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

For a while, I had this dream where I would see this town from the top of a hill; full of ponies shopping and talking and going about their lives. Real peaceful, you know?

And then, when I start walking toward the town, it just kind of empties out. By the time I actually get there, it’s a ghost town. All the buildings are empty, like there was no one living there to begin with.

Why do you think you would have a dream like that?

I was alone for a long time, and it’s not something I want to go back to ever again.

Well, I’m not planning on going anywhere without you, if that makes you feel any better.

Oh, don’t give me that look. It was a joke.

Yeah, I know. I guess I don’t think it’s that funny since it seems like every time there’s something good in my life, it gets taken away from me. I’m tired of starting over.

I’m tired of saying goodbye.

We all are… But maybe, some day, we won’t have to say goodbye until we’re good and ready to do so.

Yeah, that would be nice.

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

Chapter Seven – Bereavement

|[     ]|[     ]|[     ]|

Time stopped as Double Tap stood transfixed, unable to break Lady Luck’s gaze. A shrill beeping cut through the silence like a hacksaw, washing out the world around him as it grew in intensity. Lady Luck cocked her head, but maintained her ghastly smile.

“Just as well,” she whispered. “We’ll meet again many a time before your luck truly runs out, I think.”

Lady Luck turned away as Skimmer held out a hoof to him. And then they were gone, everything vanishing under a searing white light.

Tap gasped, convulsed, and went limp, his head bouncing against something soft. The buzz in his ears slowly began to fade. He peeled back his eyelids, his vision focusing on a looming silhouette. Gradually, the silhouette resolved into Paharita. She looked like she had been splashed with paint. He realized a moment later that she was smeared with blood, holding something close to his face between her dripping talons; a crumpled wad of metal.

A spent bullet.

Bobbing and grinning, she exclaimed, “I’m keeping this!”

“This hell is even worse,” he groaned. “Send me back.”

The words left him with the weight of a lead brick. Everything began to blur together, bringing a nauseating dizziness with it. Paharita said something, but it was too muffled for him to understand. His eyelids drooped, and darkness followed.

Glade… Skimmer...

|[  7 ]|[o8- ]|[(  ) ]|

“How long have I been like this?” Tap murmured, taking a sip from a water bottle as he waited for Rita to return to his side.

Beneath the mesh of bandages covering the majority of his body, his skin couldn’t decide if it was itchy or in agony. The bed under him felt foreign. More comfortable, maybe, but smaller than the mattress he was used to, and much higher off the ground. He was fairly certain that it had wheels, which meant Rita had likely pulled it out of the ruins of a hospital. The griffon fluttered her wings and landed neatly on a bar stool next to the bed.

“And where is Glade Skimmer?” He rolled his head toward her, made even more uncomfortable by a sloshing feeling in his skull. “What happened to Arbu?”

Before saying anything, Rita peered up at the ceiling and did a little spin on her bar stool. “You’ve been in and out for a couple days. Had to keep you medicated and stuff, but you’re healing pretty nicely.” She came to a stop and pointed, grinning. “Trust me, after all the digging around I had to do, you’ll be thanking me for that. You’re still gonna be pretty sore once the good stuff wears off, but nowhere near as sore as you would have been a day ago.

“Also, you might have a teeeeensy little addiction to morphine now,” she said as her extended talon drooped against her thumb, “but that’s no biggie if you ask me.”

She hadn’t answered his other questions, but the thought of Rita performing any kind of surgery on him made him bristle.

“What do you fucking mean digging around?” Tap made an effort to sit up, thwarted by a sharp pain in his chest. With a grunt, he let his head hit the pillow. “Rita, I told you I didn’t want you doing any weird surgical shit to me.”

“You said you'd only let me play doctor over your dead body, if I’m not mistaken, which I’m not!” Tap clenched his jaw as he met her excited gaze. She didn’t have to say it, but he knew she was going to anyway. “And you were pre-tty dead, mister!” Rita crossed her forearms and turned her head to the side with a huff. “You’re welcome for saving your life and all.”

Tap scowled and looked away, sighing softly through his nose. “Yeah, okay, fine.”

“That wasn’t a thaaaaank yoooou,” she sang as she gave him a sideways glance.

“Fucking thank you!” Tap threw his forelegs into the air, weakly flailing them about. “Now what did you do to me you fucking quack?!”

“Weeeeell...” Rita pulled up her pipbuck, tapping for a few moments. She nodded and met his bitter glare. “Your adrenaline glands were pretty much burnt out, and so was your liver, but those are unrelated and I was probably going to have to get you new ones at some point anyway!

“The biggest thing was you coming down with a case of bullet to the chest. See, Littlepip didn’t get you square in the heart, but she did a lot of damage.” She glanced down at her pipbuck, tapping the screen, “She put a great big hole through your lung, too, but that was actually one of the easier things to fix!”

Grinning, she locked eyes with him again. “Anyway, I was able to fix most of the damage with healing potions, but your ticker had to get swapped out.” Double Tap’s eyes shot to their widest, but Rita continued. “You’re lucky that your popsicle buddy from Tenpony was a match, and that our freezer in the basement wasn’t too rough on his insides, cause artificial hearts—”

“Woah woah!” Tap put both hooves on his chest, staring down at the slightly pink-stained bandages covering it. “You did a heart transplant on me? Are you fucking kidding?!”

“Well, no! I had a little help too!” She glanced back and made a beckoning gesture with her claw. “Say hello to our new friend, Surgeon General Gutsy! And yeah, I know she’s technically a Handy, but I’m gonna call her Miss Gutsy since she plays with your guts!”

It was a hovering sort of robot. The kind with lots of long, spindly limbs, painted bright yellow and decorated with butterflies in groups of three. Instead of blowtorches and buzzsaws, it was equipped with scalpels, needles, and what appeared to be defibrillator pads. Tap had seen Handy models that had been repurposed for surgery, but as far as he knew, they were fairly hard to come by, and actively sought after by the Steel Rangers.

Impulsively, his next question was, “Where the hell did you find that?” A mental kick followed as he realized what was to come.

“I’m glad you asked!” Rita spun all the way around, wings and forearms spread wide and waving. “Gather round, all you clankers! It’s story time!”

One by one, the robots shuffled and rolled closer, forming a half circle around the side of the bed, with Rita in the center. Grinning madly, she spun back toward Tap, scooting her stool closer with a series of obnoxious screeches. Looming over him now, she took a deep breath, and reached over him.

“I had almost reached the Bucklyn outpost when I heard the gunshots. I knew that Littlepip had finally figured out Arbu’s deepest, darkest, tastiest secret, and—”

“You knew they were cannibals?” He gawked at her in not-quite disbelief. “Skimmer and her family, too?”

“Uh, yeah? A-doy! Don’t you think I know what pony tastes like? I’m surprised you didn’t figure it out sooner!” She tapped her beak, grinning down at him. “I’m surprised you ponies don’t know what you ponies taste like, while we’re on the subject.”

Tap growled and started to raise his voice, but she put a talon to his lips and shushed him.

“Anyway, hush! I’m talking! So Littlepip figured out they were all cannibals, and started doing what she does, being the grim reaper that she is. As much as I wanted to watch you and her duke it out, I didn’t want to risk getting blown away while she was in super murder mode, so I decided to just let you handle it. But hey, look how that turned out.” She reached out to jab him in the shoulder with an extended talon. “All you had to do was kill Littlepip. Nice job, chief.”

“FUCK. YOU.”

Tap had lunged for her, ignoring the searing pain that rolled through his body, but he stopped just short of striking her. Every single robot in the room had pointed their weapons at Tap in one form or another, and they kept it that way until he let himself fall back against the bed. He closed his eyes and swallowed, trembling with rage.

Rita went back to clicking her beak as though nothing had happened. “Anyway, so I get there, and it’s corpse city. Big, tasty smelling funeral pyre, blood everywhere, busted up security hardware scattered around… I didn’t think they left any of the Steel Rangers or their bots alive, but I popped a stealth buck just to be safe. Can’t be too careful when looting, you know! So there I am, poking around, looking for their safe, and I come across their medical bay. I figured you were probably gonna get a little scuffed up fighting Littlepip and her friends, so I started to stock up, and hey, what do you know?”

A quick glance up at her revealed that she was staring at him expectantly, claws on her waist. He said nothing and looked away, trying to shut her out and go back to sleep.

“They’ve got a medical robot in a charging bay! What a find! I spent a few moments tinkering, powered her up, and had her play pack mule while I went through their stock. After I had pretty much grabbed everything I thought was valuable, I realized that the shooting had stopped. My first thought was that you had taken care of business, so I figured I’d patch you up and you could help me look for our payment.”

Grunting, Tap shifted his weight and rocked to one side, facing his entire body away from Rita. “But I didn’t kill Littlepip.”

“Yeah, no kidding. We didn’t make any money on this little cluster-cluck either, because I never found the safe. When I caught up with you, keeping you alive kind of took precedence, and when I checked the place out again the other day, it had already been cleaned out.” She sighed quietly, and despite himself, he imagined her rolling her eyes. “Totally lame, right?”

Tap rolled onto his back again, staring up at her. “What do you mean you caught up with me?”

“After that little episode in Splendid Valley, I sewed a tracking beacon into your bandoleer since you never take the stupid thing off.” She lifted her pipbuck and tapped the screen a few times. “Your blip popped up outside of Arbu, on the shore, and since Arbu was smoking like a chimney by then, that made plenty of sense to me. When I swooped in to rendezvous, though…”

Rita grinded her beak, brow furrowing. “Yeah, you’re honestly really, really lucky you have someone like me looking out for you, cause you were all kinds of messed up. You were in the water, but I could see that you had been burned pretty bad around your hooves and stuff, and uh…”

“Skimmer?” he asked, brows shooting up.

“No! No.” Rita shook her head, took a deep breath, and straightened up. “Your cutie mark. It got kinda… burned. It’s probably going to scar up pretty badly, so—”

Double Tap gnashed his teeth, thrashing against the bed. “I don’t give a flying mother-fuck about my cutie mark, Paharita! Tell me what happened to Skimmer!”

“Well!” The griffon crossed her forelegs and looked away with a huff. “Excuuuuse me for trying to be sensitive about your super important butt-sign! I thought that sort of thing was what you ponies based your whole lives around!”

“I do not give one single shit about that, or any of this other fucking garbage.” He narrowed his eyes, growling and gritting his teeth. “Now tell me what happened to Glade Skimmer. Was she there with me? Is she okay?”

Smiling, Rita asked, “You’re joking, right?”

“No I’m not fucking joking!” Tap kicked his hind legs in frustration, glaring up at her. “Where is she?!”

Paharita stared at him for a long moment, her smile somewhat diminished. Her sudden silence made his hair stand on end. “Tap,” she said plainly, “she’s dead.”

In that instant, Tap began to suffocate, as though every breath of air had left the room. The helplessness he felt was suddenly amplified, its weight crushing down on his chest, and for a minute, he could do nothing but stare. No matter how hard he searched her expression, no matter how desperately he wanted it to be another one of Paharita’s sick jokes, the words “just kidding” never left her beak.

Tap choked, drawing in a stale, shallow breath. “No she’s not, Rita,” he calmly corrected her, shaking his head. “I don’t know where you got a half baked idea like that, but Skimmer isn’t dead. She got up, and I followed her out.” Satisfied with his explanation, he nodded.

“Yeah, no,” she replied without a moment’s hesitation. His entire body tensed. “Littlepip killed just about everyone in Arbu. I think you’re one of the few ponies who made it out in one piece,” she held up her pipbuck, pointing to the speaker, “cause DJ Ponethree—”

“Don’t fucking say that!” he spat, shaking. His vision began to blur as a feeling of dizziness gripped him. He struggled to replace the helplessness with anger. “She’s not dead! She can’t be dead!”

Rita leaned away from the bed, then stepped away from it entirely. “Ooookay, someone’s getting a little cranky. Let me go get the morphine.”

Tap struggled to sit up, but his body simply refused to follow orders. He felt a needle pierce his skin, painkillers washing through him, weighing him down. A chemical haze seeped into his mind. Even as consciousness slipped away, he railed against what Paharita had told him, as though his defiance kept Skimmer alive.

|[  7 ]|[o8- ]|[ /_\ ]|

Double Tap reached across his chest, took a deep breath, and peeled back the layer of bandages spread across his torso. A fresh, whitish-pink scar stretched right down the center, stopping just below his ribs. Its path was horizontally intersected by a few equally fresh, but much smaller scars where the stitches had been holding him together. The bottle cap-sized patch of uneven flesh just to the left of his heart signified another addition to his already obscene collection of bullet wounds.

The bandages on his legs were next in line. Scarring from burns was minimal on his left side, but much more obvious on his right, centered mostly near his backside. His genitals had survived the experience without as much as a scratch, for which he was greatly relieved. The dice on his right flank, however, had a big, nasty-looking, furless splotch that marred at least half of the image. Unphased, he flexed each of his legs in turn, then rolled over the side of the bed.

The floor rushed to greet him. Somewhere nearby, he heard Paharita snickering. He ignored her and shakily lifted himself onto all fours. A few deep breaths later, he had his bearings, and stopped leaning against the bed.

“Alright, that’s good.” She fluttered over to him, grinning as he met her gaze. “Miss Gutsy wants to give you a full physical or something, but you look fine to me!”

Tap limped past her, head low. “Where’s Littlepip?”

“Huh? I dunno.” He could hear her claws and talons clicking the floor behind him, slowly following. “Canterlot, I think. Why?”

His eyes swept the room, searching for his equipment. “Because I’m gonna go kill the bitch.”

With another burst of fluttering, Rita hopped ahead of him, turning to block his path. “Oh, yeah, okay.” She had her good hind paw planted firmly on his singed bandoleer. “'Cause you did such a great job the last time.”

Horn flaring brightly, he wrenched it out from under her, nearly sending her sprawling. “Shut the fuck up! Where are my guns?!”

Rita ruffled her feathers and steadied herself, jabbing him in the chest with a talon. “You didn’t have your pistols on you when I picked you up, so you probably left them in Arbu. If they were in a fire that nasty, I’m just gonna go ahead and make you a new toy.” She upturned her beak. “But only if you ask me nicely!”

“Whatever,” he grunted, not the least bit discouraged. He turned toward the gun rack and muttered, “I’m taking a stock piece then.”

“Lookie here, mister!” He bristled as Rita put her claws on him. She had enough sense to immediately back off. “I didn’t drag you back here and perform the surgery of the year just so you could stomp off and get killed again!”

Tap snorted and flicked his tail back at her. “I have a score to settle with that little self-righteous shit.”

“Do you even have a plan?”

He didn’t.

Tap clenched his teeth, trying to shut her out as he picked through the available firearms. Nothing caught his eye. A sawed-off, double-barreled twelve gauge and a point forty-five pistol seemed to be the only weapons that really suited him. He levitated them off the rack and slipped them under his bandoleer.

When Tap turned around, Rita was staring, reared up with her forearms crossed. “Uh-huh. And let’s not forget— Where is she?” She spread her forearms, waving them around her head. “Oh yeah, Canterlot! Even if the deal with the Steel Rangers wasn’t kaput, there’s no way I would chase her through there! You’re not going after her!”

Tap sneered, showing his teeth and widening his stance. “You’re gonna stop me?” He lifted a forehoof, then slammed it down and dragged it back, snorting at her. “Well come the fuck on then! Stop me!” Eyes wide, he growled, “I dare you to try!”

Paharita took a few steps back, ruffling her feathers again. “Hey! I saved your flippin’ life! You have no right to be snotty with me!” Once she had a robot between herself and Tap, she added, “I’m not the one who let my cannibal girlfriend get killed!”

The next few moments seemed like a blur to Tap. He could remember screaming and charging, but everything after that was a sharp buzzing sound. There were stars in his eyes as his mind caught up to his body. He was on his back, staring up at the pipes that laced through the ceiling. Rita slowly loomed over him, tilting her head from one side to the other.

Tap made a low, groaning sound. His limbs refused to budge, and his spine felt as though it had fused into one solid piece. He could blink, and his heart and his lungs were definitely working, but everything else seemed to have shut down. The shock quickly wore off, and he narrowed his eyes and gurgled, instead of releasing the string of profanity he had intended.

“Oh thank goodness,” Rita said, looking up and away. “You didn’t kill him.”

The brain-bot rolled up on the other side of his vision, swirls of grey matter flashing pink as it spoke with its hollow sounding voice. “Empress has repeatedly expressed her urge for us to refrain from executing her subjects unless prompted to do so. Accordingly, I stunned this heretic, rather than putting him to death.”

Rita giggled and clapped her claws. “Good work!”

The medical handy floated over to him as well, further crowding his vision with metal. “Shall I administer sedatives, Empress?”

“Yep!” She nodded enthusiastically, patting the medical bot on its rounded body. “Dope him up ‘till he gets this little tantrum out of his system.”

|[  7 ]|[ o’o ]|[BAR]|

“Not even a little hit?”

Tap nudged the green button on the basement door’s control panel. The hatch lifted open with a low hiss. “No.”

“You’re gonna make me empty this inhaler all by myself?” Rita whined after him.

Without even looking back, Tap started his descent, focusing on the dusty floor at the bottom of the stairs. “Yep.”

“Wow. Who is this new boring stallion and what has he done with the Tap I used to know?” Her tone shifted from droning back to whining. “Come oooon, hit this thing with me. I just got an offer for a contract from that Fatty-Fats over in Friendship City and I wanna run it by you.”

Tap said nothing, pushing the red button on the corresponding panel at the bottom of the stairs. The door started to hiss closed.

“What are you, going anti-chem on me?!”

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Fuck off, Rita.”

“Okay well—”

Tap whipped around, glaring up at her. “I said fuck off! Please!” Rita seemed genuinely startled, her beak hanging open. He frowned and turned away. “Just leave me the fuck alone, okay?”

“Alright, jeeze-louise… You know what would make you less cranky?” The door above him had already closed. Despite this, he heard her shout, “A nice, big hit of dash!”

But he knew that taking any sort of drug would make it more difficult for Lady Luck to find him. He stepped through the clutter of the basement, looking for a suitable spot to settle down on. A pile of newspapers seemed like the best candidate. A few of them tumbled away and spilled open as he climbed to the newsprint mountain’s peak. His gaze idly wandered over the dimly lit landscape of scrap and salvage. The dull hum of electricity guided him into a state of tranquility, lowering his head until he felt old paper crinkle against his chin. Tap took a deep breath, preparing himself for the encounter to come.

“Come and get it,” he murmured, and slowly closed his eyes.

There was only darkness there to greet him.

No wicked smiles, no cruel laughs, and no tingles down his spine. He was completely alone. An odd pang of disappointment flickered in the back of his mind, but he continued to wait. Impatience gradually settled in the pit his stomach. Eventually, he resolved that if she wouldn’t haunt him while he was awake, she would come for him in his dreams.

Tap did his best to try and fall asleep, but several days of prior rest were making sleep difficult. His makeshift bed of newspapers wasn’t the best place to try and drift off, but going back upstairs was not an option, and he doubted Rita would let him go anywhere by himself. Every so often, he shifted his weight in an attempt to get comfortable, ears swiveling in anticipation once the rustle of paper had died down. Nothing stood out beyond the electrical drone of machinery.

Restless and anxious, he peeked out of one eye. While he had been expecting some sort of sign, seeing nothing out of the ordinary instilled a sense of desperation. He changed tactics.

“Hey,” Tap murmured, focusing on a spot on the far wall between the freezer and the generator. “Hey! I know you can hear me, you bitch!” Paharita mumbled something above him, then laughed. He narrowed his eyes, glaring at the wall as though his anger would make Lady Luck manifest. “I bet you think this is funny, don’t you?”

The freezer’s compressor sputtered to life, and the wall remained devoid of any sinister mares.

“Yeah, ha-ha, I’m actually trying to get your attention.” He lifted his head, glowering. “You had your laugh; jokes over. Come out and fucking talk to me.”

The stillness of the air felt oppressive, and the near-silence nerve-wracking. His gaze darted, expecting to catch her in the corner of his vision, laughing at him. No such apparitions appeared.

“Look, I…” A lump caught in his throat as he struggled to push the words past his lips. “I’m sorry, okay? I know I try to ignore you most of the time because… well, let’s be honest here, you’re a really creepy motherfucker. Right now, though, I need to talk to you.” He hesitated, shifting his weight. “I need your help.”

Upstairs, something heavy thumped to the floor. Rita let out a stream of not-swears. He glanced from the ceiling back to the wall, but again found no sign of Lady Luck’s presence.

“Fine, you don’t want to show your face or whatever, but I know you’re listening to me.” Tap lifted his head slightly as he took a deep breath, briefly closing his eyes. “I want you to let Glade Skimmer go. She doesn’t belong to you.”

Tap’s mind buzzed as he tried to imagine how Lady Luck would respond. His ears swiveled, anticipating denial, but hearing nothing besides white noise. He opened his eyes, only to be disappointed once more. Doubt seeped into his mind.

What if Rita is right? he mused. Maybe Lady Luck isn’t real. Experience reminded him otherwise, and he shook off the apprehension.

Believing he needed a better argument, Tap added, “You’ve kept me from death before. I know you can do the same for her.”

He remained silent for a while, waiting, hoping, and receiving nothing in response. Tap’s heart sank. He considered a different a different approach.

“Please, I…” He choked and swallowed, ears splaying. “I know that I fucked up, but she doesn’t deserve this. She hasn’t done anything worse than I have. Shit, she’s a clean slate compared to me.”

A distant rumble shook the building, knocking loose dust that cascaded to the floor like water from a faucet. Again, he heard Rita above him, chattering excitedly with her robots. The rattle of the front door sounded a few minutes later, and then the sound of her voice faded into the distance, punctuated by the door rolling closed behind her. He returned his focus to the wall, discouraged that it remained blank.  

“If you do this for me, I won’t block you out anymore. I promise. Okay?”

An intensifying pounding inside his skull struck him with tension, adding to his frustration. He tried to wince away his headache, determined to continue his attempts at conjuring the creature he despised.

“Please,” he whimpered, one eye squeezed shut. “Fucking say something!”

Every movement he made caused the newspaper under him to crinkle, and the sound was becoming more irritating than he could bear. He faltered on his first attempt to stand, but once he had lifted himself back to his hooves, he began to pace the room, hoping to find Lady Luck hiding somewhere in the clutter.

A single thought stood out in his anxious, aching mind. Maybe I need to make a better offer…

“What if I trade places with her, then?” he asked as he peered into a half opened cardboard box.

Tap lifted his head and held his breath as he waited for her to take the bait. When he couldn’t wait any longer, he screamed, “You can make me your bitch and do whatever you want with me whenever you want! I won’t even fight you!”

A sigh hissed through his gritted teeth. “Think about it, at least! It sounds like a pretty fair trade to me!” He kicked over a mannequin, its wide brimmed hat floating down beside it. “You have such a hard-on for me, so why can’t you just take me instead?!”

He didn’t realize he had started running until he tripped over a stack of singed magazines. “Please!” he screamed from the floor, stumbling as he got back to his hooves. “I’ll do anything you want, just let her go! That’s all I’m asking!”

His voice went hoarse, coughing as he inhaled, and his head felt as though it would split open, but he refused to give up. “Come on! Give me something! Anything!” His hooves ached as he pounded the concrete under them. “You can’t do this to me!”

Regret flooded his thoughts. Every time he had tried to ignore Lady Luck, every insult he had carelessly thrown her way, and every instance of denial that she had assisted him in a time of need; it all came into sharp clarity.

“Stop fucking ignoring me! This isn’t funny!” He was powerless to halt the playback in his mind. The blame fell on him with crushing guilt. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m fucking sorry! Maybe I’m not worth your sympathy, but for fuck’s sake, don’t—”

And then, all he could think of was Glade Skimmer. His chest ached, as though his heart would just drop out. “You can’t take this out on her! She hasn’t done anything to you!” He shook his head so hard he thought his neck would snap. “It isn’t right! It isn’t fair!”

The last of his resolve disintegrated. He fell to the floor, feebly thumping the concrete. “Fucking hell…” He squeezed his eyes shut and buried his face in his hooves. “It’s all my fault, Skimmer. All mine.”

It was clear to him now that he was truly alone. The isolation he normally craved now left him feeling hollow. All he could do was replay his memories and wish to turn back the hands of time.

With a slow exhale, the will to live slipped away like sand in an hourglass.

|[o8- ]|[  7 ]|[(  ) ]|

Déjà Vu was the last thing Double Tap wanted to experience, but once again, he found himself on a salvaged hospital bed with Paharita bumbling around just within his peripheral vision. The last time he had been in this situation, he felt numb and tired. This time, he felt like he could run to Old Appleoosa and back. He could see the world around him with razor sharp clarity, and the headache he had endured was no longer with him. More concerning was that he had no memory of being brought upstairs.

At the very least, he figured the absence of fatigue could be attributed to one of the new additions to this scenario. A pole with a hanging medical bag stood beside the bed, with a long tube running from its bottom to the back of his right fetlock. All the symptoms of a light Dash high were present, which meant that he was being given drugs intravenously. Were he still interested in contacting Lady Luck, this would have made him furious. Now, he just felt indifferent.

There seemed to be straps holding him to the bed as well. That didn’t really concern him, since he wasn’t interested in moving.

“Oh, the patient is awake,” came a tinny voice from nearby. The medical handy hovered into view. “These are very good readings. I think you’ve made a full recovery.”

Paharita was at the bedside in a heartbeat. For reasons that Tap didn’t care to understand, she had donned a paper hat with three butterflies on it.

“Lemmie see!” She met Tap’s gaze, grinning widely around her beak. “I really like that you’re letting me play nurse again and all, but you’ve gotta cool it a little. We kinda have things to do and having you sulking around and going into shock isn’t gonna get us paid, so!”

She reached to the side of the bed, and with a little click, the straps undid themselves and slid away from his body.

Tap’s expression remained blank. Her words, and his reacquired freedom, bored him. “Shock?” he droned on full autopilot.

“Uh, yeah! I was gone for like, three days, Tap!” She waved her claws around, brows arched. “I didn’t think I’d have to make sure you ate and drank while I was gone but I guess I was wrong! That’s not even what almost killed you, anyway.” She leaned closer to him, reaching into her vest and producing a dash inhaler. “Don’t you know what withdrawal is?”

Tap stayed silent, already sick of hearing Paharita click her beak. He closed his eyes and tried to shut her out. The dash in his system made this impossible.

“It’s what happens when you don’t drink alcohol or take dash, dummy! Anyway, like Miss Gutsy said, your vitals are pretty good, and you’re all healed up, so let’s get going.” He felt her talons on his skin, pulling the IV out of his fetlock. “We’ve got caps to make!”

“You should have left me at Arbu,” Tap murmured.

Rita huffed, but he remained as still as he could, breathing through his nose. His sense of smell was also sharpened by the dash. Even though he hadn’t showered since his stay in Fetlock, Paharita still smelled far worse than he did.

“Come ooooon!” He felt her claws on his shoulders, shaking him. “Friendship City got gutted by the Enclave a few hours ago! Oh! I forgot to mention, all those Enclave pegasi finally came down after about two hundred years and now Equestria is being occupied, so, you know, travel at night.”

Tap hadn’t asked, nor did he care.

“Anyway,” Rita continued, “if we don’t go there now, all the good loot is gonna get looted before I can even lay a talon on it! Now are you gonna be a good little colt or not, cause I’ll strap you right back in, mister!”

There was nothing for him to say. She let him flop back against the mattress, but she persisted. “Tap! I can’t go without you!”

With a growl, her greasy chest plumage mashed against his face as she leaned across him to bite his ear. The pain barely registered, even as she bit down harder, even as he felt her break the skin. Her talons dug into his foreleg, raking through his hide, but he refused to move. A long, exasperated sigh escaped her as she let go, warm blood flowing in her wake.

“Y-you’re being a real jerk, you know that?!” She jabbed him in the chest. “I just wanna go out and have a good time, and you’re being a total bummer!”

After another short span of silence, he heard another click, and felt the straps lash across his body even tighter than they had been before. Her feathers rustled against the air, and the clack of her claws touching down reached his ears from the other side of the room.

“Fine! You wanna mope around, you do that! But if you keep it up, I’m… I’m gonna hire a new partner, you hear me?!”

Rita’s threat was punctuated with the squeal of a guitar, and then the screech of a vocalist. He could hear her furiously hammering away at something under the blaring music. Without the IV in his arm, the effects of the watered down dash began to fade. Slowly, he was able to tune out the rest of the world.

Memories of Glade Skimmer flowed freely through Tap’s mind, bringing him more distress than comfort. He lingered on the moment of her death, and considered putting a grenade in his mouth. Just as he began to imagine himself biting down and pulling the pin, something tingled in his chest, telling him that he was being watched.

From beside him, a familiar voice whispered, “Hey…”

Tap opened his eyes. He glanced to the side of the bed, and felt his heart skip a beat.

Glade Skimmer giggled at him, smiling, her lime-green eyes as radiant as ever. She looked to be completely unharmed, though she seemed a bit naked without her radigator suit. A necklace of pointy teeth still hung from her neck; a cherished trophy from her first radigator hunt, as he fondly remembered. There were no words he could muster, fearing that any spoken syllable would make her vanish like a wisp of smoke. She stood there, smiling, breathing, and slowly tilting her head as he did nothing but stare and blink.

The curls of her mane bobbed as she finally murmured, “Well hello to you too.”

The urge to remain stationary left him in that instant. Tap struggled against his restraints, but Skimmer just shook her head, her smile vanishing.

“I know you really wanna hug me right now, but you can’t.”

He felt a needle skewer his heart. Ears splaying, he asked, “Why the hell not?!”

“Cause you’re all tied down, jackass.” She shook her head and chuckled, her smile slowly returning. “And I know that if you hug me now, you’re not gonna want to let go, and I’m gonna have to pry myself away. I don’t wanna do that to you. You’ve had a rough week as it is.”

“I…” He choked on his words, trying to wrap his head around this turn of events. “I don’t understand. Lady Luck, and— What happened to you? Shit, I thought—”

Skimmer smiled and shook her head again. “Shhhh… Don’t freak out on me, okay? That would make this a lousy visit.”

Tap nodded slowly, shuddering as he exhaled. “I’m uh… just a little emotional, I guess. What the hell, though? Where have you been? Rita told me you were dead!”

“Hah! That fuckin’ liar!” Skimmer let out a low, laughing sigh. “Listen, I’m not dead, but it’s…” She tapped one of her hooves, the curls of her mane bobbing gently. “It’s complicated. Like, really complicated. Mostly, though, I’ve been watching you. I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Are you hurt at all?” he asked, swallowing heavily. “Skimmer, I saw—”

“Hey, don’t worry about that. I stopped in to let you know I’m alive, and that’s what matters.” She smiled, then glanced over her withers. “Look, I’ll visit you again as soon as I can. Just, please take it easy. You’re embarrassing both of us.”

Tap fought against the straps, trying to sit up. “Wait, you’re leaving?”

“Yep!” She leaned forward and pecked him on the cheek. He could feel the teeth of her necklace dangling against him.

He reached out for her with his levitation, but she evaded his grasp. “Please, don’t go!”

“Sorry!” Tap blinked, and she was already in the corner of his vision, heading for the exit. “Remember, just relax, okay?” As the steel door rattled up, she cheerfully shouted, “I’ll be back, I promise!”

Another blink and she was gone. The door rattled closed behind her.

A sea of white noise washed over him in her absence, as though someone had suddenly cranked up the volume without pressing play. The silence was stifling. He realized a moment later that Rita had stopped banging around in her makeshift haven. When he glanced toward the dense wall of hanging cables, Rita was in the process of pushing her way out. She paused as she met his gaze, cocking her head, and then smiling.

“Rita…” The rest of the words just wouldn’t come. He gasped through his nose.

“You feeling chatty finally?” she chirped as she fluttered to his side. “You know I don’t wanna keep you strapped in this stupid bed all day, kinky as it is.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet!” Tap didn’t realize he was laughing until he heard Rita giggle. “Was this supposed to be a surprise or something? Why didn’t you tell me she was here, you feather-brain!?” He couldn’t remember the last time he had smiled, but it felt good.

Rita tilted her head again, arcing a brow. “Who was here?”

“Glade Skimmer!” He glanced down at the straps holding him to the bed, wiggling his forelegs. “Let me out of this thing, she said she would be right back.”

When Tap met Rita’s gaze again, her smile had gone missing. “Are you really gonna do this again? She’s dead. What aren’t you getting here?”

At a loss for words, Tap could only stare at her, his mouth agape. “I was just fucking talking to her!” he finally shouted.

“No, you were talking to yourself.” Rita shook her head, propping herself up with a forearm. “I thought maybe you were trying to talk to me, but no, you’d rather talk to imaginary ponies, I guess!” Rita chuckled her way into a long sigh. “Are you gonna be crazy for the rest of your life, or is this just a phase?”

The air felt stale as Tap filled his lungs, exhaling slowly. “Rita, I want you to let me up. I need to take a walk.”

“Are you gonna do something stupid?” she asked, frowning.

Tap shook his head, taking another deep breath. “Trust me, I’m not. I just have a lot of shit on my mind right now, and I’m not gonna get it sorted out strapped to this fucking bed.” He paused, and sniffed, wrinkling his nose. “Also I need a shower.”

Paharita’s claw hovered over the side of the bed. Her brow furrowed as she studied him. “You’re not gonna try and go after Littlepip?”

“No,” he muttered, looking away and swallowing his pride. “I’m just gonna go to Tenpony and back. Honest.”

“And then we can go loot Friendship City?!” she squealed right in his ear.

Wincing, Tap grunted, “I’ll think about it.”

With a nod, Rita reached down to undo the straps, taking a step back once he had been freed. Tap remained on his back, taking deep, slow breaths. After a few moments, he lifted a hoof to the cheek Skimmer had kissed. When he glanced down at that hoof, he noticed that something black had smeared across it.

Ashes…

|[(  ) ]|[BAR]|[o’o ]|

“I don’t understand.”

Skimmer opened her mouth to reply, but hesitated as the workshop shook and the lights flickered. A rumble of an explosion drowned everything out for several seconds. Tap had long since stopped counting the blasts, and their persistence had long since worn out his patience. The headache brewing just under his forehead certainly wasn’t helping to improve his mood, either. Dash was out of the question, as even the smallest hit would cause Glade Skimmer to flicker, like some sort of mirage.

“That was only a block away!” the griffon excitedly squawked from the other side of the room, eyes glued to a monitor. Tap and Skimmer remained seated, doing their best to ignore Paharita. “The Enclave would be better off if they didn’t even try to aim! They can’t hit the broad side of a cloud!”

“I told you already, it’s complicated! It’s like…” Skimmer held up her hoof, waving it around. “It almost feels like I’m dreaming. She won’t explain it to me. She says I’m not ready.”

Tap nodded slowly, chewing his lower lip. “So what do you think it means?”

Another explosion rocked the workshop, the lights dimming to near darkness until the tremors had passed. Tap noticed several new cracks in the ceiling as he dusted himself off.

“Skimmer,” he continued, turning his gaze toward her.

“Can we please not talk about this?” Skimmer looked away, brow knitted.

“What the hell are we supposed to talk about, then?” He snorted softly, ears folding back. “I’m kind of worried that I may have gone batshit here!”

Her eyes snapped forward, narrowing into a glare. “And you think I’m okay with the way things have turned out?” She slammed a hoof against the floor. “This is awful! I fucking hate it!”

“I didn’t fucking say that!” he spat, leaning toward her.

Skimmer slowly lifted herself to her hooves, avoiding eye contact. “I should go.”

“Go fucking where?” He got up to follow her, flicking his tail in frustration. “Where do you go when you aren’t here with me?!”

“That’s it! I’ve heard as much as I can stand!” Rita slammed her talons down on the desk with the monitor, and then whipped around, staring daggers at Tap. “If this tulpa malarkey keeps up, I’ll invent my own imaginary friend, and then I’ll annoy the horse-apples out of you all day for once!”

Tap gave Rita a sideways glance, mouth hanging open in disbelief. “Are you fucking serious? Go take a nap in a fucking ditch, Rita!”

A chorus of sharp pops from high powered rifles sounded from the street just beyond the alley, accompanied by shouting. Tap glanced to the door and held his breath, expecting some form of armored equine to come charging in. Evidently, the robots all felt the same way, because they all aimed for the door. The charge never came, and the sounds of gunfire gradually faded into the near distance.

“Wait,” Skimmer whispered, staring down at the floor. “What if she’s right?”

His eyes darted toward the griffon in question, who had resumed watching the war through a camera feed. “Who, Rita?”

“Yeah… I was scared to think about it but—” Skimmer looked up at him, eyes wide. “What if I’m not real? What if you’re just imagining me right now?”

“What?” Tap shook his head, his heart sinking. He did his best to drown out the doubt. “That’s stupid.”

“No, I’m serious!” she shouted with a wavering voice.

“You can think and stuff, right?” He lifted his hoof to the side of his head, waving it in a circle. “If you were imaginary, I would know what you’re thinking right now because I would be thinking it too.”

Skimmer gritted her teeth, her brow furrowing. “But what if you’re imagining that I can think and feel? What if you put up a mental wall or something to keep me separate from you?”

The thought of that sent a chill down Tap’s spine. He shook his head. “I don’t—”

“I mean, yeah, I feel like I’m real, and she seems real too, but what if you thought us both up?” Skimmer wasn’t even looking at him anymore. Her eyes were frantic, darting around the room. “Of course she would tell me that I’m real if she thinks she’s real too!”

“Skimmer, you’re real, okay?” He nodded, as though the motion would make it a fact. “I believe that you’re real.”

She was staring down at her own hooves now, sliding them across the floor. “But does that actually make me real? What happens if you stop believing that? What will happen to me?!”

“Hey, just calm your ass down, alright?” He lifted a hoof to her shoulder, and this time, she didn’t try to slip away. She felt warm, and soft, just like he remembered. “I don’t want you to be imaginary. I’m happy that you’re here, in whatever weird way that is.”

Glade Skimmer looked to his hoof, then met his gaze. “What if that isn’t enough?”

Tap forced himself to smile, pleading with his eyes. “It’s enough for me.”

A fluttering sound drew his attention. He looked to the other side of the room just in time to see Paharita flapping toward him, frowning intensely around her beak. She forced Skimmer to duck out of the way as she touched down in front of Tap, inspecting him like a piece of scrap.

Tap glared up at Rita as she stood up on her hind legs, forearms crossed over her chest. “Who the fuck—”

“Nope! I’m done playing this game.” Rita reached into her vest, producing a worn looking pack of playing cards. Skimmer scowled from behind her. “You’re worried if your imaginary friends are really imaginary or not? Here’s where we find out once and for all.”

Skimmer stepped around her, glancing nervously from Rita to Tap. “Wait… wait, what is she going to do?”

“Alright, you chicken-shit.” Tap narrowed his eyes, lifting his head defiantly. “How are you gonna prove this?”

Rita pointed a talon toward the mattress in the far corner. “Tell your imaginary friend to stand on the other side of the room, facing me.” She thrust her talon back at Tap, wiggling it for effect. “But you stay right where you are, and you can’t watch what I’m doing, ‘cause it’ll ruin the experiment.”

Tap nodded slowly as Rita continued. “I’m going to turn around, pick cards out of the deck at random, and show them to her without showing them to you. If she can tell you what is on each card without you having to look at them, then I guess she’s real, or you’re a mind reader, or some bizarre thing like that.”

Surprising himself, he gave the idea consideration. It sounded easy, quick, and painless. More importantly, it would shut Rita up once and for all regarding Lady Luck and, more recently, Glade Skimmer. Feeling confident, he gave another nod. It was at this point that Skimmer whimpered. When he looked toward her, he realized that she was quietly sobbing.

“I’m scared…” she whispered.

Rita cleared her throat. When he glanced up at her, she gestured impatiently toward the deck of cards.

“Hold the fuck on, okay? Damn.” Tap tried to smile as he locked eyes with Skimmer. “It’s gonna be okay. I’m not gonna let anything bad happen to you.”

Almost immediately after saying that, he felt guilt welling up inside. Skimmer shook her head, a few tears rolling down her cheeks.

“I need to know, Skimmer.” He lifted a hoof toward her face. “I need to find—”

She swatted his hoof away, shuddering and gasping. “I don’t want you to find out! What if you’re just imagining me after all? What then?!”

“I… I don’t know.” He shook his head and furrowed his brow, snorting softly. “But we won’t ever know unless we try, okay?”

“No! It’s not okay!” Skimmer wrenched herself away, galloping toward the door. “I-I can’t do this!”

Tap shoved Rita aside as he chased after Skimmer. The door had rolled up enough for her to slip under it, letting in the ambient rumble of warfare. Rita squawked with frustration in his wake, but he ignored it and slapped the panel to keep the door from closing.

“Skimmer!” he called after her. She had already reached the end of the alley.

“You’re not seriously thinking of going out there, are you?!” Rita screeched from behind him. “Your imagination is trying to get you killed!”

“Fuck it!” he barked, slamming the panel and ducking out into the chaos. “I’m going to Arbu!”

The door rattled shut behind him, and he cautiously made his way toward the street. At the end of the alley, Double Tap saw that the usual ruin and decay of Manehattan had been freshly ravaged.

Thick, black smoke filled the air, pouring out of burning infrastructure and fresh craters alike. All the fires had caused a red haze to build up under the cloud cover, and for a moment, Tap believed that he had stepped right into hell. All around him echoed screams and shouts, laced with the sounds of gunfire and explosives. Corpses, armored and unarmored, had been scattered around the street, sometimes quite literally. He felt naked in the midst of all this, as he had not bothered dressing or arming himself. The apparent descent of Equestria into all out war was also troubling, but his priorities were elsewhere.

Tap turned toward his usual route to Arbu, took a deep breath, and stepped into a gallop.

|[OUT]|[OF ]|[ODR]|

Glade Skimmer was waiting for him, just within the opened, unguarded gates of Arbu.

The entire town had been reduced to a charred husk of its former, cheerful glory. In the time between the massacre and this moment, the local wildlife had its way with the place. There were a few bones of equine origin lying around in the open, but no actual bodies to speak of. A distant rumble made him look back, his gaze lingering on the firefights raging in the distance. Someone, or something, was attempting to maintain a hole in the cloud cover over Tenpony. He could see figures darting through the columns of sunlight stretching down over the tower, accented by glimmers of multi-colored light and the occasional explosion.

“Why do you want to figure this out so badly?” he heard her say. “What if you don’t like what you find? What if it makes you hate me? What if it makes me disappear?” At barely a whimper, she added, “Why did you come here?”

“Because I’m ready to know the truth.” He turned, locking eyes with her. “And I want you to know that whatever that truth ends up being, no matter what, I’ll still love you.”

Skimmer nodded slowly, seemingly at a loss for words. When she finally found her voice, she whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?”

“That I never told you about… what I really was.” She pawed at the ground, breaking eye contact. “You know, about being a cannibal?”

Tap snickered and shook his head, lifting a hoof to her withers. “It’s kinda silly that you didn’t tell me, really.” She lifted her head slowly, sniffling. “I get paid to kill ponies,” he continued, grinning. “My job literally makes fresh corpses. I could have brought you some, had a nice, romantic dinner...”

They burst out laughing, leaning into one another until the chuckling faded into nothing. After a while, he eased back, looking into her eyes. The fear was still there, just beneath the surface, but she had stopped crying. He smiled briefly, and the gesture was half-heartedly returned.

“I’m gonna start poking around,” Tap gently told her, rubbing his hoof over her foreleg before letting it drop back into the soot blackened soil. “Do you wanna tag along?”

Skimmer shook her head. “I’m gonna wait here. Be careful, okay?”

The entrance to Glade Skimmer’s home was mostly collapsed. From the look of it, the debris had settled in a way that he would have to climb through the wreckage of the second floor before he would be able to descend into the basement. Tap took a few steps toward that once familiar place, then glanced back at her. She took a deep breath and nodded, standing brave and tall.

Double Tap smiled before returning his attention to the task at hoof.

It was not a difficult climb. His hooves slipped once or twice on the way up, but after reaching mostly level terrain, he was easily able to move through the charred debris. Jagged sections of the second floor bordered the scorched walls, allowing him to move more freely toward the rear stairs. Portions of the roof had also survived, allowing long beams of sickly light to filter in through the dust and into the enormous hole that went all the way down to the basement. He could feel the floor trembling and creaking under his hooves, threatening to give, but never making good on such threats.

The landscape felt alien, as though it were his first time in that space, and in a strange way, that felt comforting. This was not the home away from home he so fondly remembered. The wonderful meals he had eaten, the stories he had heard and shared, and the pleasant company he had enjoyed all belonged to another place and time.

At the rear of the building, the staircase was still mostly intact. He began a slow, careful descent, avoiding the steps that the fire had nearly licked through. The hole in the first floor’s back wall gave him reason to pause. This was the hole he, Skimmer, and Lady Luck had escaped through. He briefly looked the other way, out into the gaping, burnt out chasm that the first floor had become, and then continued down.

A humid sort of gloom awaited him in the dimly lit basement. It had clearly rained since the massacre, and though the foundation wasn’t flooded, most of the moisture lingered in the air, just a few notches below fog. Most of the wooden wreckage had been burned away, leaving nothing but long shards of charcoal jutting from piles of damp ash.

Tap moved with caution, thinking back on his battle with Littlepip to retrace his steps. He chewed his lower lip as he approached the safe at the far end of the room. He had been in such a hurry to get here, but the possibilities of what lay ahead made him hesitant. Anxiety tied knots in his stomach as, slowly, he stepped around several scorched barrels and into the clearing where he had taken a bullet to the chest.

His wilder notions were instantly dismissed. There was no monster waiting for him, Lady Luck or otherwise. There were no notes, or clues, or puzzles, either.

The remains of Glade Skimmer lay across the floor, one foreleg outstretched. She had burned away to little more than a skeleton.

It was what a large part of him had expected to see, but actually seeing it left him feeling strange. He stood there for a long while, almost expecting something to happen, but nothing changed. It was the stillness that made him uncomfortable. Her suffering had ended, and now, she was nothing but tranquil. Swallowing, he turned back, making his way to the surface.

What should I tell her? He asked himself, ascending to the second floor. Should I tell her at all? As he skirted the edge of the massive hole in the second floor, his questioning changed course. Is that even her body? If she died down there, then who, or what, have I been talking to?

Tap was still struggling with his next course of action when he reached the collapsed front wall of the building. He had a full view of the town from where he stood, and looking out over the square, he felt horribly alone once more.

Glade Skimmer was nowhere to be seen.

The urge to call out for her died before her name could leave the tip of his tongue. A shudder ran through him as he exhaled. For what felt to him like hours, he sat amongst the rubble, watching the clouds roll across the sky and listening to battles raging in the distance.

There’s something I need to do, he told himself, getting back to his hooves.

Despite the fire that had obliterated Arbu, he was still able to find a blanket and a shovel in mostly good condition. With the blanket over his back he returned to the spot where Skimmer had fallen. A cloud of dust rolled up around the edges of the blanket as he spread it out beside her. A pang of dread settled in his stomach as he carefully levitated Skimmer’s remains, fearing that he might break or somehow damage them. He set her bones down on the blanket with no such complications, and carefully wrapped them, lifting again by the fabric surrounding her.

His return to the surface was a slow one. There was no reason to rush anymore.

Through the hole Lady Luck had made in the back wall, he stepped out into the sickly light of day. He set his sights on a hill that overlooked the radigator farm. The tree at the top was where he gently set down her remains, digging her grave between its gnarled roots. He set the shovel aside once the hole was deep enough, and found himself staring down at the bundled blanket.

“I don’t know what’s real and what’s not anymore, but… I need to do this for you. I owe this to you.”

“And I’m sorry,” he whispered, glancing across the scorched threads.

“I’m sorry that this happened to you.”

He grinded his teeth, his chest rising fitfully as he drew breath.

“I should have killed that bitch before she could hurt you and your family. Should have fought harder. Been fucking better. I…” He glanced away, exhaling.  “Sorry. You probably don’t want to hear shit like that when I’m supposed to be saying goodbye. Talking has never really been my thing, but the least I can do is say something nice and bury you proper.”

When Tap closed his eyes, his thoughts lingered on Skimmer’s final moments. The sad, peaceful way she had looked at him as she burned. She had reached out for him, he remembered. He swallowed, feeling a tremble in his hooves.

“But you did deserve better than what I could give you.” He looked down at her wrapped form again, imagining the skimmer he used to know was sleeping peacefully beneath the singed fabric. “Maybe you thought I was some kind of hero, or someone to look up to. Not like, going around and saving ponies, or making the world better, ‘cause I never saw a problem with the world to begin with. I just... it seemed like you saw me as someone to follow and model yourself after. You definitely made me feel that way, at least.

“The truth is, I don’t think I’m any of those things.

“I’m sorry that I couldn’t be the pony you thought I was.”

He sighed softly, shaking his head. “You and I got pulled into all this Littlepip shit, even though it had nothing to do with us, and we got chewed up in the process.” Deep wrinkles formed along his snout as he briefly sneered. “I guess that’s what world changing ponies do. They do what they think is right, no matter who gets hurt in the process. It’s definitely fucking not for me.”

The blanket began to glow. He lifted Skimmer off the ground and lowered her into the earth. He thought back to all the times she had fallen asleep beside him, and how he had gently pulled a blanket over her whenever there was one available. It felt strangely similar, but not unsettling.

The glow of his magic shifted to the shovel. He took it between his forelegs, leaning against it. “This is probably the part where I’m supposed to vow revenge, or something, but I just…” He shook his head, his vision blurring. “I don’t have it in me.”

“When I think of my dad… I’ve killed enough assholes now to have avenged him plenty of times over, but I pinned all that anger to his memories, and now I’m just reminded of the pain losing him because I was so determined to make them pay.”

He felt warmth rolling down his cheeks when he blinked. “I don’t want that to happen again. If my memories of you are all I have left now, I don’t want them to turn sour. They should remind me of when things were good, and they should make me happy, even if there’s a little bit of sad mixed in. They shouldn’t be ammunition, you know?

“And a big part of me feels like you wouldn’t want me to do that anyway. Rita is probably right. Littlepip would lay me the fuck out if I tried to kill her again, and what good would that do you?” He sniffled, dragging a fetlock across his nose. “But… If I’m wrong, I hope you don’t hold it against me.”

The silence stretched on. He looked up, through the branches, and into the cloudy sky. It was time. Bracing against the shovel in his grasp, he eased onto his hind legs, and started heaping the earth over her. His tears dampened the soil as his quiet sobs fell on deaf ears. When the work was done, he sat back, looking over the mound of dirt.

“There were so many things I wanted to show you and teach you. So many things I wanted to share with you.”  A smile crossed his muzzle, though his brow furrowed with sadness. “But, even if the time I spent with you was short, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. You were a beautiful pony, Glade Skimmer, and I’ll never forget you.”

On shaking legs, he slowly stood, taking a deep breath.

“I guess I… I just hope that, wherever you are, you’re getting a good laugh at all this sentimental shit.” He laughed through the tears, then gasped, choking down a whimper. “I’m really gonna miss you, kid.”

As he turned away, a delicate sound rang through his ears.

Laughter.

“Skimmer?”

Something was hanging from a low branch when he glanced back. His eyes widened as he realized what it was. Polished radigator teeth glimmered even in the muted light of day, held together by a black, leather cord. The necklace swayed lightly, making the branch bob under its weight. There was no breeze, and the other branches remained completely still. He hesitated to reach for it. After it had stopped moving, he wrapped it in his levitation and brought it closer.

It was still warm.

Double Tap clutched the necklace to his chest and squeezed his eyes shut.

“Thank you.”

|[ /_\ ]|[ /_\ ]|[ /_\ ]|

Beams of near-blinding light stretched into the sky over Tenpony Tower in frequent, erratic bursts as Tap made his way through the burning ruins of Manehattan.

At first, he thought the tower was being struck by some sort of weapon, likely being wielded by the Enclave that Paharita occasionally whined about. As he continued to watch, he realized that the light seemed to be erupting from the tower itself, disappearing through the hole in the clouds and out of sight. Some of the ponies waging war on the ground seemed to be in a similar state of awe. He passed by several ponies in various flavors of power armor that had stopped fighting outright, staring up at the brilliant display.

As he came within a few blocks of the workshop, he rested against the corner of a building, watching airborne ponies and griffons clash along the undersides of the clouds. His hoof brushed against the toothy necklace, briefly clutching it to his chest.

It fit snugly, as it had been intended for a smaller neck, but wearing it gave him peace of mind.

If this is the end of the world again, or something, he thought, flicking one of the teeth, I guess I’m going out on a pretty high note.

Not more than a moment later, the clouds all seemed to tremble, as if something had shaken the sky. His eyes widened as the clouds began to peel away, dissolving, and an overpowering light poured in through the gaps. He cringed and shielded his eyes. Believing his idle thoughts about the end of the world to have become a reality, he braced for death. No harm came to him, and after a while, he cautiously lowered his hoof, squinting into the glare.

He was familiar with the concept of the sun, and he had seen glimpses of what lay beyond the clouds, but never once had he been exposed either in their entirety beyond his cryptic dreams. As his eyes gradually adjusted to the vivid brightness, he began to survey the deep, endless blue that had been revealed. Its beauty was overshadowed by its unfamiliar nature. High above, he could see pegasi zipping and darting frantically through the air, almost flying in circles. He could only guess that they were just as surprised by this turn of events as he was.

It occurred to him as he came out of his daze that the rumbles and thumps of battle had nearly ceased, now distant and infrequent. Even so, he was less than eager to remain out in the intense, uninhibited light of day. Something about the absence of the overcast he had grown up under made him feel especially vulnerable.

The rest of the trip home was traveled at a brisk canter, with the occasional, curiosity fueled glance upward. He rounded the corner, into the alley to the workshop, and brought his gaze back to ground level. Paharita was sprawled out on some kind of reclining chair, wearing sun glasses and some kind of fold-out, reflective screen around her feathery neck. The sight alone made him stop in his tracks, as did the robots and turrets in defensive positions around her.

Rita casually lowered the sun-reflector and lifted her shades.

“Oh, good!” She flashed a toothy grin around her beak. “You’re not dead! Are you done being weird now?”

Tap scowled, flicking an ear. “Eat a dick.”

“That’s more like it!” Rita gave a thumbs up, which Tap assumed to be a gesture of vulgarity.

“So what the fuck just happened?” He resumed his advance as the robots lowered their weapons, motioning toward the sky with a tilt of his head. “Why are the clouds gone?”

With an excited little clap, Rita bubbled, “Littlepip did that! You know what that means, don’t you?”

“I—”

“It means the good guys won!” The reflective paneling fell away from her as she sat up, forearms and wings spread. “Isn’t that totally awesome?!”

Tap wasn’t entirely sure how to respond. As the griffon reached for what she had dropped, Tap droned, “Rita… we’re bad guys.”

Paharita blinked several times, scratching the side of her head. “Oh yeah...”

|[o’o ]|[  7 ]|[BAR]|