a rising tide in their wake. The sun was little more than a glowing sliver on the ridge of the mountainside by the time they emerged onto the roof.

As advertised, there was a long, six lane pool situated in the middle of the roof, though the water had become a sludge of algae and dead leaves after more than two hundred years without cleaning. A dense layer of moss carpeted the edge of the pool, with grass and shrubs sprouting up through cracks in the cement. On the far end, an enormous, pomegranate-red figure reclined in a foldout chair, with a mostly intact umbrella hanging overhead. He didn’t even need to guess that this was Raspberry Tart.

“You could at least have the decency to announce yourselves,” she called, her voice as thick and heavy as she appeared to be. “It’s not as though you’ve been at all discrete on your way here.”

Tap had already drawn his pistol before stepping out into the open, but as he pointed it toward her, Rita put her talon on it and pushed it toward the ground.

“Sheesh, let me at least see if she’ll go peacefully first.”

Rita stepped away from Tap and took to the air, flitting over the pool toward the immense pony on the other side. Tap gave Leaf a sideways glance and sighed, then cautiously made his way around the pool to catch up.

As Tap approached Raspberry Tart, he had a brief moment of nostalgia, recalling a book which his father used to read to him about the exotic animals that inhabited zebra territory. She very much resembled a hippopotamus, not only in mass, but her stature itself seemed to be much larger than that of the typical mare. Somehow, she had managed to stuff herself into the undershirt and coat of a business suit, though her clothing clearly had other plans if the ruptured seams and straining buttons were any indication. Her hindquarters were bare, which allowed him to get a look at her cutie mark. He had been expecting something pastry related, given her namesake and portly build. Instead, her flank bore the image of a wooden mortar and pestle, three green leaves protruding from the rim.

She remained seated, her blue eyes idly sweeping over the three of them, one brow raised beneath her tidy blonde bangs. Her equally well groomed tail gave a single flick, then she leaned toward the drink on the table beside her, sipping through a straw. The chair emitted a mournful creak as her weight settled again.

“So, you must be her errand boy,” she remarked as she looked Tap over. “Now that we’re finally meeting face to face, I suppose I should thank you for all the work you’ve done for me in the past, but, well, seeing as you’re here on business—” She smirked and shrugged, then looked over at Leaf and added, “By the way, Paharita, I never took you for a dog lover. Is she a new acquisition, or were you just waiting for an auspicious occasion such as this to introduce me to your pets?”

“I not pet!” Leaf barked, waving a claw in Raspberry Tart’s direction.

Rita gave Leaf a sideways glance. “She’s totally not my pet.”

“Yeah,” Tap snorted, “me neither!”

Raspberry Tart’s eyes darted to Rita, then Tap, and she stifled a chuckle. “Oh, how precious. Of course you aren’t.”

Rita stepped forward, but attempting to stand over the massive pony was just about impossible. “Alright, Fatty-Fats, I know you know why we’re here.” She grinned, shifting her weight and pointing with one extended talon. “Are you gonna play nice, or are we gonna have to play rough?”

“So that’s what you’ve been calling me behind my back. Well, Paharita darling, are you asking me to just roll over for you?” Raspberry Tart sighed quietly. “I thought our relationship meant more to you than this.”

Rita stuck out her tongue. “Uh, ew.”

“But, if I were to be stabbed in the back by someone who has previously handled my affairs, I would prefer it be done by someone who clearly possesses all the loyalty of a feather in the breeze.” She flashed a toothy grin to Rita, at which point Tap realized that Rita had just been insulted. “Were it anyone else, I might actually be incensed by such a stark betrayal.”

With a roll of her eyes, Rita waved her claw dismissively. “Puh-lease! The only reason you’re insulted is because we didn’t bring any snacks for you!” Rita reared up, putting her claws on her hips. “If you agree to come with us, though, I promise to let you raid the Fancy Colt Snack Cake factory on the way back to Stable Twenty-Nine.”

“Oh, but that’s such a long walk.” Raspberry Tart shook her head. “I appreciate the offer, but I would much rather stay here.”

“It wasn’t an offer,” Tap muttered.

Raspberry Tart giggled dryly, lifting a thick foreleg to cover her mouth. “Paharita, is it safe to assume that you haven’t trained him to only speak when spoken to?”

Tap furrowed his brow and raised his pistol, only to have Rita slap it down again.

“He’s a little unruly,” Rita answered, snickering. “Anyway, this has been a fun little talk, but you’re coming with us.”

“I must insist on declining, I’m afraid. I’ve grown rather fond of Hollow Shades, and it was so very peaceful before you and your lackeys started stumbling around and upsetting the locals, so if you wouldn’t mind—” She waved one hoof toward the other side of the pool, where they had come in.

This time, when Tap leveled his pistol, Rita did not stop him. Raspberry Tart stared down the barrel at him, her overly-charismatic smile replaced by a look of boredom.  She rolled her eyes and leaned toward her drink again. Tap tilted his pistol and fired, shattering the glass, leaving the straw hanging between her lips.

“Now that,” she said as she closed her eyes and upturned her nose, “was completely uncalled for.”

Her other foreleg, the one she hadn’t used to gesture with, jerked suddenly. Something fell out of the umbrella, making a sound like shattering glass as it struck the concrete. In the split second that it took Tap to reflexively look down, he realized his mistake. A blinding flash and a deafening bang robbed him of his perception, leaving him staggering. As his senses gradually returned, he felt as though he were hearing splashing. He glanced around, and through the blots of color, he could see Leaf Marine yelping and flailing around in the pool. Rita was nowhere to be seen, but he had almost expected that.

Leaf thrashed her way to the edge of the pool before Tap could even do anything to help her. She took enormous chunks out of the cement as she clawed her way up and out. Satisfied that she wasn’t about to drown, Tap struggled to scan the area with his blurry vision, looking for a trace of Raspberry Tart and finding nothing.

“Shit, she’s gone.” He looked to Leaf in time to see her wiping slime out of her face and rubbing her eyes. “You alright?”

“You say something pony?” Leaf whimpered. “Can’t barely see or hear anything!” She stumbled over a folding chair after several awkward steps and growled, “Gonna tear sock-pony apart!” Continuing on all fours, her nose twitching furiously, she paused only briefly at the chair Raspberry had been seated in. Her whole body leaned toward a door to the right like some kind of pointing gesture, then she kept right on sniffing along the floor. “Follow me, pony!”

She was off and running before he could argue against her taking the lead.

Tap galloped in Leaf’s wake as she barreled down the dusty corridors on all fours. All the caution she had displayed on her way to the hospital had been cast aside now that she had a fresh trail and a reason to be furious. He assumed that she was making an effort to check for traps, or that her senses had at least returned enough to allow her to detect traps. These assessments were quickly dismissed as she stepped onto a sheet spread across the floor and fell right through. She scrambled up out of the hole, snarling, shreds of the sheet tangled around her, and kept right on going despite Tap’s protests. A few twists and turns later, she plowed through a door and got herself sprayed with buckshot. The pellets hardly slowed her down. Neither did a centrifuge turned flechette gun, the needles bouncing harmlessly off of Leaf’s tough hide.

Just as Tap began to feel confident that none of the traps could halt Leaf’s pursuit, he was again proven wrong. When he noticed the bed frames strapped to the ceiling above where Leaf was about to step, he had assumed that they would simply fall on her, but when she snapped the trip wire holding the trap at bay, only one side of it came down. The free falling side was weighted with circular weights, and the thing came swinging into her like some kind of improvised, inverted mouse trap. If she had been a pony, or somehow less durable, he had no doubt that the legs of the bed posts would have impaled her and possibly killed her instantly. Instead, Leaf was pinned up against the wall, cracks radiating out from the imprint she had left in the plaster. She groaned and struggled to push the bed frames away, looking more miserable than angry.

Tap gritted his teeth, leaning closer to the sprung trap and the hellhound behind it. “Uh… do you need help?”

“You go on ahead, pony,” she said breathlessly, shaking her head. “Sock-pony real close. I catch up when I get second wind.”

He nodded and turned away, continuing on with a much greater degree of care.

A sort of humming sound reverberated through the walls as Tap crept down the hall. There were no more traps in his path, only an open door, and a flood of light that stretched toward his hooves. He caught a glimpse of Raspberry as she stepped around some kind of barrier, but did not hasten his pace. This turned out to be a wise decision. A thin line of wire spanned the doorframe, just about at neck level. Had he been charging, his momentum would have caused the wire to slice his throat, or potentially take his head right off. He gave it a telekinetic tug, just to make sure there wasn’t some other secondary function to the wire, and then swiftly ducked under it.

The room he had stepped into was lit by a series of fluorescent lights set into the high ceiling. Dust clung to the walls and mostly blanketed the tile, corrupting the sterile look of the place to more of a dingy grey. In addition to multiple fresh hoof prints and scuff marks, there was a discolored spot in the middle of the floor, as though something had been there, but recently moved. Suspended above that was the source of the humming. It appeared to be an enormous, off-white tube, held aloft by several mechanical arms so that the circular opening pointed toward the floor. Just behind that, he spotted an observation window. Raspberry Tart grinned and lazily waved her hoof from behind it. The barrier he had seen her duck behind was actually the far wall, interrupted by a door that no doubt led up to the observation room.

“My, aren’t you persistent.” She giggled dryly, and Tap went for the door. “Now now, I’ll be down to see you in just a moment, but first—” The hum of the device in the center of the room began to intensify. “You magic users have such an unfair advantage. What say we level the playing field, hmm?”

Tap wheeled around, the humming sound rattling his clenched teeth, and began to get a sensation as though he were being pulled. Not him, exactly, but his clothing. He glanced down as he felt his pistol rattling in its holster, the many knives concealed by his sweater vibrating against his coat. The hum reached a fever pitch, so overwhelming that he couldn’t even think straight. Suddenly, the buttons and zipper began to pop off of his jacket, flying across the room and vanishing up the tube with a series of loud pings.

There was no time to run. Realizing what was to come next, he swung himself around, forelegs extended toward the machine. The back and sides of his jacket erupted into a storm of knives, his sleeves reduced to tatters as sharpened strips of metal were wrenched away from his body. His entire bandoleer was next, taking all his dash inhalers, grenades, spare magazines with it. The forty-five, holster and all, was stripped from him as well, disappearing into the tube. Seconds later, the tube muffled a quick succession of blasts, belching out fire and shrapnel as it crashed to the floor. His grenades had gone off inside the device.

“Do you have any idea how long it took me to set all of those traps?” Raspberry droned over the intercom. “You could have at least had the consideration to be wounded by one of them on your way here.” She sighed, then lifted some sort of flask to her lips, downing the contents in several gulps. “Oh well. It’s of no real consequence. You traveled this far to find me, so I shan’t disappoint.”

The door he had come in through slid closed, hissing softly. She stepped away from the window, and he could hear her coming down the stairs soon after.

It was plain to see that the force of the blast had demolished his pistol and his dash inhalers, and many of his knives had been reduced to scrap metal, but there were still a fair amount that appeared to have some use left in them. He gathered them up with his levitation, making them orbit his head with the points facing outward.

The very instant that Raspberry emerged, he shouted, “This ain’t a social call, lady! I’m gonna fuck you up if you don’t give up in the next few seconds!”

She began practically strutting toward him, smiling as she purred, “Such harsh language! Where are your manners, darling? I had hoped Paharita would have at least educated you in basic etiquette.”

Raspberry canted her head to one side then jerked it to the other, cracking what sounded like the entire length of her spine mid stride, her tail snapping at the air in her wake.

“But don’t you worry.” Her eyes narrowed, her toothy grin widening. “I’ll be sure to teach you some respect.”

Her grin vanished and she broke into a charge. The floor shook so violently under her hooves that Tap wondered if it would collapse under her and spare him the effort. It did not. He snorted, leapt a few steps back, and sent his knives whistling her way, one after another. They hit their marks, striking her knees and shoulders in places that he thought would cripple her, and then he had a very unpleasant flashback to his fight with Leaf Marine. His eyes widened as more than half of the knives simply fell away, shaken off by the rolling motion of her body. She didn’t even bleed and she certainly didn’t slow down.

Ducking to the side as she came barreling up to him was not enough; she pivoted on her forehooves and swung her entire back end toward him, forcing Tap into the air. The wall audibly cracked as her hip collided with it, blowing up a cloud of dust below him. He landed on the other side of her, stepping right into a gallop and making for the door he had come in through. Without any dash in his system, he struggled to reassess the situation. Raspberry was unarmed, but he had seen how her hide was somehow tough enough to render his knives ineffective. Initially, his rationalization was that she was too fat for the knives to penetrate, but he quickly realized how stupid a conclusion that was.

Either way, the odds were not even close to being in his favor.

The door refused to yield to his hooves as he pushed and pulled, trying to slide it back open, but failing to budge it any visible amount. The door controls were, he assumed, in the observation room overlooking the area. He pushed himself away from the wall as he felt the floor rattling again, skidding to a stop close to the center of the room. To his surprise, she slowed to a canter, marching right up to him without any sign of hesitation. It would be easy to reach the controls and open the door, but she was so big that she could just as easily corner him in the process.

“Far be it of me to critique your performance,” Raspberry chided as she stepped across cracked ceramic tile, approaching him once more, “but my time is rather valuable, so I do ask that you take this encounter seriously.”

Tap spread his stance a little wider. Incapacitating her was the only way out.

When Raspberry stepped into range, he reared up, slid one hind back, and came across with a right hook. Her head was still swinging as he caught her uppermost chin with an uppercut, lifting her head with the force of the blow. Her body followed in recoil, forelegs briefly rising up off the ground, but she did not topple. Instead, she heaved her weight forward. Her forehead came crashing down against his muzzle. Tap staggered back, stars in his eyes and blood gushing from his nose. The floor shook as Raspberry threw herself into another charge.

Hoping that her eyes weren’t as durable as her skin, Tap went for his knives again. Raspberry skidded to a stop when he darted past her, whipping him across the cheek with her tail. He winced it off and kept going, meeting her sideways glance while he gathered up a swirling cloud of sharpened metal. Her head dipped to avoid the first knife, deflecting the second with a raised foreleg. He needed to get closer. The knives kept flying at her face, forcing her to stay on defense, but she turned to counter his advance. The floor shuddered with each step as she distributed her weight between three legs. At the very least, he realized that he could stall her like this until Leaf Marine arrived.

Raspberry had other plans. She reared up as he managed to step in front of her, then her hooves dropped like lead. Tap lunged back, feeling the aftershock of the impact. The cracks in the tile nearly reached him even from several paces away. He didn’t give her a chance to recover. Their eyes met as for a split second as Tap raced toward her, his horn glowing. Raspberry grunted and recoiled as he cast his flash spell, raising her foreleg defensively. He leapt over her head and landed on her back. For all her bulk, her hide felt strangely dense and firm under his hooves. He whipped his knives down against her, trying to gouge her squinting eyes and meeting nothing but her forelegs as she shook furiously in an attempt to throw him off.

Her head dropped nearly to the floor, and then, with a roar, her posture shifted drastically under him. Tap threw his forelegs around her neck as she rose up on her hind legs, but she kept going, leaning farther and farther back. He bristled as her intent dawned on him. Now nearly parallel with the floor, Tap simultaneously kicked and telekinetically shoved himself out from under her, just narrowly avoiding being crushed under her back. As she hit the floor, the shockwave nearly knocked the wind out of him. His ears continued to ring, but his vision stopped shaking just in time to see the jets of steam snorting out of Raspberry’s nose, a furious look across her face. Tap was first to his hooves, scrambling away from the crater she had made to find a knife before she could follow his example. His search became increasingly desperate as he heard her grunting, heaving herself back upright, and then shaking bits of tile out of her coat.

Tap stepped back into the fight with a pair of knives floating on either side of him. Raspberry was waiting, holding herself up on her elephantine hind legs, forehooves raised protectively around her face. She breathed heavily, growling with every exhale, but she wasn’t showing any signs of fatigue. Tap strafed to her left, slashing and stabbing for her eyes and throat, blocked by a broad sweep of her foreleg. He ducked right to avoid a swing, and tried again on her other side. She had anticipated it. Her hoof flew on a collision course with his face and without dash in his system there wasn’t enough time or momentum on his side to evade. Tap brought up his forelegs and braced. A searing pain rippled up his legs and through his entire torso. It took him a moment to realize that the blow had sent him sliding back, and his forelegs went completely limp as his brain processed the sheer amount of blunt force they had just absorbed.

He was given no quarter. Raspberry came stampeding toward him, and he threw his aching forelegs around her neck to avoid being trampled, just barely managing to hang on. She kept going, and as he struggled to piece together a plan, he noticed the far wall getting farther and farther away. He glanced back just in time to get a face full of plaster.

The next several seconds were little more than a garbled blur for Tap. When his senses returned to a degree of functionality, he was greeted by the sight of Raspberry’s forehooves bearing down on him. Tap twisted to one side, narrowly avoiding getting his head smashed in. His teeth were still rattling when she lifted her heavy hoof to try again. He jerked his head as close to her grounded hoof as he could, wincing as her second attempted stomp scraped fur and skin off the side of his cheek. His eyes struggled to come back into focus, vision blurred anew from the sheer weight and power behind her strikes. He tried to squirm out from between her forelegs, but his hinds were pinned all the way to the hocks by her gut. She was far too heavy to move with his magic. The way she leered down at him confirmed that she knew he was at her mercy. Her forehooves squeezed against the sides of her head as she leaned forward, tensing up, and then she reared with him still in her grasp.

Double Tap briefly felt weightless. He squeezed his eyes shut as he fell back, trying to brace for impact. His mind went completely blank as she slammed him down, the back of his head crashing against the pulverized tile. He couldn’t see straight, he could barely hear anything, and he was too dazed to even think. Her blurry hoof hovered over his face.

Glade Skimmer appeared above Tart’s fuzzy silhouette, clear as day, hooves clasped to her chest.

“I’m sorry,” Tap whispered, closing his eyes.

A strained, gurgling scream broke through the buzz in his ears. His eyes snapped open involuntarily, every muscle in his body suddenly tensing to an agonizing degree, his lungs and heart seizing in his chest. Raspberry tilted to one side, then toppled completely, legs sticking straight out. The motion forcefully knocked Tap away from her, and just as suddenly as it had started, it stopped. Tap went completely limp, gasping. Raspberry continued to scream, getting increasingly shrill until she went completely silent. He rolled his head toward her, seeing that she had also gone limp, her chest heaving as she squirmed on the floor. A pair of claws stepped over him, accompanied by a fuzzy, feline underbelly.

“Jeeze,” Paharita sighed, “do I have to do everything for you?” She raised one of her claws as Raspberry struggled to get back to her hooves. “Whoops! Looks like she’s not a one and done kinda girl.”

In her raised claw was a black, plastic gun with the word CAUTION and an image of a lightning bolt on the side. She pulled the trigger and he heard a sharp zap, followed by a crackle. Raspberry began to convulse again, rocking on her bulky side. He could faintly see the barbs sticking out of Raspberry’s chest, connected by thin wires to the plastic gun in Rita’s claw.

“I can keep this up all day, Fatty-Fats,” Rita shouted triumphantly. “I’ve got a full battery and spares!”

Tap went from relieved to furious in the blink of an eye. “You didn’t think to use that when she was sitting in the fucking chair you feathery piece of shit?!”

Rita stepped away from him, lifting her beak snobbishly. “Well excuuuse me, princess!”

“She just beat the piss out of me you fucking idiot!” He thrashed on the floor, heaving himself onto his side and swinging a foreleg at her. “Where were you with that fucking taser?!”

“The plan was to see if she would come along quietly, not run off after her!” Rita waggled a talon at him, the taser swinging wildly in her grasp as she did. “Since you and bonehead decided to chase her, instead of regrouping, I had to rewire the door and wait for an opportunity to step in where she couldn’t stomp me into griffon paste.”

“What the fuck ever!” He shakily tried to roll back onto his hooves, stumbling forward as his left foreleg gave out at an unpleasant angle. “I think my leg might be broken,” he grunted through clenched teeth. “Where’s Leaf Marine?”

“I here, pony,” Leaf muttered from nearby. He looked in the direction of her voice, meeting her gaze through the enormous hole Raspberry had made in the wall. “Sorry I late. Got hurt more than I thought.”

The section of wall around the hole crumbled as her claws sheared through, the hellhound crouching through the freshly widened opening. She had wrapped her right thigh and forearm in bandages, stained a soft red, doing her best to keep her weight off her right leg as she came closer. Once she was beside him, she offered a healing potion, which Tap accepted without hesitation.

“Thought you were going to kill sock-pony,” she whispered. “What happen?”

Tap’s response was interrupted, first by the sharp pains caused by the mending of his foreleg, and again as Raspberry groaned in agony. Rita stood over her, grinning wickedly while she tased Raspberry for the third time. Raspberry’s head hit the ground, forelegs weakly scraping against the floor.

“You’re not getting away that easily,” Rita teased. Raspberry muttered something as Rita began tying her legs, and Rita burst out laughing. “A safeword? How’s this for a safeword: Butterball!”

“Killing her didn’t work out,” he grumbled, pushing himself up off the floor.

Leaf raised a brow. “What about deal, pony? You say I could eat sock-pony after you kill her.”

Tap shrugged. Leaf narrowed her eyes and stood up as much as she could, making her way over to Rita.

“I made deal,” she began. Rita cut her off.

“Sure sure, I just need to finish tying up Princess Porker here!” She tied a knot around Raspberry’s hinds, then pulled another length of rope out of her duffel bag and went to work binding Raspberry’s forelegs. “Thank you so much for helping us, Leaf Marine. I had to admit it, but that dumb idiot was right about how useful you would be.”

Leaf appeared somewhat embarrassed by the compliment, covering her muzzle with both paws, her tail wagging excitedly. “Thank you, griffon. You don’t need to tie up sock-pony, though. I eat her fine like this.”

Rita stopped what she was doing and glanced up at Leaf. “Whad’ya mean eat her? You’re not eating her!”

“It okay,” Leaf said, smiling and pointing a claw toward Raspberry’s increasingly panic stricken face. “I leave the head so you and pony can turn it in for capes.”

“I strongly object to being eaten alive,” Raspberry Tart weakly chimed, writhing on the floor.

“Yeah, just because I said something nice doesn’t mean you get to call shots like that. You are definitely not eating my big, fat, golden goose here.” Rita patted Raspberry on the flank. “Anyway, this has been kinda fun I guess, buuuuut—” When Rita had finished tying Raspberry’s forelegs, she turned toward Tap, drawing the Punchline and holding it out for him. “Would you please do the honors so that we can put all this behind us?”

Tap stomped, nearly losing his balance. “I’m not going to fucking shoot her, Rita!”

“Did you hear that, Leaf Marine?” she exclaimed with feigned shock. “Sounds like a breach of contract to me!”

“I don’t want pony to kill me anymore, griffon” she calmly replied. “Made up mind when I watch stars with pony. Want to stay alive, see world outside valley. Maybe more dogs out there.” She shrugged, leaning toward Raspberry. “And deal change, too. Now deal is I help you and pony, then I eat sock-pony and leave head.”

“That is appallingly barbaric,” Raspberry murmured, then gave Rita a sideways glance. “I can see why she’s traveling with the likes of you.”

Rita swatted Leaf across the nose, shouting, “No way!” She reared up between Leaf and Raspberry with her wings at their full span. Leaf did not seem the least bit intimidated, baring her teeth and flexing her claws. Rita flashed a nervous smile. “That wasn’t his deal to make ‘cause he and I are partners and we already agreed to take her in alive.”

“You shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep, pony,” Leaf growled, shooting Tap a cold stare.

“So, yeah, sorry! You’re not eating her,” she said as she shrugged in Leaf’s direction, then swung a talon toward Tap, adding, “And you’re not killing her!” Rita sat down on Raspberry’s side, crossing her hind legs. “We’re all going to get some shut-eye, and tomorrow, we’re heading up to Stable Twenty-Nine for one heck of a payout.”

“If your attire is any indication, you’re in desperate need of the blood money my live capture would grant you.” She smirked, upturning her nose. “Such a shame, then, that I must again refuse.”

Rita snickered. “Is that a good idea in your position?” she sang.

“You may be seated upon me, but you are all still so far below me that you may well be lowly insects in the presence of Celestia herself.” Raspberry shrugged. “Besides, there are few things I can imagine that are worse than your mournfully poor excuses for knots, having your repulsively greasy fur on my immaculate coat, or having to entertain your brainless goons with physical violence.”

Paharita rolled her eyes and gave Tap a bored look. Tap snorted and limped up to Tart, levitating a knife out of Rita’s claw. Raspberry peered over at him casually, even as he brought the knife to her backside.

This time, when he pressed down, the knife sank into her hide with startling ease. He blinked, bringing the crimson tip up, and stabbing into her again just to be sure it wasn’t a fluke. Her skin had inexplicably and dramatically softened between his fight with her and that moment. Raspberry  flinched every time he poked into her with the point of the knife, but made no attempt to squirm away.

“And this is when he’s not even feeling creative.” Rita cooed. “Imagine what he could do if he hooked up the leads from the taser to the blade of the knife.”

Raspberry chuckled deeply, her middle quivering under Rita. “If you were more than a collection of mediocre amateurs, that might actually qualify as a threat.” Tap whipped the knife down right into her gut. Even as her blood began to ooze around the blade, she did little more than grit her teeth and narrow her eyes. “But truthfully, you’re more likely to kill me than you are to motivate me. There’s not a thing you can do to alter my decision, and so, you may as well execute me like the petty thugs you are. My deepest condolences for your stunted payout.”

Rita sighed, retrieved another length of rope, and set about the task of gagging Rasperry with it. Tap lifted the knife again, levitating it toward Raspberry’s throat as she resisted, but Rita shook her head sternly and pushed it away. They glared at one another for several seconds, until Tap noticed the grip of the Punchline sticking out of Rita’s jacket. His horn started to glow, but her claw swiftly covered what he could see of it.

“Fine! You don’t wanna walk, whatevs.” Rita shoved the Punchline deeper into her jacket, then went back to tying. “Leaf Marine, you’re gonna carry her for us.”

“What?” Leaf leaned toward Rita, ears folded back. “Is that joke, griffon?”

Rita’s resolve broke, and she glanced around anxiously, shrinking behind Raspberry. “You could lift her up no problem!”

Leaf barked, “Why I carry sock-pony? You have pony right there!” She gestured to Tap.

Tap glanced between Leaf and Raspberry several times. “Leaf, I can’t carry her. She’s too heavy.”

“Not my problem,” Leaf scoffed, putting her paws on her hips.

“Why not,” he asked, squinting up at her. “You carried me here on your back!”

“That different! You friend!” She crossed her arms, frowning down at him. “Sock-pony not friend and I not beast of burden!”

It had become obvious that the situation was at a standstill. Tap put a hoof to his forehead and sighed. “I’m so fucking done with this. Let’s just kill her, give Leaf her body, and take her head back to the Stable.”

“Let me ask you something,” Rita said as she propped her head up with one claw. “Do you like living in Tenpony, with hot, running water and comfy beds and food that was cooked by someone who actually knows what they’re doing?” Without waiting for him to respond, she continued. “Well, if we don’t bring her in alive, you can kiss all that goodbye, because we don’t have enough to renew the lease.”

“Shit.” Tap turned back toward Leaf. “Okay, what about this… if you carry Raspberry Tart for us, we’ll talk to the ponies at Stable Twenty-Nine and see if they’ll let you eat her when they’re done with her.”

Leaf shook her head. “No, I not gonna carry sock-pony. Home gone, pack gone, all I have left is my dignity. Dogs no carry things like work horses, understand?”

Suddenly, Rita sprang up on her hind legs. “Okay! Forget your deal with him since he obviously can’t make good on it. I got a new one for you!” Tap sneered and folded back his ears, but observed curiously, as did Leaf. “So, you wanna eat this pony here, who is admittedly pretty juicy looking—”

Rita paused as Leaf nodded eagerly, while Raspberry grunted and flopped under her.

“Well, normally I would just fly home, but with the Enclave hovering around and the cloud ceiling gone, that’s a little risky!” She raised both claws, waving them just below her beak. “What if you escort me back to my workshop, so that I can make something to carry Raspberry Tart for us, and then when we deliver her to the Stable I’ll ask them if they’ll let you eat her later. There’s some stuff I’ve been meaning to scavenge anyway, and most bandits and raiders would think twice about attacking a hellhound, so you’d make a perfect scarecrow while I do it!”

Leaf Marine scrunched her lips from one side to the other, studying Rita. “And you honor this deal?”

“Let me put it this way; those ponies are really mad at her. I don’t think they’re offering such a big reward if they’re just gonna slap her on the fetlocks, stick her in a cell, and call it even.” Rita grinned. “If I rub them the right way, they might even let you eat her alive as punishment. Heck, if they agree to that, I might get in on it with you.” She leaned a little closer to Raspberry’s face, meeting Raspberry’s furious glare with her own twisted grin. “I’ve always wondered how you would taste, Fatty-Fats.”

Tap felt overwhelmingly uncomfortable.

“Okay,” Leaf said as she licked her lips. “Okay we have deal! Don’t wanna wait till morning!”

Rita smiled, nodding. “We’ll have the cover of darkness on our side, too! You may be a flea bitten monster, but you’re honestly not so bad past that.”

Stepping forward, Double Tap muttered, “Sure, who needs sleep. We’re just going to leave her here while we go back to the workshop, though? What if some ghoul comes by and eats her? Or someone else finds her and they haul her back while we’re gone?”

Instead of an immediate answer, Rita started to giggle. “Oh, no, silly, you’re not coming with us. You’re going to stay here and guard her until we get back.”

Tap blinked once as Rita kissed him on the cheek. “Wh—”

“Stay here and keep sock-pony safe, okay pony?” Leaf waved an enormous claw in his face in a worryingly Rita-like fashion. “Don’t kill her, either! Want her to be fresh! Taste better that way!”

“Ready when you are,” Rita called from the hallway. “Oh, and one more thing!” She leaned into the doorway and said, “Do not listen to anything Tubbo has to say! Not one word! Keep her gagged and feed her through a straw!” Without any further explanation, she vanished back through the door and shouted, “Come on, poochie!”

Leaf glanced back and nodded, then smiled and gently scratched behind Tap’s ear. “Be good, pony.”

She bounded off, squeezing through the doorway and out of sight. In seconds, the sounds of his companions became echoes, and then nothing. He looked back to Raspberry Tart, her nose wrinkled, her brow furrowed and twitching.

“Fuck my life.”

|[o’o ]|[o8- ]|[ /_\ ]|