The Light Despondent

by Doctor Fluffy

First published 17th of November, 2014

It's a bad old time not to follow Celestia. Her empire slowly spreads across earth, wiping away human achievements, and anti-pony HLF terrorists are the bane of many refugees. But one day, one of the worst of the HLF spares a filly and her mother....

It's a bad old time to be human. About half the world is gone thanks to Celestia's Barrier, the only options are 'fight and die' or 'get turned into newfoals,' and everything's falling apart. The greatest menace to America as they wait for the Barrier to touch down is not, paradoxically, PER, but restless Human Liberation Front terrorists that dream of taking control of the fight from the brave PHL. One of the worst HLF men is Viktor Marius Kraber, a traumatized Afrikaner, former father, and former surgeon with an appetite for destruction and big guns. But one day, wracked by guilt at an HLF checkpoint, he lets a lost filly and her mother live. From that point on, his life goes to hell (more than usual, anyway) as he tries to make his way and cast aside hatreds in a world gone mad, and maybe, just maybe, become a good person.
Forced to deal with irritating hallucinations, self-hatred, enemies on all sides, and developing a conscience in a world gone mad, will he manage to survive in this world? Will he ever become a good person? Will he join the PHL and befriend the freakishly huge earth pony stallion named Aegis seen in the cover image, and shoot Queen Celestia's spine out?! Can he? FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, CAN HE?!

Of course he can! It's a fokkin' prequel.

(Well, actually, considering the emphasis on the development of a character from before the beginning of a game and the fact that it takes place between stories, it's actually more of a presequel. Or presidequel?)

Part of the Conversion Bureau: The Other Side Of The Spectrum continuity.

The End / The Beginning

“People of Night Vale, do not be defined by how you can die, but how you can live!”
Tamika Flynn, Welcome To Night Vale

“...I saw on that ivory face the expression of somber pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror - of an intense and hopeless despair. Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision - he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath - ‘The horror! The horror!”
Joseph Conrad, ’Heart of Darkness’

No matter what anyone told themselves, it was the end.

The Barrier had reached North America. It had already rolled over Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Maine. In mere weeks it would claim the entire Eastern Seaboard. The birthplace of the United States, the original thirteen colonies, would soon be dead. When they were gone, perhaps the hardy spirit of the American people would crumble too.

“This is the end, my only friend. The end….”

Here in New England, in the hinterlands between New York and Vermont, towns and villages had been abandoned, populated now only by ghosts, crazies, and PER and HLF scrabbling over the little that remained after evac. Far above, satellites pick up explosions and thaumic spikes showing that even if the Barrier leaves any of this unscathed, there wouldn’t be much left at all.

Everyone in the wooded hills and valleys, desperate to get away, had fled on anything that could turn a wheel. All the cars had rushed down south or gone west down major roads, logging roads that were only cursorily maintained whenever the notion crossed someone’s mind, and roads that would have been closed within winter’s time. Every plane had taken off from small regional airports, and the last of the trains had all left the stations.

Even the old steam locomotives had been pressed back into service, anything that could raise a head of pressure fastened into the harness. Around this time, a few stragglers will even report sightings of a majestic streamlined locomotive charging towards the front lines at Boston under a banner of pure white steam, barrelling across the frozen countryside with a remarkable consist in tow.

These are strange times, and nobody can rightly say they were prepared for this brand of Armageddon.

But today, another relic is chugging in the opposite direction, struggling west under the burden of one of the final evacuation trains. Old Number 501, scrounged up from a heritage line in North Conway, puffs into the derelict Amtrak station in White River Junction, its snorting breaths alike to the ragged breaths and wheezes of a runner exhausted after running a marathon for hours on end.

The old ‘eight-coupled’ machine has a right to sound beaten.

One hundred and thirteen years have passed since it was turned out from the ALCO workshops in Schenectady, New York, but instead of enjoying its comfortable semi-retirement in northern New Hampshire, it has been forced into steam and driven to hell and back, through PER and HLF assaults, through sturm und drang. It has survived passage through war zones, through more than one valley in the shadow of death, through madmen, madponies, and newfoals alike, taken beating after beating to the incredulity and elation of its passengers. If there is another day, an age where humanity survives, it will, like so many others, pass into legend. The faceoff with zeps and potioneer ships, one insane soldier’s heroic charge back onto the train in a stolen car, and countless others standout moments illustrate its tale. If there is a day like that, ol’ number 501 will be enshrined in a museum for future generations.

But right now? Finally, here at the Junction, it can rest. Fire choked from burning damp, green cuts of wood rather than good, hard coal, it’s taken the magic of two unicorns just to keep the pressure up. They’re utterly exhausted too. The cars are riddled with bullets and the headlamp is cracked.

A dead PER pony has been impaled on the cowcatcher. At least, we can assume it’s dead. Maybe it’s still alive. Sometimes, it twitches. Nobody really cares about it, which might be a sign of how low this war has brought everybody and everypony it has touched.

The battered train crew are resting as well, sipping hot chocolate in one of the cars, reloading, cleaning and disassembling weaponry. They are waiting as various self-taught mechanics, human and pony alike, patch up the damage the train has suffered. They are far away from the Barrier, enough that they can afford to take a rest. Once 501’s fire has been cleaned and the unburnt timber mucked out from the locomotive’s ashpan, they’ll push on west.

In this same train car, on two seats folded into an improvised bed, two mares, a mother and daughter, both unicorns, lie together, gently snoozing. A stuffed wolf, one named Ambassador Nikai the Second, has been lent to them, and the daughter - Dancing Day - hugs it to her barrel like a lifeline. She’d have given it back, but the toy’s owner is quite insistent that she keep it as long as she needs it. Like the train, these people have earned a rest. In one car, a woman with fine black hair and vaguely exotic features is jabbering excitedly on the phone.

"You got away?" she asks.

A pause. Then a smile.

"Yes! Tell Brighthoof I miss her already! I'm so happy she's safe!"

Her conversation continues, but we shan’t listen in for now. Doors slam open and more soldiers, temporarily recast as stevedores, begin to load on scrounged-up food and supplies. Some, but not much, has come from the abandoned town. To the regret of more than a few passengers, the old Main Street Museum’s packed up and left. Shame, too.

As they work, they listen. Just audible, off in the distance, is the roar of artillery and small arms fire, one of countless battles and skirmishes all over the Eastern Seaboard. But the wind howls over the sound of battle, casting a pall of snow on the ground and tracing delicate patterns of frost on the windows. The winter has come early, and with a hard snap so unnatural that it hints of pegasus magic...

But nobody comments on the weather right now. It’d bring up too many unpleasant questions, too many fears. Everyone here is fairly forward-thinking, and they know that even if they could win the war in two weeks or two months, that the worst of winter has yet to arrive, and when it does, they’re going to have to tighten their belts so far they could serve as dog collars. Revised weather projections say that even without magical interference, the transition into 2024 is going to be a season of hardship, a long, sustained cold one that will likely draw the whole continent-the whole northern hemisphere, most likely-into a recreation of the Siege of Stalingrad.

As many people are going to die of starvation, hypothermia, and frostbite as will perish from ponification, skirmishes with the HLF, or suicide.

It’s reason enough that anyone with any knowhow - be it governments, private enterprises or bodies like the PHL - are running on all cylinders to try and find a magic bullet that will stave off the projected (and terrifyingly massive) death toll. Not stop the toll, but slow it - because that's all you can hope for around now. Their various affiliates, think tanks such as Crowe Labs and Ogunleye Futuristics, weapons designers such as Sebastian Irving, even PHL Biology, all of them know that come the heavier snows, and the freezing of fragile supply lines already under fire from PER and HLF bandits, that there will be shit to make the infamous ‘Acevedo Starvation Tape’ look like oversleeping until noon and forgetting breakfast.

In the past few years, there have been decades worth of advancement in technology and magic; alternative power, (thanks to Macroburst) pharmaceuticals, and agriculture are among the hundreds of concepts have been dug up from old file cabinets and evaluated. Vertical farms assisted by earth pony magic are another, going up in areas that are not within ‘immediate risk’ of the Barrier’s consumption. Every resource-stretching method known to man or equine has been tried and put into place.

And yet it’s not going to be enough..

...and nobody wants to even think about the winter to follow that... or anything in between. It’s almost a reflexive action for the mind to simply go blank when even considering it. Every year since the war has gotten exponentially worse, after all, and the year to come is simply beyond comprehension.

‘Though maybe’, a few cynics say, ‘this winter might kill off the last of the HLF, unless they just come crawling back again, like cockroaches…’

Cynics are a dime a dozen these days.

No, nobody on this train is looking forward to winter. They studiously ignore it. Not even the prospect of skiing on newly-virgin slopes can get the few humans present excited.

Outside, a tired man whose nest of golden-brown-blackish curly hair has formed itself into a pompadour gives a light fist-bump to the engine, as if to congratulate it for its hard work. He whispers a quick, improvised prayer in Hebrew, and then turns to consider the scene. His wrists hurt from working the fireman’s scoops so much.

They’ve pulled up alongside another train, a southbound military lashup whose troops are helping administer first-aid, and sharing what supplies and ammunition they can. Their generosity is the source of most of what is currently being loaded onto the refugee train. In contrast to the battered old steamer, a time-worn blue and yellow diesel locomotive is hauling the military consist, and behind it is lashed a few cars and a flatbed on which something huge has been sheeted over for protection from prying winds, and prying eyes, of which there were many.

The man looks at it, one eyebrow raised in curiosity.

This rendezvous was by chance, thanks to a desperate radio-plea for help being picked up, and he’s grateful. Relief at this chance for respite overwhelming him, he climbs back aboard 501’s consist, and sees the other occupants of this particular car.

There are many. Children and foals, huddled under ratty blankets and layers upon layers of jackets, some of which are so patched and duct-taped that they barely seem to have any original parts. Ship of Theseus, Johnny C thinks randomly.

They’re all drinking and eating supplies, warming themselves against radiators and portable heaters that have been scavenged from the town, or being carted off to the field hospital in the station. A few stragglers drive by on the highway, but the town is now all but populated by ghosts.

Two passengers catch his eyes. Two of his best friends.

A bearded man with an immense LMG and a huge revolver strapped to him sits at one end of the car, guzzling down a cup of spicy hot chocolate with chili, cinnamon, and mezcal. His primary weapon is a frankensteinian work of legend, a descendant of the MG42 calibered for .338 Norma Magnum rounds, bullets that pack the kind of firepower intended to bring down a charging grizzly.

It works just fine on equines too.

With a fire rate like a buzzsaw, aided by PHL cooling runes etched into the barrel, and enough accuracy to serve as a sniper rifle in a pinch, its the kind of unique weapon destined to gain a Wikipedia entry somewhere between Excalibur and Mjolnir. Though it’s nothing compared to the MG2023 he’s hoping to test soon...

Leaning against him for warmth, clad in a rough equine-fitted parka made from recycled materials is a large white earth pony the size of a small horse, wearing two LMGs, slurps up the same concoction from a bowl someone had filched from an abandoned arts and crafts store back in Bethlehem, NH. Next to them, an old iPad sits on a crate. Whenever they can get a connection up, they often tune into a radio show broadcast from South Africa by someone named Enitan Adebayo.

Though at the moment, it’s just playing music.

“Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain,
And all the children are insane, all the children are insane.
Waiting for the summer rain, yeah.
There’s danger on the edge of town…”

“Don’t get too comfortable,” the huge earth pony says as the bearded man finishes his drink. “We’ve still got a long ways to go. Gotta’ get back to Boston once we see these people on their way.”

“Think I don’t fokking know that, Aegis?” his companion, sighs, not unkindly. His name is Victor M. Kraber. “I fokking know, pony-boy, I know…”

Aegis lets the swearing go uncommented on. These are things one simply gets used to when friends with Viktor. “Honestly, when the war’s over, I’ll just welcome a bit of fokkin rest… I ever tell you about that time I was practically riding high on amphetamines and caffeine to get me going through the week?”

“Yes,” Aegis says. “About two thousand times.”

“Right. Sorry then,” Kraber apologizes, one hand in Aegis’ mane. “But… I feel bout like I did then. Barely held together.” He yawned.

“I know that feeling,” Aegis agrees, yawning as well. “Dammit, that’s contagious, isn’t it?”

Kraber nods. “Ja. That’s science.”

It’s times like this, Aegis reflects, that the mask slips ever so slightly. That Kraber allows himself to lie back and be human, and not sound so much like a character played by Sharlto Copley.

It’s nice to see him this way sometimes.

There’s knocking on the side of the train car. Kraber stands up, one hand on the heavy 14mm revolver at his hip, more out of habit than anything. It’s a ridiculous, massive gun, but it has so much more… more presence than any sidearm Kraber has ever fired. It can abort fights just by being drawn. Yeah, a gun with a bore a man could fit a thumb in makes for a hell of a negotiating tool.

He looks down, and out the window. There’s a man out there-unassuming, dressed in plain military fatigues, looking like he belonged in the PHL. Unremarkable. No eccentric equipment. That’s kind of rare these days - “eccentric” equipment, weapons that have been adapted to levels of insane lethality while still chambering standard ammo are very popular among the PHL, both their more “celebrated” tame psychopaths (Like Victor himself. Though it’s surprisingly easy to find the 28-gauge shells - who would have guessed that a shotgun pistol with more kick than a .410 would be so popular in the war?) and those PHL members who desperately want more gun.

Jumping down, Victor notes the man’s signs of rank and raises one hand in a weary salute, realising he’s addressing the commander of the army train.

“Colonel, thank you for the help you and your men have leant us. It’s appreciated.”

“No worries,” the man says, returning the salute. He’s in his late forties, early fifties perhaps, and has the bearing of a professional soldier ready to be relegated to the command of a desk, just beginning to run to fat.

“I heard you need a trip to Boston,” he adds, holding out a hand to the bearded man. “Viktor Kraber, is it? My name’s Hex.”

Kraber returns the handshake, and finds it to be firm. "Heard of you before, Colonel. The bliksem Renee won’t admit it, but we all appreciate what you and your chommies have done for weapons development."

“And I’m Aegis,” the large white earth pony says, having stepped down to join them. “And yeah, we do need a ride to Boston.”

He nods towards the steamer.

“We were going to try and use this old relic, but...it needs some repairs, and the unicorns that kept it steaming are all tapped out. Besides, the evacuees need it more than we do.”

“You brought a steam locomotive all the way from New Hampshire to here?” the man, Colonel Hex, asks incredulously, before smirking. “It’s not the craziest odyssey I’ve heard of lately, but it still ranks.”

“A friend of mine took 7470 down south!” Johnny C calls over. “Course we could do that.”

“Well, there were stragglers,” Aegis says matter-of-factly. “No way in hell were were just going to… leave... them.”

He says ‘leave’ as if it was a curse.

“Well said, bru,” Kraber says. “Well said. Besides. I’ve done… well, you know my history,” he said solemnly. “I’ve done terrible things in their backyard. I owe these people.”

“No, you’ve paid it back more than any of us ever could have dreamed,” says a dirty-blond man with a mustache and an FN Leshiy.

“No. I haven’t,” Kraber calls over. “And even if I had, there’s no way I could leave people and ponies like them, anyone like you... Especially not you. You’re a wonderful man, Burt.”

“You’ve got some balls that clank,” the PHL man, Hex, says with a whistle, before jabbing a thumb over his shoulder at the diesel-hauled train over which he holds command. The numerals 8888 can be made out on its locomotive, as well as the faded letters ‘CSX’.

“I’m running into Boston myself with some essential kit for the battle. I’m not going all the way, but I could drop you around Lowell. If you’re willing to walk the last twenty miles or hitch another ride, I’d be glad for you to ride along with me.”

Victor eyes the train, spots the troops standing severe guard around the sheeted-over object that requires an entire flatbed to carry.

He’s accustomed to PHL weaponry, and has quite the taste for test runs. He’s signed up for testing a new tesla weapon he himself had proposed to PHL R&D, he’s used the ill-fated EM-62 Electrolaser (effective for breaking shields, but too hard to repair and prone to lethal overheating and melting), he’s signed up for newer, more magic-efficient battlefield treatments for human soldiers.

‘Guilty as charged,’ he admits to himself. ‘I’ve never lost an HLF man’s childish love of overpowered weaponry.’

And he has a child’s love of science fiction.

But what could that cargo be? he wonders on. The PHL aren’t as crippled internally as the HLF when it comes to command structure and secrets. Troops are usually informed about this sort of thing, but he has heard nothing. Something feels odd in all of this, but he’s grateful for the ride.

He’ll be keeping his hands on his guns just in case. He’s learned to trust his instincts and hunches. Instincts, while rarely as accurate or provable as educated guesses, were still useful sources.

“So?” Hex asks again. “Think your train can go on without you two?”

The wind howls once more. There’s a storm coming. The sounds of the unseen battle nearby seem to be drawing nearer.

“We’ll be fine,” the man with the pompadour calls down from 501’s cab. “There’s others coming to provide us with fire support, and I kept it going the whole way. You two get on back to Boston-you’re needed there.”

“I can’t leave you!” Kraber protests. “We barely made it out of there alive, and-”

“Viktor, you and Aegis are needed in Boston,” the short man says. “We’ll handle this, I promise.” He holds out a hand.

“You’re sure?” Aegis asks, holding out a hoof as Kraber holds out a hand.

“I promise,” the short man says, shaking them both with his right hand. “Besides. This is a hell of a lot safer than New Hampshire at the moment. We’ll probably be fine.”

“Alright, Johnny C,” Kraber says uneasily. Even the old joke of the ‘C’ being an actual part of his first name is running thin. “Just… call if you’re safe.”

“I promise,” the short man says solemnly.

“Give Pinkie Pie’s face a good kick, alright?” another man asks.

“It would be my fokking pleasure,” Kraber snarls, making a smile that uncomfortably reminds everyone present of a hungry wolf.

“Oh sweet Luna you’ve gotten him back to normal,” Aegis mutters. “I hope you’re happy with yourself, Johnny.” But beneath it all, Aegis is looking forward to it as well. They say the Great Equestrian is heading for Boston.

They say Marcus Renee is there, as well as the damn Elements of Harmony.

People say a lot of things about the Battle of Boston, and no matter who wins, it will be legendary. It will be a rumble that lives on in the hearts and minds of survivors for years to come. Every hand or hoof is needed. The PHL is even accepting the help of non-HLF affiliated civilian militias, with flash-enchanted (quick, rather imperfect spellwork that’s not made to last) or or piecemealed munitions made by cannibalizing a runic or enchanted weapon and spreading its parts among weaponry of the same model. An enchanted M16 suddenly goes to feed the guns of a small squad. It’s not as good as an enchanted M16 but it’s a hell of a lot better for the job at hand. They even say the main force hasn’t arrived yet.

“Well then…” Hex says, trying not to be unnerved at the sight of Kraber’s predatory, bloodthirsty smile. “Welcome aboard. As I said, my cargo’s pretty valuable, and you look like just the two to keep it safe…”

As Hex leads them towards the dirty blue bulk of train 8888’s locomotive, Kraber swears and briefly runs back to 501’s leading carriage. He returns with the Ipad, which has gotten stuck on loop, repeating the same song.

“Ride the snake, he’s old, and his skin is cold.
The west is best, the west is best.
Get here, and we’ll do the rest.
The blue bus is callin’ us, the blue bus is callin’ us,
Driver, where you takin’ us?”

“Goddammit, why can’t I get this thing to play Biting Elbows?” Kraber mutters.

Hex lifts an eyebrow as he pauses, halfway up 8888’s catwalk ladder, and Kraber, abashed, struggles to shut off the Ipad, laughing like some deranged vision of Saint Nicholas. Aegis lightly hoofs his own forehead in embarrassment.

’It’s enough’, he thinks to himself, ’to make me wonder how I even befriended this man?’

“Ah, there we go!” Kraber laughs. “Cueing up the Light Despondent in… now.”

“You’re playing that now?” Aegis asks. Then, slowly, urgently: “Are you sure you’ll be okay?”

“It has a really cool guitar solo,” Kraber protests. “I’ll be fine. I promise.”

“You sure about that?” Aegis asks.

“I’m sure,” Kraber shrugs. “Besides, after this, I can play the Stampede or something.”

“...The Stampede? Didn’t you get tired of that a couple hours ago?” Aegis asks.

“Bru. It’s Biting Elbows,” Kraber says, and Aegis must concede that point. “When have you known me to ever be tired of them?”

“Okay, good point,” Aegis admits.

Still, he thinks, He’s a better man than I would’ve guessed he’d be back then.

As 8888’s motor ignites with a filthy belch of diesel fumes, Aegis waves over at train 501, and Johnny C waves back and salutes. There is an explosion off in the distance. HLF artillery, Aegis thinks. Gotta be.

Godspeed, you magnificent sonsabitches.

Author's Notes:

And here we have the beginning of what was once chapter 1! I cut it up a bit cause I... well, I keep getting told I have overly huge chapters. The first chapter was originally 25k words, so that's out.

Episode 1: Riding the Gallows-Horse/Equcrux

Note: I apologize for the long chapter length, but it's just too much work to divide it all up.

“They call refugees ‘the Dispossessed.’ Well, that’s a relative term, one for people like Johnny C that’ve read too much Vandermeer. To you, to people who still have a house or apartment you don’t have to run away from, that’s people like us. But some refugees I know, like my friend Abraham… they have families, electronics, heirlooms, photos, stuff from the old world. To us, the Dispossessed are people that lost everything, even their minds. Johnny C, Abraham, his brother Dalibor, and I? We saw this one HLF woman in a hunting cabin near Errol, along the Magalloway… she had a newfoal she claimed was her son. She’d fitted a speaker to its stomach, and claimed she could hear thin, reedy weeping from it… begging for mercy, for her to save it. Crazy stuff.

That’s what being one of the Dispossessed means to us.”

Blossomforth, PHL pegasus.

“Sir, there is an era for what you have proposed, an era in which you would be lauded as a hero for your plan. I hope you’re capable of understanding this, but May 3, 1942, was a long time ago. Ponies and zebras alike shall be a monument to our shame if we continue with even one of your policies.”

President Jack Davis, responding to Senator Patrick Goleman’s plan to place refugee ponies, zebras, and other non-humans in internment camps.

“Some of you might dream of a day we fold most of their ranks in and have a united offensive, all humans and refugees and defectors against Equestria. Well, as of today, that last part won’t happen, because those bastards crossed a line. They’ve taken one of our own and tortured her, put what was left of her on the internet… and they laughed. Like it was funny. And they had the balls to ask for thanks from us, like they did some kind of public fucking service. If ever there was a moment the world needed to know the HLF is a bunch of goddamned sadists with no restraint or morality, maybe even more a threat to us than Celestia... now is that moment.

Now is the moment to show them they’ve no idea how to defend humanity.

Now is the moment to remember Sutra Cross.

Now is the moment to make. Them. PAY!”

Marcus Renee, just before the Battle of Defiance and the Great HLF Purges.

“We have to kill them. Slaughter their ranks and fold in anyone with enough shreds of sanity, anyone reasonable enough to accept that maybe killing every pony in sight doesn’t work! Harsh? You don’t know harsh. We don’t have the option of leaving them to their own devices! Say you have a stab wound, but you’re ignoring it for a race or something. We both know how that’ll end-the stress on your body will overwhelm you. You collapse. You’re probably bleeding. We’ve all seen evacs from the Barrier, hell, most of us have participated in them! I know what the HLF does at times like that. They and the PER will come out of the woodwork, scrabbling over the remains and fucking us over a barrel. We leave them, and the last bastions of safety in this world go to shit! Come next November, when the Barrier hits Canada, we’ll be fucked if we leave them as they are, and anarchy’ll reign! We need to defend the lines behind our home front, and the time to destroy them is now!”

July 15, 2022. Yael Ze’ev, member of the ‘Dominant’ faction of PHL, a subgroup seeking greater emergency powers during wartime. One week before the disappearance of Sutra Cross.

“I want to go home, Daddy! I miss Coal Embers and everyone from back in the city, I want to go back-

“This is home now, son. No matter what we go through, it’s better than the alternative.”

Conversation overheard between Aegis and his son Rivet.

“They were a gift to all, not just ponykind,
The cabins elegant, luxury defined,

Each bedroom a palace, it was quite palatial,
But the Queen saw it,
Found it quite low in appraisal,

All Equestria caught in her dark seduction,
set forth con-verting the palaces to engines of destruction…

Dirge of the Skyliner, sung and played by Octavia.

"The HLF? They're a joke. Their whole 'unit' is a joke. Hell, their name is a joke! Human Liberation Front, hah!

Front? What front? They're fractured, they have no unified front. They just sort of wildly flail their arms around in an attempt to garner support or power or what have you, and end up blowing up of slaughtering whatever they’re trying to get at. And then blame it on Ponies. Even if they had nothing to do with it. Even if they were miles away at the time. Trusting them to guard you is like asking a starving wolf to lead chickens to safety.

Liberation? ... They haven't 'liberated' anything. All they do, all they know, is killing, raping, taking, and destroying. I haven't heard a single tale, a single word about them supposedly liberating anyone. All I've heard is that they leave a trail of bodies and fire behind them, and that any single person sane enough long ago fled from them.

And... Human? Human?! Barely! Only just micrometers away from being rabid animals. They talk a good storm up sure, 'true protectors of humanity' my fat ass! But what they are? What they really are? Hyenas, coyotes, vultures scavenging off the corpses of the fallen, killing anyone who disagrees with them or even slightly looks in their direction, and generally making a nuisance of themselves.

The only reason we haven't turned all our tender mercies upon them is because, one, the Tyrant Sun is a bigger threat, two, the PER is far worse than they, and three... well... they're doomed. Plain and simple. Even if all we did was toss them into, say, a box canyon or something, they'd tear themselves apart. They're a mess. They're broken. Have you even seen two HLF units trying to convince each other that they're friendly? Most of them have officers obsessed with code phrases and mock-official titles, and a lot of them are killed in friendly fire. Not only that, but you don't usually get promoted entirely for merit as a commander. Sometimes, people get promoted based entirely on anti-pony sentiment, which is how you get people like that utter fuckwit John Birch in a position anywhere higher than private! The most immediately bloodthirsty get promoted, while the few that have saddled themselves with the unenviable Sisyphean task of reform get either executed, ponified, passed over, or they defect! I talked to Viktor Kraber while working on his thermite gun proposal, and he relates a story where he was nearly shot in the head for suggesting not killing four ponies.... In favor of attacking the PER.... He was having a crisis of faith at the moment.

They're not worth one single bullet, honestly... Though, if they did decide to make even more of a nuisance of themselves...

They'd find me waiting for them with open arms, a bright smile, a suit of armor, and lots, and lots, and lots of gun.

Sebastian Irving, in an interview

“God help us all if the Barrier’s not gone in a year’s time. It’ll be anarchy out here, and we’re barely holding on as is.”

Jack Weiss, member of Barrier Evacuation Engineer Corps.

"Anger. That's what motivates the HLF. Not just any anger: fury at the pain caused, that kind of absolute rage that can only come from pain and suffering. In some cases, people turn their pain and suffering to causes that are just and true. But just as often, they turn their suffering to causes that are full of hatred. For every person who becomes a Gandhi or a Luther King, there is a person who becomes a Hitler. It is the curse of the human race, almost, that we have the capacity for great good, or great evil. And make no mistake: they have done great evil.

The worst part though... the worst part is understanding it. The worst part is knowing that, for want of a nail - or a kind word from a friendly face determined to make things right - you could have gone the same way. I could have been with the HLF. I understand their rage. I've felt it myself. And yes, I read the theories. I attended the rallies. I was on the HLF forum. One of the biggest posters too, at one point. There was a time when I agreed with them, when I wanted nothing more than to murder every single pony in the world. When I thought there was no better course than mindless revenge. I was lucky: a certain someone... somepony... convinced me otherwise, but it could have gone either way. But that doesn't mean I don't understand them. And God help me... sometimes I see what happens out there... and I can't honestly say that even now, some part of me doesn't feel that same rage."

- Prince Harry of Britain, aka Harry Wales of the SAS, when asked about tenuous links between himself and the HLF based on examination of some HLF discussion forums.

"As a great muppet once said, 'fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering'. That's the HLF in a nutshell. He forgot to add the part where suffering leads to bloody idiocy, mind. Who the fuck tries to bomb a munitions plant making the guns that’ll save humanity… and claiming they did it in the name of humanity?! Fucking idiot..."

- Anonymous PHL soldier guarding a train station, overheard by True Quill during her research for the article "The Many Faces Of Mankind".

“I don’t regret what I started, but I regret that it lead to those imbeciles. I’ll admit, I might’ve been like them just a little, but Lyra was a convincing mare, making it clear that she didn’t support ponification, and nor did the ponies behind her. I’m right up there with everyone when they say she should be sainted, and yet…. and yet some bastard in the HLF shot her. I think that’s when I knew there was little, if anything in them left worth saving. To the reformists, I say just stop. You’re too crippled by your own fears to come close to your goal.”

Reverend James Thomas

“Everyday I wake up, I get out and look at my home. The sun gets a bit… wouldn’t say darker, but just colder. Even at the height of summer, sometimes it feels like the coldest day of the winter out there. People get dirtier, a little more strapped for cash. I go a little more between routine appointments, same with everyone else. Everything gets a little more rundown. The railroad over that trestle up north gets rebuilt, and it’ll just be gone in a year and a half. Come this time next year, I won’t be able to recognize anything.

Burt Gransvoort.

“Suddenly, recycling is a matter of life and death. Some ponies go behind the Barrier and make primitive axes or bring back wood in any way they can, but every material grows in worth by the hour. If there’s any wood, any abandoned metal, anything at all you think can be useful, then by the Golden Lyre, bring it here. Somebody’s going to need it.”

Reclaimed Beauty, PHL pony in charge of the acquisition of materials for PHL weaponry, refugee housing, and the Barrier Evacuation Engineer Corps. Reclaimed Beauty was an artist in prewar Equestria, and one of the first ponies to make her way to Earth.

“Clive Mudget? You are hereby placed under arrest for refusing to support not only the American public but refugees displaced by the Barrier, hoarding food, arming anti-American militias, and the murder of equines helping to tend nearby ranches. Anything you say can and will be used against y-”

“You fascist bastards! They’re the enemy! They’ve been forcing themselves into our culture after destroying our homes!”

“They’re refugees like some of my friends, and most of my family. And you’ll be too soon if people like you don’t stop fucking around and getting in the way of people are helping.”

Transcript from a policeman’s body camera, taken during the arrest of Clive Mudget, an HLF supporter who refused to provide food outside the HLF.
“Years ago, I never would have guessed I’d end up here. A thousand years ago, we were fighting Luna and Celestia, and then there was a flash of light and all of a sudden, we were a millenium away. Then the Element Bearers came as emissaries… of course, we learned just how much regard Celestia had for others.”
From 'The Last Ditch: Four Weeks of Anarchy', written by Brighthoof.

“The path of the HLF man is death on all sides - the death of whatever you call a soul, the death of countless hundreds, the death of anything approaching a noble cause that can be found within someone, pushing everyone towards doom with a bayonet at one end of a stolen or homemade rifle, throwing away advantage after advantage just out of anger.The path of the HLF reformist is infinitely more hopeless… The only advice I can give to HLF members even attempting that is to leave. Just not to try. If being HLF is like falling the height of Mount Everest with full kit, then trying to reform is like bouldering Lhotse face with people shooting at you.”

Enitan Adebayo.

“Whatever you do, trusting the HLF is the worst mistake you can make in these times. Tomorrow, you can do what you want. But for now, you. Are. Listening! You are going to do this. I’m not even saying please. I’m not even giving you any fokking evidence, cause the HLF are all the evidence you should need, and any satire I could try for would immediately be followed by them trying to one-up me, with me looking like I’m defending them. I say one unit uses poison gas, five would use thermite on naked civilians begging for mercy, or strip them of their clothes, take everything of value, burn the house down for kicks, kneel them and everyone else they did it to against a wall, and fire rounds into their heads.

Everything I just mentioned has happened, and they’re the worst heroes anyone could dream of. They’re the kind of bliksems that would settle a hostage crisis with airstrikes and napalm. There’s no more terrorists, which is good, right? Yeah, for everyone but the people they’re trying to save! Granted, they don’t have napalm, not since they lost government support, but what they do have is overwhelming force, a lot of bathtub semtex, and stolen or homebrewed military hardware. They consider it their duty to ‘save’ you from being within a mile of a pony. Whether you like it or not. And even worse, their idea of ‘saving’ you just means killing ponies. They’ve no regard whatsoever for collateral, no regard for people trying to evacuate.

Think about it - when have you ever seen the HLF assist in an evacuation? They don’t. Just kill and kill and kill. Thanking the HLF for saving you is like thanking a hurricane for destroying a KKK rally. The rally’s gone, but then so’s your house, your family and friends. There’s no line they won’t cross… the kontgesigs have killed children and foals. I’ve seen it. Sometimes they did it cos’ they were desperate for supplies and called it collateral, and others just attack towns cos’ they’re bored. They are just as likely to leave with bodies in their wake as shoot you, empty your house, and rob you blind. The inmates are running the fokking asylum, and the wardens and orderlies are few and far between.”

Viktor M. Kraber, showing up unannounced (and ad-libbing) in a PHL propaganda video. True Quill attempted to remove him from the scene, but Photo Finish declined. Curiously, Kraber was later considered the most memorable part of it.

Author's Notes:

...Well.
It's finally here. The story I told y'all I was going to do. AND HOLY BALLS IS IT LONG! Thanks so much to TB3, who made this what it is.... by which I mean ENORMOUS! Hope you liked it! Also,HERE is Ambassador Nikai The First, the wolf pup that Kraber's stuffed wolf is named after. AIN'T HE CUTE?! OH, I WANT TO HUG AND SNUGGLE HIM, IT'S JUST ADORABLE!
PS: This is not a one-shot. There are really more chapters coming.

Nowhere To Run

If you'd been there, you could see a Human Liberation Front ‘checkpoint’ in Northern New Hampshire, not too far away from a certain settlement established by that same group of ‘liberators’, a troupe so inadequate at their self-proclaimed purpose that most people see them as a heavily-armed, psychotic joke with a bark somewhat stronger than their bite.

At that moment, the fools were about to do something incredibly stupid. They were begging for an excuse to shoot something. So the same as usual.

The checkpoint halted a short convoy of six cars on the Berlin Road, next to the Androscoggin River. Pallid mist rose from the gurgling river, and it lent terrifying atmosphere as torches swept across windows and windscreens. The headlights cut through the fog too, revealing militiamen armed with patchwork weaponry thrown together from whatever is to hand and store bought firearms, both in huge, ridiculous calibers.

Four HLF soldiers, three men and a woman, are running ‘customs checks’, words which in this context have no meaning. Really, it's apocalyptic banditry with a fancy name and delusions of grandeur.

The adults are trembling with doubt as the militants approach; if they’re lucky, the HLF might just rob them of everything else. Alternatively, they might kick them out into the dark, so that the cars can be stripped down to parts.

The worst case scenarios end with their skeletons left to rot in the woods, riddled with bullet holes. Cars or people, which is more valuable tonight?

The HLF ‘revolutionaries’, these thugsthugs carrying over-calibered frankenguns and homebrewed pipe bomb launchers. One of the men and women stalking alongside the cars, shining their torches in through the windows. Whether they have motives and drives, whether or not they’re just looking for an excuse to commit violence, or if they have any nobler intentions, perhaps of hunting some of the doubly-damned PER for (hopefully) slow, excruciating extermination... doesn't matter.

What matters is someone is cringing in an open car trunk. Standing over it, a man with booze and other drugs on his breath held a heavy revolver in one hand, the trunk in another. His finger was on the trigger. He stared, nigh-immobile.

Imagine he's staring at you.

Imagine that you are one of the two unicorns curled up in the trunk, petrified as the HLF man holds the gun to your muzzle. By human standards, it is a massive weapon.

To your young eyes, its yawning barrel fills the world.

You are the smaller of the two ponies, a little filly named Dancing Day. You received your cutie mark not long after leaving Equestria, during a trip to France, and had felt something ‘odd’ as you stood atop the now-atomized Eiffel Tower, dancing in the wind.

They said the blessing of a cutie-mark felt like a tingle on the flank, but you had felt something more like a wave...as if an old and ancient forest had stirred under a spring sun, and you were among the first flowers to bloom.

You’d felt it through your hooves, in the air around you, in the riveted iron of Gustav Eiffel’s masterpiece. You had felt the magic of an entire world wake up, touch your soul, and smilingly brush the fur on your flank into an image that reflected the truth of your identity..

It had been a slow and sluggish process, but it had happened. You were, in fact, one of the first ponies to receive a cutie-mark not from Equus’s stagnating, overstretched and eggshell-thin magic field, (second magical renaissance? Bullshit!) but from the old and dormant power of Earth.

Which makes you, in some deep and profoundly fundamental way, as much a child of this world as of the rock on which you were born.

But the HLF man standing over right now cares not for any of that. He is tall and somewhat thin, lean and muscled, with a well-travelled body. His armor, if you can call it that, looks to be pieced together from surplus military equipment, though you can see stolen metal beneath the fabric. The barding had been thrown together, and held in place with ropes and strips of plastic almost as thick as a human's thumb, patched in places with duct tape. His beard was wild and unkempt, sticking out in all directions. His teeth and breath were rotten, every exhalation reeking of tobacco, poorly homebrewed alcohol, and hand-rolled cigarettes. His restless eyes, the color of maple syrup, darted from side to side. They were hardened, predatory, peeking out over dark bags that marked him as tired, restless.

Imagine that you quailed. Shivered a little. Old herd instincts - as you are now a pony - tell you that a hunter with eyes like that is more likely to kill you out of sheer madness than a need to feed. He just seems too tired to give a damn whether you live or die, the picture of the average ‘kill-em-all’ HLF man, a demon that could've very well been summoned through some sort of diabolic ritual to create the vilest, most sociopathic, kill-crazy sonovabitch imaginable.

Rather incongruously, a medical bag hangs from one of his shoulder.

In your fearful hyper-awareness, you notice another strange detail about him. On his back is what is unmistakably a pony-modified weapon, a mechanical death-toy painted up with magical runes, strange wires and bits attached.

‘How?!’ you ask yourself. ‘How did he get this?!’

Imagine that, in some strange way, you feel sorry for him. For despite what he is about to do, you can see the genuine pain in his eyes, and understand it. HLF members are just men and women, like any other, good and bad as they come. More bad than most, true... But some...some have lost so much that there is nothing left in them. A lot of them are just dyed-in-the-wool psycho, where rage and madness have flooded in to fill the husk life has left behind. Imagine that you've seen some refugees like that in the PHL, working with your mother. Ponies and humans that have no homes, no families, and no history to go back to. Cut adrift. With no shred of identity left to cling onto, they tended to grab hold of the first thing that came to hand.

An individual...a cause...a gun. And they never let go, clinging on with a death-grip.

Something of that is in this man, at the roots of his insanity. And so…even as he is about to kill you, you cannot help but pity him for what made him into such a monster.

You inch closer to your mother, who lies beside you, one hoof laid protectively over your body.

She was terrified, and yet she returns the HLF man’s maddened gaze with defiance. There’s a soft glow to her horn, a shimmer as she readies to fight. You were trembling, wishing you could be as strong as Mommy.

No! It cannot end like this! Not when the two of you escaped from Equestria just as they were closing the borders, not after having been displaced from home after home. No, after having survived this long, it CANNOT END LIKE THIS.

And suddenly, impossibly, it didn't.

He saw you embracing mommy, he saw you wondering what had made him this way, and something flashed across his face. His eyes water. He was remembering something. Slowly, quietly, he did something to the back of his pistol which, in a flash of understanding, you knew to be called a ‘revolver’.

It clicked, you flinched… and he lowered it. Placed it in the... Sheath? Is that what it’s called?

And then he closes the trunk on the two of you, one finger held to his mouth in the gesture you know to be a plea for silence.

“Everything seems to be in order,” he said to your ride’s driver, a nice lady called Kiki. You cannot see what happened, but when she recounts his words to her, you can see it in your minds eye. You heard his voice there, through the metal lid of the trunk, and it just sounded...flat, somehow. Neither sad, nor drained of emotion, just hollow, as if in realization of a terrible all-consuming void growing within oneself.

You looked back at your mother frantically, at the dying flickers of light on her horn. Did she use her talents….get in his head? Was that her psychomancy, or some kind of mnemosurgery?

And as she looked back to you, clearly as surprised as you, so shocked that horror is the only emotion she seems able to show on her face, you understand: He did this on his own.

And you ask yourself: Why?

As does your mother.

As does Kiki.

It is hard to imagine Kiki’s position in those terrible moments. Trembling at gunpoint in the driver’s seat, hands on the dashboard, but with a subcompact pistol, holstered to the underside of the steering column. If she went for it, surprise would probably give her the time to get one shot off, maybe two. And then every rifle outside would turn on her and riddle her with more holes than a colander. It would be a massacre.

But they’d do just the same once they discovered the ponies...die now, and take a few bastards in the process, or die in less than a minute and accomplish nothing.

You can’t imagine the stress of that. And you certainly can’t imagine Kiki’s silent, mental scream of anguish as the madman opened the trunk, and easily popped the false bottom, revealing the cargo - you and your mother.

She will tell you later that she her right hand had slowly inched down the dashboard towards the concealed pistol, ready to rip it out of the holster, slip the safety and slide her finger in behind the trigger-guard, all in one fluid movement. One squeeze on the trigger to let slip the dogs of war…

...and then, death. Her only option would have been to squeeze off as many shots as possible, floor the gas pedal and attempt to break through the ‘check point’s’ barrier across the road. Her one ace in the hole was the chance that you and your mother might pull some miracle out of your plot-holes.

And so she’d waited, on that knife-edge between planning and action, waiting for the turning-point, ready for man investigating the trunk to jump back at the sight of two unicorns and scream ‘ALARM!’

She was not ready for him to step up to the drivers-side window and gruffly wave her one with his gun.

“Everything seems to be in order, right away…” he barked. “I’m sure your cargo will find a willing fence in Colebrook.”

He looked as if he was ready to throw up all over the ground, cheeks and forehead ashen behind the unkept mass of his beard. In fact, you will later learn that later that night he did indeed void his stomach contents into the river.

But there and then, there had been a stunned pause. And then Kiki nodded, fingertips brushing the gun as she reached to turn the ignition key. A look passed between them that might have been gratitude on her parts, or wariness. And then they had been in motion, peeling off into the distance at over eighty miles per hour, because moose, black bears, wolves,or coyotes be damned, Kiki was getting out of there....

Nothing was sacred to the HLF where ponies were concerned. They were the enemy, the oppressing army. Their soldiers, the Schutzstaffel. Their ‘civilians’, a blight to be eradicated, branch and root, along with any race-traitors who dare collaborate with these invaders.

So why, in this moment, had this man let those three go? As he watches the car disappear between the trees, he wondered the exact same thing.

It's a safe bet he's just as confused as you.

The man - whose name was Viktor Marius Kraber - was sat, or tired (in his native Afrikaans) and looking forward to some quality time with a bottle of rotgut. Home-brewed hooch among the HLF tasted like paint thinner, with lying labels slapped on...but he didn't care, he needs a fokking drink.

And as realization dawns in his mind, Kraber wished that someone would just lambast him for a moment of weakness. Then he didn't wish for it. Then he did.

...that filly had pitied me, he thought. Why?

Somehow, despite the situation, she’d found it in her to pity him.

He was used to anger. And even fear. Heck, he loved fear, loves to inflict it and feel it, for it sharpens his senses as much as it cripples his foes. It was part of why he tried so much to comport himself according to pop-culture’s image of the amoral, downright psychotic Afrikaner. Save for the racism…at least against other humans, anyway. If if anyone doubted that, well, his wife had been black.

‘Oh, Kate…’

Oh yes, our man loved to terrify the PER and their goddamn Quislings, loves to play the part of a South African sociopath. It comes naturally, of course, but he likes putting in the extra effort. And it’s gotten so many delightful results. Rage, confusion, hurt and terror had all been cast upon him. The screams of those PER as he came down on them and… disassembled them. Limb by limb, muscle by muscle. Sometimes alphabetically. ‘A’ is for ‘Amygdala’.

But never, never before had he gotten pity.

And, in that moment, staring down into the open trunk, he had felt an accusatory stare blazing back at him. Not from the fearful, if defiant mother, the one with the butt-mark of the telescope, but…

‘Katie... my treasure. You'd hate me. ...And Peter and Anka would too…’

Maybe, in the near future, he will reinterpret that moment as the ghosts of his lost family looming over him in judgment, rather than just a vague feeling of what would they do in his place, but a sense of disappointment was apparent.

He had pressed the barrel of the revolver to the pony spawnling, and saw his own wife and children staring back at him.

He’d practically been paralyzed in their glare. He tried to yell, tried to pull the trigger, to consign the two hoenderpoes back to the depths of rancid memory.

He failed.

Staring into those condemning faces, gazing upon that pleading, pitying filly, he had uncocked and holstered the revolver, and stepped back.

He’d let them go.

Anka loved them, the man thinks, an unbidden recollection. She had loved the natural ponies...and their foals too.

He realizes right then and there that he had, in all likelihood, killed some of his daughter’s pony friends on his first rampage.

‘No! They were… they were ponies’, he tells himself, trying to encapsulate every old loss and slight within that word.

It felt like a lie, sackcloth in his mouth.

“Kraber!” another man, Lovikov, calls out, striding over with a heavy Kalashnikov rechambered for .50 Beowulf, with an HLF pipebomb launcher (This one’s Russian, so it’s called a Medved, not a Gut-Puncher) in hand. The first spits of rain hissed on the hot barrel.

In his reprieve, Kraber had missed the sound of the assault rifle firing. He glanced leadenly between the bloodstains splattered over the inside of another car’s windows, and a bag of plunder in Lovikov’s free hand.

“You’ll never guess what I found in this car!” the Russian partisan enthuses, hefting the bag. “Actual goddamn cinnamon! I haven’t had cinnamon in forever! Okhu el! Back in the Suhoputnye voyska, we never had hauls like this!”

“Find any ponies?” Kraber asked unsteadily.

“Nah,” Lovikov shrugged, completely unconcerned with the car he’s just perforated with .50 cal rounds. “Shame, isn’t it?”

That’s Lovikov in a nutshell, a zealot in the guise of a man, an oldschool Stalinist zampolit brought back from the hells of history - he’s said time and time again that he doesn’t consider anyone outside the HLF to be human. If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem, and the true dialectic demands they be removed from the problem. That kind of fanaticism makes him an effective soldier, enough that he’s caught the eyes of Galt’s Thenardier Guards before, but Lovikov’s always turned down an invitation to transfer out of the Menschabwehrfaktion, claiming he’s needed to keep the unit ideologically pure.

“Still, I’m happy about what we got,” Lovikov continues, rooting through the bag.

In a way, Kraber feels the same way. They do need supplies, children are starving in Defiance after all…

...kids who have never been children and may never be again, who hate ponies with all their hearts. War orphans blessed with all the bounty of a war of attrition: Kalashnikovs and bullpups and Sten guns and a laundry list of homebrewed weaponry (oh my!). Some of them...the ones who listen to Lovikov and Viktor’s rants, want to head off to the nearest town and ‘bring the rain’ upon the traitors and horsefuckers. None of them would ever consider seeking shelter with someone outside the HLF.

‘If Peter and Anka had lived, would I have done the same to them? Turned them into raging little beasts...’ It tears at his heart to see the children so.

He tried to fight back the seeds of doubt, suddenly fearful of the children he has been systematically forging into soldiers.

But it’s the only way to victory, a part of him insists, what until recently he had thought of as the better part of him. The rest of America has thrown itself to the ponypounders, and some of the more paranoid HLF members, the survivalists who have been anticipating various armageddons for decades, keep voicing their fears of the potential consequences. Like many over-armed Americans, they’ve imagined up any number of paranoid scenarios to fuel their malice...

“....taking over America….fascism...peak oil…” some of them like Birch or Oakes mutter, invoking magical shibboleths and bywords that represent countless fears. “...in league with the United Nations...anti-America, anti-Christ...FEMA camps...traitor in the White House...death tribunals...Illuminati pony overlords…”

Some point to more concrete fears. Just look at what Yael Ze’ev is doing up in Quebec, with the tacit agreement of her superiors. It’s a military coup, with ‘that damn Yiddish dyke’ playing the role of some Great Uniter...when she’s blatantly another wartime dictator, carrying out the damn Zionic protocols…

“It won’t be long until she comes for us…” they whisper. “Before she comes for the good Christians...all these damn foreigners, they’re all Muslim terrorists, her fucking footsoldiers. We’ve gotta kill em’ all before she slaughters us all in a real Holocaust…”

That’s usually the point where Kraber lost his temper and kicked the bastards spewing anti-semitic and islamophobic tripe in the face. Bigotry against other humans is not to be tolerated, (Unless they’re PER, cause who cares about those fokking kontgesigs?) not now...not when they need to pull together to win: win hearts and minds to the Front, win this war.

They have to do this. They have to protect mankind from the scourge of Equestria, from all enemies foreign and domestic, whether they like it or not.

Because heroes do what’s right. It’s the only way to fight.

Right?

The rest of the cars, evidently judged to be ‘safe’, sped off into the distance. Undoubtedly, they’d call 911 as soon as they come back into the range of the dwindling cellphone networks, but the cops up here won’t come looking for either the checkpoint, or Defiance. They wouldn’t dare. And neither, claims Lovikov, would the PHL. The Front is too smart for them.

(Kraber will later be of the opinion that is ‘fokking bullshit’, and that ‘the Front’ were merely beneath notice until their antics forced everybody else’s hand.)

And so, with that said, Kraber, Lovikov, and the remainder of today’s attack on the PER dismantle the checkpoint and the blood-stained car. Once stripped of tyres, brakes, battery and engine, and the sump drained of all the useful oil, they shove over the shoulder of the highway. Lovikov smiles at the site of the wreck, whose dead owner is still buckled in, plunging and tumbling down the slope into the Androscoggin.

And then they loaded the gains into a pair of old, camo-painted pickups, cross the river at an old rickety bridge only hunters would use, and set off into the hinterlands.

Deeper into the forest, bumping and juddering on the old logging road, silent trees flashing by as the pickups penetrate their ancient fastness. The abandoned trail gets narrower and rougher, overgrowth pressing in so close that the rear view mirrors scrape against tangled branches.

When at last they stop, the troops first take up defensive positions to confirm they were not followed. After Kraber has motioned ‘all clear’, they silently retrieve tarpaulins from the hollowed-out corpse of a felled tree, and throw it over the vehicles to shroud them from aerial view.

Then, on foot through the forest, Lovikov at point and Kraber guarding the fear. Fingers are on safeties as they tread softly on the undergrowth, a slightest ‘crack’ of a twig, cause for concern. At least, they make it to their camp.

The day preceding those events had been fine. Better than fine.

Better than the rest of the world, wracked desperate resistance in cities across the globe, and planes struggling against pegasi and Equestrian zeps. Civilians, human and pony alike, trying to outrun the Barrier on foot or hoof or on overcrowded trains. Trying, and often failing. Perhaps you remember the evacuation of Lagos? Or Rebecca Kleiner taking back the Philippines, destroying the PER and newfoals wherever needed. Maybe you are thinking of the Battle of the Thunderchild, and Ambassador (or Ambadassador, as some PHL members joke) Lyra Heartstrings’ heroic last stand and death. The famous train guarded by the Dragons of the East, going through HLF-PER warzones unsafe for anyone?

But none of that's important right now. Let's say you're here in the White Mountains and Great North Woods. Just imagine life here. Imagine living, knowing all of these events have happened. Imagine that it is the height of summer, and desperately trying not to think about the impending apocalypse. It is not necessarily the end of the world, but you can see it from here. Everyone wants to just unwind: Stop by somewhere for some ice-cream to slake the heat. Northland Dairy in Berlin, or maybe Ben & Jerry’s or 18•C in North Conway. To name a few.

And then you’d go spend the evening playing videogames with your pals. Isn't there a new pony Tenno in Warframe? Digital Extremes is nothing if not accommodating. But then, there’s a war being fought. The rivers are being dammed for hydroelectric power and drinking water, the woods are being felled for lumber. Total war. And yet despite that, even though everyone’s scared and some know that after this year they probably won’t ever be going skiing up again at the Balsams Wilderness, Wildcat Mountain, or anywhere else around there, fuck it, it’s still summer, and they’re going to have fun.

Boys and girls, colts and fillies play outside in the unswept streets, and teenagers do what they will even between firearms training sessions that aren’t quite compulsory. People that still have the money to go backpacking up here hike around the woods, and take in the sights.

Even the heritage railroads are still in business. Though officially tourist services have been suspended ‘for the duration’, the Mount Washington Cog Railway has had a new lease of life supplying the new observatories, radar suite, satellite and weather stations hurriedly erected at the summit of its titular peak, ever since a full mile of the highway was washed out and deemed not worth the expense of repair.

Likewise, over at Crawford Notch, the Conway Scenic Railroad is rolling freight trains for the first time in nearly forty years, bringing down the deforested bounty of Coos County for the war effort. It’s thankfully not clear cut anymore, but it would be a conservationist’s nightmare any other time.

And with diesel fuel in short supply, both railroads had been turning to their carefully husbanded steamers to keep things running. The Conway Scenic’s old 7470, a steam-powered Canadian expatriate, is out and about on the lumber trains. Even her shedmate, 501, a relic nobody thought would ever steam again, is fresh out of overhaul, and is sprinting up and down the yard in North Conway to run her bearings in. Families have brought their kids out in droves to watch the old lady come back to life, and they’re howling in praise as she makes pass after roaring pass, whistle blowing and exhaust blasting high into the sky.

Someone rustled up a few barbeques and what started as a casual ‘mosey down to the railroad’ had turned into a summer party. There'd even been a few ponies joining in the spontaneous steam-rally, and one red stallion with a pompadour and electric guitar is taking favourites from the swelling audience. Lucky for him and his kin, most of the food being grilled and seared here today is vegetarian, though not so much in deference to equine diets as to the simple fact that meat is increasingly hard to come by these days.

It’d been a grand party. A man named Johnny C. Heald, who we’ve already met, and will see again later, is present as well, sketching the crowds gathered around the living, breathing machine. At some point today he’ll run into a woman named Falyn, and will buy her a beer. She’s a little uncertain of his equine friends, but seems nice enough. He’ll meet her later in Littleton.

The rest of the town seemed just as alive. A perfect summer’s day.

The line's chief engineer had blown a whistle for the uninvited crowd’s attention. Not only was 501 running sweet as a nut, but she needed a challenge to really get back into her stride. Smiling, he pointed across the yard to where the Conway Scenic’s few remaining passenger cars had been kicked back into a siding to rot, and suggested that a few hundred human beings might be as good a test of her strength as any.

The cheers and mad dash to find a seat hide the dark truth. Old 501 had been put back into service not for pleasure, but for war. To haul supplies down for processing, to carry munitions to the growing stockpiles at the Mount Washington Training Grounds…

...and if the Barrier couldn't be stopped, to run away with evacuees in tow, on the reasoning that there aren’t enough roads around here to avoid zombie-apocalyptic level traffic jams. Maybe the same cars currently packed with laughing, shouting, terrified men, women, children and ponies will be used in those doomsday trains. They looked like they were happy, but a close look to videos and photographs and uploads to facebook and imgur and flickr would show grins that seem a little too forced, screams of joy that look a shade too much like terror, open-mouthed glee that could, if you look at it right, look like tearless bawling.

Oh yes, a perfect summer’s day.

Jack Weiss

It's perfect in part because of the people who guard the area. People whose solemn duty is to watch for people like Kraber, or PER, or any other threat that plans on taking advantage of the people of all these mountain towns.

One such example being Jack.

Jack’s a local philanthropist, a solidly built, shaggy-haired pillar of the community and good candidate for local small-time politics, famous for running grass-root fundraisers to support local refugees, and scrap-and-material drives to support the PHL and their affiliates. He’s just on the far side of the big four-oh, a veteran of the early war with half a face like molten wax (thanks to a Royal Guardspony’s spell), and he rests after travelling every back road on his ATV, thanks to a back injury that never healed right. Though he’s hoping some of the new magical treatments can help with that. He doesn’t want to get back in the game, but nobody here has a choice, so he might as well.

He was tired, and his back was aching again, so at the moment, he was atop a building in Gorham, holding an Ohio Ordinance HCAR, or Heavy Combat Assault Rifle. Essentially a modernized and lightened Browning Automatic Rifle. He'd added a PHL repeating flare launcher, a useful aftermarket mod much prized by the PHL’s scouting forces all over the world.

Lying on his stomach to ease his back, he sips coffee black as a hole and, through the gunsight, searches for suspicious lights in the dark. Down on the railroad the 0-6-0 steamer, 7531, hustles past with a load of logs from up past the Notch. He waited for the steam to clear, and scanned again for any abnormal activity. For now at least, he didn't see any.

Yet.

Jack’s a family man. He loves his four children dearly, even the little orphaned earth pony colt he has adopted, and he considers the Moroccan refugees in his house to be something close to family...maybe distant relatives who he’s still getting to know. He wouldn’t say he loves them, as of yet...but he will be damned (as will they, he supposes) if the Solar Empire takes them. There is no pay for the job of hosting the displaced however, but thankfully he doesn’t have to worry too much about finances with his own small pot of cash. The past few months, he’s practically given up on doing any business, and instead forsook his job to instead patrol the town and surrounding county. It has, admittedly, run those same cash reserves down a bit, yet the people of Gorham and the surrounding communities have been kind enough to donate meals, and necessities to him and his fellow watchmen…many of whom were already homeless, with nowhere to go. Now at least they have a purpose, and some standing. For they’re providing a necessary service, guarding against roving bandits or potential newfoal outbreaks, as well as assisting the overburdened police in keeping the peace.

There’s some irony in the fact that some of his duly sworn-in ‘special constables’, who the good folk of Gorham might not have spared a glance for as they begged for change and slept under cardboard boxes, now receive grateful nods and tipped hats as they walk the streets. They’re eating a damn sight better too.

In his house, the colt Jack considers his youngest son pretends to sleep under the covers, sharing it with his adoptive brother Sam. They’re reading comic books together, shining a flashlight and resting against a large stuffed dog from FAO Schwarz named Patrick. The colt, whose name is Roma Tomato, would have a place to sleep, but there’s not enough space in Sam’s room for another bed, and the Moroccan family already slept down in the living room, with battered and well-used kalashnikovs kept within close reach as they prayed daily towards the fallen Mecca. The couch was taken, as was the basement.

Not far away, another watcher, a hungry woman named Sarah Callista Ruyter, comes to the Saalt pub in Gorham. Officially, she’s involved in ‘fugitive recovery’, but everyone knows she’s a bounty hunter, looking for HLF or PER members with big enough prices on their heads.

Another place, another person. Deep in the woods, near the route of the old Boston and Maine railroad, broods a man named Burt Der Gransvoort. He watches as a diesel engine and several empty passenger cars (double-decker. Huh.) slide by on the line. For evac, no doubt. He was thankful that the old railroad’s been reinstated, though he wishes that had come back under better circumstances.

Burt was armed with an FN Leshiy battle rifle. The weapon was mostly Belgian, developed by remnants of Fabrique Nationale de Herstal alongside the Russian government-in-exile. Essentially it's’ an adaptation of the old NATO FAL, modified with ambidextrous controls, blowback shifted pulse and hyperburst, and enchanted for increased reliability and some limited self-repair. Damn thing even cleans itself - it is designed for extended trips out into the wild, and bringing back a lot of prey. It can also be rechambered with new barrels in different calibers like the old Remington ACR, with the addition of new magwells - Johnny C has sprung for the version that comes in 5.56, .308, and .50 Beowulf.

It’s also equipped with a repeating flare launcher, the same one Jack has mounted on his HCAR. Officially, the flare launcher is to be used solely as a signalling device, but Burt has used it in combat plenty of times. He’s one of many PHL-allied forest scouts roving the Great North Woods. He is using his Leshiy much like the Russian scouts it was designed to be wielded by, though he’s glad to be here in New England and not flushing out some accursed enemy holdout in Siberia or the rockies, or up north in Canada.

Elsewhere, along the ridgeline, troops, cops, militiamen and Jack’s ‘specials’ stand their posts on recently constructed watchtowers, armed with sniper rifles, shotguns and various models of Personal Defence Weapons, just waiting for any sign of a flare. Then they’ll swarm, converging on it in a pincer of steel and nitrocellulose.

These are interesting times indeed, peopled by interesting folks.

Jack's reason for being out there on watch simple: At night, nobody makes as much of a pretense of covering their fear. In the various hunting cabins and small times scattered across the wooded hills, there are people that live a nightmare as they pretend to sleep. Guns are hoarded, cleaned, and disassembled. Bullets are handloaded. Homemade HLF ‘panzerfausts’ are hammered together, and emergency kits for Barrierfall are being packed.

For all the fun these people are having as they snatch a ride behind 501, despite all the chaotic joy, it’s the last gasp and everyone knows it.

They know all too well that soon, the Barrier shall come for them, as much as they futilely pray that it won’t. Houses of worship are full to the brim for fear of two things: Death, which is preferable, and Ponification.

Some sleep alongside guard dogs or firearms, while others are checking the streets below their windows in the fear that their town may have been suddenly invested by the PER. Some are expatriates of Africa or Europe, even Greenland and Iceland, funneled into this region because living space is at a premium these days.

Some patrol the streets in hair-trigger militias, armed with firearms dating anywhere from America’s old west to the conflicts of the most recent decade. They are scared as well, knowing that they will likely be the first to become newfoals, and sometimes that fear can take control.

More than one innocent has died in these parts, either caught ‘acting suspicious’ or by unintentionally startling some poor schmuck with a gun and more frayed nerves than common sense. God help you if you’re a pony out on your own with no-one to vouch for you, especially on nights when really bad news comes through. In fact, when Iceland fell, when the Thunderchild sank, there was a bonafide pogrom in the next town over. And here in North Conway, on the night one brave mare quoted Charlie Chaplin and went to her death, a stallion came within an inch of being gelded.

Thank God arrests were made and convictions sought with a vengeance. They’re doing their best to do right by Lyra up here - well, everyone but those HLF that keep to themselves outside of the towns. For now at least, New Hampshire has not descended into the hell of Asia or South America, and it doesn’t even vaguely resemble the quasi-civil-war in other parts of the country.

Yeah, for now… but the rot of fear is coming. Already the first ‘popular front’, a ‘PHL in all but name’ gang from down south calling itself the Appalachia Security Force is holding town-hall meetings and recruitment rallies, alongside the PHL-affiliated Barrier Evacuation Engineer Corps which is maintaining railroads and refurbishing old rolling stock found derelict into passenger cars.

But they’re all still people. Fearful, angry people who tremble and jump at shadows, nervous wrecks drifting to both extremes, and who do this because they have the greatest thing of all to lose: everything. Their homes, their families, and themselves.

Johnny C Nny
Colebrook, NH

Johnny C - Nny to his friends, a local hero due to his actions in Alaska - had collapsed against one the chairs in this Colebrook bar.

He meant to scrounge up a bed for the night, and with some luck a bit of breakfast in the morning. Then he’d carry on north, and cross the border into Quebec. He had the kind of stocky build that comes from being naturally short, the kind of frame that people can’t tell is flab or muscle. After a long day, his hair forms itself into something approximating a pompadour. Right now he’s tired from a long day’s hike, and his nomadic lifestyle seems set to continue for some time, given the nature of his mission from the PHL, to root out possible enemy hideouts, and liaise with the local forest scouts, a lot of which were friends and ski buddies of his before the War. And he's supposed to help move a friend up to Quebec.

There’s two ponies travelling with him. One is a mare named Fiddlesticks Apple, one of Nny's fellow heroes from Alaska. One of very, very few survivors. By sheer coincidence, both she and Johnny hailed from longstanding dynasties of apple farmers. Though the Heald family’s land doesn’t produce much in the way of fruit anymore, it was one of those funny bonding moments that had left the two of them in stitches of laughter, having just outrun a HLF mob, back before the war. For the record, they were two against four, and Fiddlesticks managed to get in a truly ball-busting kick on one of their attackers, right around the same time Johnny managed to bag one with a lucky shot. She’s hated the HLF ever since.

The other pony's name is Aegis. You may have met him already.

‘A man, a mare and a stallion walk into a bar together…’

The reaction they get is mixed, in fact Fiddlesticks is just finished telling one man exactly what she thinks of his suggestion to ‘go back to Equestria’. From the stunned look on his face and the way he’s clutching at a battered old Windham Weaponry AR, the old coot probably didn’t expect the sturdy mare with the dainty mane to quite have such a command of ‘good ol’ redneck cussin’.

“...would no more crawl back to Equestria than you would go crawlin’ back in betwixt yer’ mamma’s ugly ol’ drumsticks, dipshit!”

In fact Fiddlesticks’ elegantly filthy little diatribe casts a pall of silence over the entire establishment for a few seconds. Then some of the rowdier patrons cheer the mare with raucous energy, quickly offering up a round of drinks to the three strangers. Before long, Fiddlesticks is happily playing guest musician to the band, fiddling along next to a good-looking blond man who bears a passing resemblance to a strategically shaved bear. He is singing rowdily in Quebecois French, and to his surprise Fiddlesticks joins in with a few choice lines of Equestrian Fancee. Also known as Prench.

She can thank her lately lamented cousin Octavia for her familiarity with foreign languages.

Now, the pub? That’s an interesting sort of place. A fine establishment no doubt, christened with the good name of the Dancing Bear.

It’s a damn sight more interesting than Johnny C would have ever expected of Colebrook, New Hampshire. Back before the war, a friend of his that was also named John, a principal down in Manchester, had said there was absolutely nothing up here. But now? More languages are spoken in New England than Old England had dialects, entire cultures have been mashed and folded onto one another. It’s a melting-pot comparable to New York or Shanghai at the dawn of the twentieth century, right down to the chronic overpopulation. And yet the necessity of simply enduring until tomorrow brought about a sort of blanket identity. Shortage of meat has brought about greater experimentation with vegetarian dishes, culinary lessons drawn from other countries and cultures. The same principles are being applied everywhere where peoples have been brought together by the war.

You can see these effects at work in the Dancing Bear. Fiddlestick’s temporary bandmates are playing an eclectic mix of instruments, including a set of bagpipes, a Japanese shakuhachi flute and...oddly enough, a musical saw. The drinks behind the bar are a shooting gallery of homebrewed spirits fashioned up in the likeness of famous national drinks, bottled and canned in whatever containers are to hand. There are even drinks by HLF brewers who have gone legitimate, such as John Peters (you know, the brewer) who made some booze from his crops of pears and apples. There’s a still whistling away in one corner and a coffee machine fashioned up from an old vertical steam boiler.

And the people. Oh brave new world, that has such creatures in it. Mos Eisley spaceport could not have conjured such a mix of soldiers, privateers, freebooters, prostitutes, thieves and heroes. And this isn’t even a big city. Remember, this is Colebrook, New Hampshire. Pre-war population, 2321 (give or take a few).

There are even, and Johnny C cannot exactly get over this, bounty hunters present, a motley group bartering ‘marks’ with each other based on skill and inclination. Armed to the teeth, ready to bring in anyone for which the money is being floated. HLF, PER… and all that lies in between.

‘The scum floats to the top as well as the cream,’ he thinks to himself, and for a moment entertains notions of himself as a warrior-poet, a battle philosopher…

Yeah, no. As if to underline that notion, he downs a shot of vodka ‘ice water’, and then bangs on the bar with the empty glass. Warrior-artist? Maybe. Warrior-writer? Maybe. Philosophy and poetry? Terrible at it.

“Another!”

As he nurses his second drink - vaguely irritated he can't feel anything - he eyes the bounty hunters over the top of the glass. Some that, from their bearing, clearly lean more towards the HLF’s side of the political spectrum, are giving Aegis a little more attention than he would like. Johnny raises an eyebrow eases back his coat, giving half the bar, bounty hunters included, a glimpse of his personal sidearm, a top-break .44 magnum with a twenty-gauge barrel.

Aegis shifts as well, and the dagger strapped to his haunch glints subtly in the light.

Neither of them could probably take the bounty hunters, even working together, but the demonstration serves as a reminder that they are armed, and willing to fight. As if weighing in on their side, the barkeep, a surprisingly slight man with signs of radiation poisoning from back in DC with a mighty scar cutting back right across his forehead, bangs a sign hanging prominently over the drinks rack with the elongated barrel of a decade-old Fostech Origin shotgun.

RIOTERS WILL BE SHOT

And under that, in spray paint and stencil, it reads:

This is your only warning.

With his other hand, the proprietor holds up the gun’s drum magazine, bringing it dangerously close to the mag well. He opens up with that thing, there's gonna be some serious shit.

The bounty hunters get the message, and go back to looking at ‘wanted’-writs. Aegis, his personal liberty reaffirmed, sidles up a little closer to inspect them for himself. One of the posters, he realizes, depicts a newfoal. It sits between a PER woman with a face that looks like it was subject to some fiery industrial accident, and a HLF man that looks for all the world like Sharlto Copley.

Pfft. Yeah right. No way that HLF sonovabitch has that kind of cash, Aegis thought. And right now, Mike Carter’s in prison, and it couldn’t happen to a more deserving bastard.

But at that moment, seeing that newfoal’s picture, Aegis had a moment’s epiphany. Back in Equestria, in the old days when all he had to back up his fears was a vague sense of paranoia, newfoals were a minority. Small, but possessed of a fervor comparable to religious converts. Aegis and his foals, Amber Maple and Rivet (who were down in Littleton with Blossomforth at the moment, working at the grist mill) had done their level-headed best to ignore those creatures, and the empty-eyed worshipful gazes they cast upon everything. But then it had been too much to ignore… especially with Woven Sugar’s growing, almost fetishistic love for them, her uncharacteristic swell of equine pride as any hints of xenophilia in her shriveled and died.

At the time, there weren’t that many newfoals, so it was not too difficult to ‘miss’ them in crowds, and on the street.

But now?

Back in Equestria natural-borns with cutie marks were the minority. Free thought was dying out in Equestria, unless newfoals can give birth to ponies which are not zombified. A nation without free thought… it scares the horseapples-no, the shit out of him.

He likes human curses more.

‘Heh,’ he thinks, ‘Equestria’s population has increased by over a billion in less than six years. That’s going to hit Hoofington like a buck to the face. Eeeyup. And Woven Sugar said Earth was the real hell, that Equestria was a paradise worth keeping clean. Bet she's doing wonderfully in her paradise new, her little zombieland with some newfoal fucktoy.’

Across from the bar is a big old Cathode Ray TV scavenged from somewhere, bulky and decades outdated, and yet so much more advanced than the technology of Aegis’ home. It’s broadcasting footage of some PHL troops. From their green lyre patches, they’re associated with Nny's cousin Yael Ze'ev’s forces, smoking out some nondescript town. The banner bar says that they’re in Quebec, trying to break a HLF pocket that's taken the place for themselves. It’s impossible to hear audio over the roar of the crowd, but someone’s turned on the old ‘teletext’ feature.

...officially, this is an act of mutiny. Many of these troops are not under the official command of Lieutenant Ze’ev, and our PHL liaison has refused to pass comment....

Yes indeed, but we can assume many of the more hawkish observers, both near and far, support what the Israeli soldier is doing...even if she’s wasting ammo and supplies that could be used elsewhere...even if she’s reinterpreted the PHL’s creed primarily as a mandate against the HLF.

That’s the way of war. People cry out for action, but can’t agree on what is the right action to take. And with the drawback to the continental Americas, all of the major factions suddenly have a lot of personnel loaded for bear and waiting, just waiting, for the Barrier. This… For America, this is the last gasp of pre-Barrier life, even though it’s a poor facsimile, like a grade school play at a cash-poor school (Like most schools nowadays, actually) aping a Broadway musical with costumes that have been used in almost every play the last couple years.

No wonder some of the troops are trying to be the tail that wags the dog. Johnny C remembers some of the things Yael said - he agreed with her that the HLF were out of control and they'd be a pain in the ass.

The news footage is shaky, taken from a news chopper (armed, most likely) hovering high above the town. Yael, prominent from her tall, thin build and position at the front, is crouched behind the scorched wreck of a car, toting a heavy rocket launcher. Johnny C, a gun-nut if there ever was one, watches with interest as she spins out from cover, aims, and fires in one fluid action. Judging from the backblast, her weapon is something like a Russian Pozhar. He can also see a full-auto grenade launcher that spits out cluster-bomb like projectiles designed to burst over the enemy. A handy, hand-held force multiplier.

‘Yeah’, he confirms to himself as an entire swathe of street explodes into dust and smoke. ‘Definitely Rainmakers’.

Then he sits up in shock. Onscreen, atop the rooftop behind Yael, a HLF soldier with a cheap submachinegun is clambering into view, a knife clenched in his teeth. The camera jolts, presumably because the cameraman is himself shouting a warning…

...and then the human abruptly loses his head, a purple-pink pegasus flickering into frame, saddle-mounted rifle smoking.

‘So that’d be Heliotrope there’, Johnny muttered.

One of the tanks Yael has brought to help open up a beachhead swiveled its turret toward a building, and fired.

‘It’s too close to - wait. It’s a damn flamethrower tank!’

The wooden building into which the tank had just fired burst into flames, crumbling as men, women, and children in battered tac-vests of stolen kevlar and hammered metal ran out.

The PHL fight back, and a slaughter erupts. Johnny’s firmly rooting for his hometeam.

“Go Horsefuckers,” he mutters absently, fumbling for his drink. His fingers brush the empty glass, and he winces, realising he spilled the vodka when he jumped up from the table.

“French country music in New Hampshire,” Aegis said, distracting Johnny C from his reverie. His stomach rumbled. “How about that?” he asks.

“I wouldn’t know,” says Johnny C, thankful for some diversion from that sight. He looks at Aegis.

‘Huge’ seems almost like an understatement when describing this particular Equestrian native. He’s big enough that ‘pony’ doesn’t seem to fully describe him. He seems to suffer from some kind of hypertrophy, being larger than almost any pony but Princess Celestia. Terms more akin to ‘small horse' came to mind, and Johnny C's first words upon seeing him were "Good God they're making them big nowadays! Don't they know there's a gas crunch? Look at the size of you..."

Fiddlesticks had openly gaped at their first meeting, muttering something about how Aegis was ‘a good size up on Big Mac’.... No mean feat, apparently.

Putting it bluntly, Aegis is almost large enough that Johnny C could ride him, though Johnny is admittedly five foot six in platform heels, so that’s not saying much. And he’s old-school PHL, old enough to have known Lyra in the first month of the organisation’s existence, and even survived a car bomb meant to kill the Golden Heart herself.

“Well, it’s pretty weird,” Johnny C said as, for the umphundredth time, he worried about Kiki Palmer, who was supposed to meet them. He phoned Jack Weiss down in Gorham asking after her, and Jack, a man who was honest to a fault, said she left safely, enroute for Colebrook. But dammit, it’s been a long time. And there’s… rumors. He’d always jokingly say “Of course there aren’t any axe murderers up here!” whenever someone worried about him walking out and about at night, but nowadays there’s a lot more to worry about.

And Kiki is overdue. Checking his watch, he saw that it was almost 9:30. She had promised to meet with them here forty-five minutes ago. Trying to stem growing pangs of anxiety he comforted himself with two readily available things: a cup of steaming clam chowder so thick his spoon can stand up in it, and the smile on Fiddlesticks’ face. The yellow earth pony mare with the inky blue mane looks so happy to be playing in this nowhere bar along the Canadian border, with the whole bar clapping and drunkenly singing along with her.

It’s at times like this that, even with an earth pony playing fiddle while he talks to a massive stallion, that Johnny C can almost believe that it’s before the War...

Before New Hampshire had played host to hundreds of thousands of refugees, exposing him, to more languages and cultures than he had known existed...

Before he’d ever felt true hate, let alone the searing fires banked up in his heart towards people like Reitman or the damn Carters.

Before night watches in towns, before armed men and women had been forced to take up nocturnal patrols to protect their homes, families, friends, and livelihoods. Before weapons were openly carried on the streets, or before he’d had to carry a runically enhanced Leshiy rifle in his car at all times.

Back in some unseen halcyon days and weeks after Equestria first manifested, days where ponies were welcomed as visitors, with the promise of mutual learning and understanding lending every second of the day with new prospect, a new vision and hope for the future.

But in the here and now, he claps along to the music and smiles up at Fiddlesticks, who smiles back in return. She’s tapping a hoof on the floor to set a tempo for the band, and the sound of her fiddle is…

Well, he can almost forget.

The settlement Kraber was traveling to was not a proper home by any means. But most of the people inhabiting it have discarded the concept of a fixed home, knowing that the Barrier will come eventually and force them to move.

So they carry home in their hearts, and make do with wherever they can pitch a tent and build a fire. And so for now, this is enough.

Building on the remains of an old lumber camp, it was designed by people such as Kraber, historians of the partisans of World War II and the Cold War. The ‘cursed soldiers’ of Poland and the Japanese holdouts of the Pacific would have felt much at home here. Its infrastructure consists in part of easily disassembled buildings thrown up from readily-available timber, but mostly tents and dugouts. A church consisting of a cross suspended between two trees, a small synagogue some distance away. A buddha that someone took from London sits upon a cairn of stones at the foot of a rocky cliff that shields that side of the camp from the weather. There’s even what some of the brothers referred to as a reliquary, a container holding holy relics stolen before their native shrines could be overwhelmed.

Old mattresses and ugly, rough blankets were held in commune in a larger tent. They are kept dry by the heat from the adjacent foundry, built upon the rough foundations of the old camp sawmill. Here, to the roar of forges and the scream of lathes, the complex’s armorers are hand-making newer, bigger guns. Guns like the Lolife, an ugly pistol with a design somewhere between the Borz and the Mauser Schnellfeuer, are being turned out as quickly as possible.

Not far from the smithies, a snarling diesel generator stands beside the modest command center hut, home of over-annotated maps and wild ideas: who, where and why to strike. The walls are virtually covered in reconnaissance data, collating as best as possible the known movements of all enemy forces.

The hut is buzzing with activity. A few computer screens flicker, while off in one corner is a man with an honest-to-god typewriter, typing out circulars, pasting in photos, making HLF circulars. It’s then sent for duplication in their prized Xerox machine, loaded both with stolen paper and some hand-made stuff pressed from pulped bark. Even if it sometimes jams up the rollers, it’s all towards the goal of ‘Juche’, or self-sustainability. Most of the duplicated circulars will be placed on roadsides in dead drops, for affiliated motorists to pick up and distribute.

Next to the command center is a theater of sorts, an improvised briefing room and communal space, ‘seating’ as many people as can actually pack themselves in. There’s even a projector, allowing them to play movies now and then.

And all around are flags, hung on the sides of rough-cut walls, flying from improvised flagpoles, and even strung between the dripping trees. They are the tattered standards of dead and dying nations, hung in memorial, but the HLF flag takes precedence above all else.

This settlement’s name shall live in infamy for generations to come.

Defiance.

City Of No Palms

Got good intentions.
Isn't it enough? No, it is not enough.
The comprehension of letting yourself get charmed by a bluff is upon me:
There's nothing I can do,
There's always something I could do.
Where would I be if it wasn't for you?
So I just do what I'm supposed to do.
I watch you turn into
А siсkly biomass of black and blue.
Biting Elbows, City of No Palms

You aren’t there, of course.

Seeing as you are a filly named Dancing Day, that’s a good thing. The most famous pony to enter Defiance is - or will be - named Sutra Cross, and her tenancy will be prolonged, and painful in the extreme, pushed beyond any conceivable limit of suffering.

Torture, for days on end. You’re innocent of this knowledge, of course...but that blissful ignorance won’t last. When you do inadvertently see the HLF-disseminated videos on your tablet, you’ll be horrified. Retching all over the screen, crying, you’ll desperately try to crush all sense of empathy as they strip her hooves off. Then comes the horror as you realize that this is a livestream, and the HLF will not stop. Nor will they ever, not till the Barrier atomizes them.

So many times, you’ve run from the HLF, run crying to the arms of your friends. And as you hear Sutra Cross’s gurgles, you’ll understand what Johnny C and Fiddlesticks’ horror stories could never convey...

...and then you’ll pray to whatever God (other than Celestia) who might be listening in that you’ll never be the one dying like that…

And all the while, you can’t help but feel a little afraid of the humans around you, and that is when the HLF’s most pernicious tactic comes into play. They’ve made you cower at the fear of what your very friends might do to you...

...or of what will happen when the Barrier makes landfall. You pray that these bastards will disappear, that they’ll see reason, that their insanity will peter out, not fester and spawn into further bloodshed.

‘When you wish upon a star…’

But no kindly deity will answer your prayers tonight. Lying under the covers of your bed, shivering, clutching a stuffed animal, afraid to fall asleep for fear of the nightmares, you know it will happen. Like rising scum, all of these psychopaths will float to the surface and poison everything they touch, be they PER and Imperial forces… or your friends in the PHL, refugees just trying to escape.

And through it all, you’ll remember that man that saved you, or rather, the man who failed to kill you. The bearded man that looked like Sharlto Copley. You will hope that the moment when he stood over you and chose to do nothing is not an isolated incident, hope that what little shreds of sapient compassion remain in him don’t die, leaving naught behind but a slavering animal.

Will you ever be a child again?

Well right now, for a few sweet moments, yes. Because right now, Kiki has delivered you and your mother safely to the Dancing Bear and your first action is to run into one of Johnny C’s bonecrushing hugs - how can a tiny guy be so strong?

And then, comes the food. It seems Johnny chose to work off some of his anxiety in the bar’s kitchen, which is less a greasy spoon and more a deep-fried cutlery stand! Quickly yourself, Aegis, and Fiddlesticks are sampling some incredibly delicious cornmeal-battered onion rings, over which an amazing sauce has been slathered! Some of the other patrons are sharing out bowls of fine old camp chili (and Texas cornbread) that they’ve prepared over the open fire, and there’s even a few salads to hoof, the slightly softened tomatoes and peppers nevertheless an improvement over the wilted leaves and stalks that have been the recent staple of your diet.

Food, friendship, family...it’s a little slice of the Equestria that once was and is no more; in some perversion of transplant surgery, a healthy scrap removed from the cancerous whole and grafted onto the skin of New England...

And now? What’s happening now? Well now the bar is warm, slightly stuffy with tobacco smoke and the heat of the fire. The food is sitting warm in your gullet, and you’ve sleepily cuddling up to your mommy as she and Kiki recount what happened back at the checkpoint. Through the drowsy veil of oncoming sleep, you manage to giggle at the reactions of everyone in the bar. They are hanging onto every word, mouths open, eyes wide. Cigarettes have dropped to the floor from open jaws. Mugs of booze sit unattended in the grip of frozen hands. Even the unflappable bartender with the huge autoshotgun is surprised, mouth open, eyebrows raised.

The band has fallen silent too, no-longer belting out those wonderful folk tunes from around the world.

“...and then, he lets us go!” Kiki finishes, fingers splayed and palms out.

“Fuckin’ what?!” Johnny C gasps, in time with almost the entire bar’s exclamations of incredulity. His reaction was perhaps the tamest, and your mother holds you tight, hooves over your ears to block out the flood of profanities. You’re pretty nonplussed though, having heard a lot worse, and said as much too.

“That’s the whole of it, sure as I’m sittin’ here,” Kiki nods, a consummate storyteller signing off on her latest and greatest yarn. “Take it or leave it boys, but you’re looking at the luckiest three gals to ever get flagged down by the Hypocrites’ Legion of Fuckwits. He let us go, plain as you like.”

“But couldn’t he have missed them?” the bartender starts, his voice raspy. He turns, the shifting of a beard revealing a disfiguring scar around his neck - the poor bastard had been garrotted once, and somehow survived. Likely from HLF.

“No,” Kiki says. “Astral? Did he see you?”

“Plain as day,” mommy confirms. “He had the trunk open, the revolver to my head, and he just ignored us.” And, before anyone can accuse it of her - “I didn’t do anything. He did that on his own.”

The spell of her voice broken, the bar splits up into heated pockets of discussion, conversations fragmenting already into innumerable rumors.

“Holy shit!” Aegis repeats to himself, over and over. “That...that just doesn’t happen. Holy shit.”

You couldn’t have gotten more of a reaction if you’d walked into town and shot the sheriff. Everyone, from the barkeep to Fiddlesticks, is vacillating somewhere between stunned disbelief and outraged denial. The lemon-coated mare’s fiddle, a precious instrument hoof-carved in Equestria’s high forests and seen battle after battle, crossed a continent and at least one ocean, survived PER and HLF attacks alike, is sagging in her grasp, as if a burden too great for her to carry.

You reach over with one sleepy leg, and lay a hoof on her own. The gesture is enough to snap her out of her funk, and she shares a soft smile with you, before noticing some unwanted attention: a man, heavyset and bearlike, with a military rifle strapped to his back, is staring at the two of you, expression circumspect.

“What? This the closest you ever got to a pony?” she snipes. “Move on, pal.”

His eyes flash softly, almost dangerously, but he still shuffles his stool around towards Kiki, who is still at the centre of attention and visibly loving every second of it.

“...can’t have missed them,” she says, pointing at yourself and your mother. “Astral and Dancing were right in the sights of that monster revolver of his…. and he let us go.”

“An HLF man... did that?” the bearish man says, as if not quite believing. Something about his tone makes you think he’s seen the HLF before, and the encounter was not pleasant.

“Yes indeed,” Kiki smirks. “Saw them… and let them go.”

As she continues, your own tiny eyes pan away. The warmth, from the food and the fire and your mother holding you close, is singing you towards sleep...

...but as your gaze sweeps over the wall of bounties, something catches your attention.

“Look momma, Sharlto Copley’s ‘WANTED’…” you giggle, pointing at a familiar face on the wall, so similar to the funny man you’ve seen scream and rage on numerous TV screens.

“That’s sweet, honey,” Momma says, before she herself looks. You feel her grip tense.

“There!” she cries out, gesturing with one hoof at the very picture you just noticed. “That’s him, right there!”

The whole bar is silenced once more. Johnny C is the one who reacts however, standing and crossing to the wall in the space of a second. He points to several faces in turn, looking for a reaction.

“This one?”

‘Atlas Galt’, a serious-looking man in a military uniform. Momma shakes her head.

“Him?”

‘Michael Carter’, an embittered scowl implanted into what might once have been a smiling face.

“Not his daughter?”

“No!” Momma says. “It wasn’t a girl who held us up! It was him, that one with the beard!”

Johnny’s finger slides slowly away from the likeness of a slightly-hispanic young woman whose hair has been done up in a filthy ponytail, and comes to rest on the right face.

“Yeah,” Kiki says softly. “That was him.”

“....Mothafucka,” Johnny C whispers as soon as he realizes.

Everyone tenses subtly. The atmosphere, close and warm seconds ago, is now chill as winter ice, and just as solid.

“Well, shit,” Fiddlesticks says, just as Aegis says one word.

“Kraber.”

And like some invocation of power, that name is enough to conjure up a flood of reactions. The man in question is infamy on legs, after all.

There’s so many stories suddenly being told and repeated that they all blur together into one curriculum vitae of blood, sweat and gunpowder.

Kraber….the poster child for PHL excess. The man who cut a swathe across Eastern European and Turkish Conversion Bureaus.

‘Saint Guillotine’, some called him. The Death Dealer and Reaper of Fate. Doctor Sawbones. The Machinegun Surgeon. The man that walked the bloody path from enemy to enemy.

They say that he’s been in a committed relationship with Kagan Burakgazi, the Plague Doktor whose horrific chemical weapons had been unleashed upon the PER. They said that he danced across a stage of blood and entrails, living a grindhouse festival of slaughter. Butchering ponies en masse, heaping up a body count that becomes even more terrifying when one paused to considers the nameless, uncounted newfoals he must have slaughtered.

A man whose kill-count probably runs well into four figures. A man with a stolen PHL gun.

And this was the man who had chosen to spare your life...

Johnny C pulls out his iPhone and struggles for a signal, and fails. Without asking he climbs across the bar and grabs the landline, dials rapidly. The barkeeper doesn’t comment, but instead leans in close to listen.

“Hello? Weiss? Yeah, it’s Heald here. Look, Kiki and the fillies are safe, but you’re not going to believe how…”

“Ten bucks says it’s nothing special. I’ll even bet you a dollar for every minute I freak out,” Weiss’s voice crackles out, before Johnny realises he’s got the phone on ‘speaker’, and switches it back to a more private volume.

As he does, Aegis pushes in, standing up on the chair next to Johnny C and pressing his forehooves to the wall for balance.

“Believe it, Jack,” he calls into the mouthpiece, which Johnny holds up for him.

There’s an audible suggestion of surprise on the other end of the line, as if the person on the other end was not expecting to hear Aegis’s voice. Your pony ears are sharp for their age,but not sharp enough to make out the details.

You hear enough though. Muttered words and snatches of conversion. The name of Kraber comes up more than once.

For about three minutes, Johnny C stands, wincing under some tirade, replying in short monosyllabic sentences, answering questions as best he can.

And then the call ends, and Johnny is coming out from behind the bar. He looks shaken, a silently pushes a ten-dollar bill and three ones into your saddlebag, mumbling something about how he’ll get it back off Jack Weiss later.

You use it tomorrow morning to buy yourself some ice-cream. But in that moment in the bar, your attention is on Johnny, and the stunned, churning crowd, and the face on the wall, the face of the pony-reaping madman who let you live.

And you ask yourself again: “Why?’”

Some months later, you’ll meet him later, and ask him that question.

He’ll sigh and sit down.

Here’s the story he will tell you, reading off from the script he was writing at the time. He’ll joke that he’d intended for Sharlto Copley to play him in the story of his life, and then, like clockwork, Aegis will add, “who did you expect him to recommend? Grant Bowler?”

It had started outside a PER camp in the middle of Vermont, near an old copper mine. The unit surveying it was pre-HLF, the remnants of the German Menschabwehrfraktion, from back in the days when there was no single banner for anti-pony humans to rally under. In time, they’d been folded in, unit after unit. Officially, much as anything could be official in the HLF, they were still Menschabwehrfraktion, but they had so many members from other brigades, both large units and small remnants and squads, that they couldn’t rightly say they were German anymore. They were just happy to kill the invaders.

But now, they were HLF, and had located the ‘enemy camp’ with what had already become the Front’s trademark intelligence-gathering technique: tying a PER pony or human to a chair, gloating over how this counted as a public service, and then letting some psychopath go nuts on them till they spilled the beans. Usually, it’s Kraber.

Because he’s good at it, and knows how to keep them alive longer than any hack with a knife.

Because they expect it of him.

Because above all, it’s fokking fun.

And here, we, go...

“Un sekai nerahma safah,” Kraber whispered to the gun in his hand, looking on with satisfaction as the runes etched into it began to glow faintly in the darkness that preceded dawn. He vaguely remembered the PHL using incantations to activate those oddly painted weapons they were using, and this seemed to work.

“I still say you should throw that thing in the Umbagog River,” Emil said, looking over at Kraber. “It’ll melt you.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve bought into that kak,” Kraber joked. “Honestly, do we ever see people get melted from just being close to magic? I mean, when does that actually happen? It’d be just like the Queen Bitch to lie to us like that.”

Maybe Emil had swallowed ‘that kak, maybe he hadn’t. It wasn’t him who answered though.

“You should listen to him, Viktor” Captain Lovikov said bluntly, pushing the gun’s barrel down with one hand. “That’s PHL tech-”

“And yet it’s the only gun we have that isn’t a fokking overchambered monstrosity or surplus shit that isn’t worth kak against shields,” Kraber replies, hefting the weapon again and checking the sights. “But go ahead, if you want me to use a gun with less than twenty rounds that the most dof fokking mall ninja would think was a piece of kak, go ahead.”

He glanced at Lovikov’s .50 Beowulf Kalashnikov. The thing was ungainly, and fed from an absofokkinlutley massive homemade drum magazine. “Or, God forbid, those stupid fokking .50 BMG open-bolt automatic pieces of shit made in junkyards from metal I wouldn’t use for paperclips…”

Lovikov scowled, but took no obvious action. Kraber had fought with him over matters like this repeatedly, along with many other residents of Defiance. There’d been people that threatened to throw the stolen PHL/Bundeswehr prototype MG2019 into the Umbagog or the Androscoggin, but Kraber had threatened not to treat them with loot if they did, or had simply beaten them up.

“Are you ready though, Comrade?”

As before, Kraber looked down at the lightly glowing runes, and smiled.

“Oh…. yeah.”

Carefully he aimed the immense medium machinegun, and squeezing the trigger so softly that the first blast came almost as a surprise, fired on the PER encampment below.

The .338 Norma Magnum rounds punched through trees and shattered the bones and muscle of any PER caught behind them. Those in the open were simply torn apart.

As Kraber fired again and again in controlled bursts, he noticed a smell like sulphur, and saw tiny flashes when the bullets hit anything. Klank magic shit. The PHL had been thoughtful enough that you didn’t need magic bullets - you could pick them up from any store, cause the magic was in the gun. Thoughtful of them. And practical - Ammunition was already pretty expensive.

“Support teams!” Lovikov called. “Open fire, rapid!”

All around the camp, HLF troops burst out from under leaves and behind rocks, firing into the PER. Those closest to the front, where ranges were closer, charged under cover of their teammate’s fire, blunderbuss-like shotguns in their hands. Bayonets had been lashed to the barrels, and the combination of blade and cannister shot punched into the hesitant defence like a boot through dry rot.

What some people forgot about the PER was that they did have armor. The units that had gone underground made use of homebrewed vests like the HLF themselves used, but ‘regulars’ protected themselves with high-end stuff looted from civilian gunstores.

Of course, the HLF ‘shopped’ with the same vendors. Like against like, could make for interesting fare.

‘This slaughter is brought to you by Ammunation.’

Of course, the new MG2019 ignored all that. Its bullets pierced through any body armor presented to it, punching through riot shields and barricades alike, perforating PER and leaving them grasping missing limbs and great holes blasted in their bodies, or convulsing on the leaf-covered ground as they went into shock.

The smell of blood rose on the dawn breeze, mingling with the metallic reek rising off the old mine’s tailings and spoil heaps. Sniffing it, Kraber bared his teeth in a lupine grin. Beside him, his friends weren’t doing too badly for themselves - PER shields went down before pipebombs or sheer massed fire, but Kraber and his new toy were felling the foe as if it was going out of style.

“I am the son of rock'n'roll
I got the masses under my control
I like to drink, I love the dope
I want your money and I want your hope!”

He saw one rookie, a fresh-faced girl from Quebec (and, allegedly, a survivor of the Tbilisi Massacre) who he might have thought was a bakvissie before the War. She was looking speculatively, jealously at the MG2019, as she fired an homebrewed autoshotgun loaded for slug rounds.

“Try and steal it, and I’ll tell them you got ponified!” Kraber cautioned her, knowing that he was a terrifying sight in the gas mask he habitually wore. Like many HLF men, he’d painted it… but his chosen paint was of a wolf’s head.

“Alright…”

Nodding fearfully, she turned away and stared down the sights of her own weapon, firing spasmodically into clusters of newfoals and PER. That was the magic of a good reputation.

A green pegasus newfoal, its eyes like glass marbles wedged into undersized sockets, dive-bombed Kraber. With one hand, he whipped out his .50 revolver quicker than anyone’s eyes could track and fired, splattering the creature’s skull across the leaves.

“Must have been a recent one,” he said casually. “The ones that have had time to age tend to steer clear from fokking machinegun surgeons!”

And yet, more ponies came, charging up the steep hill armed with bandoliers of potion, weapons suspended in clouds of magic, or weaponized spells. Iron and lightning and fire lanced through the early morning. One HLF woman Kraber knew to be named Anna had been set afire by a unicorn’s spell, and was rolling around on the ground, screaming as the fire ate through her armor. Casually, he stepped up and, with a booted foot, punted the screaming torch down the slope, at the bottom of which was a dry ditch in which soft soil had gathered. That extinguished the flames quickly.

Anna’d be fine, he supposed, but she’d look like roadkill for awhile.

“Die, you defilers of nature! You rapists!” screamed an earth pony.

And speaking of roadkill…

“DON’T YOU… EVER… FOKKING CALL ME A RAPIST!” Kraber yelled, nailing the earth pony in the balls with his revolver, leaving the new gelding screaming, hooves pressed to the bloody ruin that had once been his family jewels. The bullet, tipped with a blue fulminated mercury cap, went on, ramming a PER man in the left leg, exploding everything between his kneecap and the pelvis. As a final coup-de-grace, a shard of the man’s knee-guard, sent flying, took out a considerable chunk out of the stomach of a PER servicewoman standing beside him. “CALL ME A DEFILER OF NATURE TOO?! Oh, fokkin sure, we’re not the ones causing a fokking forest fire!”

“Ponify me!” the PER man screamed as he thrashed on the ground, his blood staining the leaves. “I… have to be useful… to Queen… Celestia-”

A red pegasus mare flew over, a tuft of purple cloud held in her hooves, ready to ponify him. Kraber fired the revolver again, exploding the mare’s head before she could get anywhere near him. Good.

“YOU MONSTER!” screamed a purple unicorn, crouched by a tree. He couldn’t have been more than a teenager when he’d been ponified. “He just wanted to serve his rightful ruler, and-”

“Shut,” Kraber said, one eye twitching beneath his monstrous gas-mask, “The fok. UP.”

He fired the pipebomb launcher under his MG2019. Now that was HLF-made. Like many members, he’d attached spikes to both ends of his pipebombs. When fired, the pipebomb embedded itself in the purple unicorn’s throat. Gasping, choking and wheezing, he tried to telekinetically pull it out. Friends, fellow ‘converts’, rushed to his aid like lemmings, bringing willing hooves and magic to stem the blee-

!!CRACK!!

The pipebomb exploded, vaporizing the newfoal teen’s head. Surfing the blast wave, nails and shrapnel flew out, ripping through flesh and bark alike. Shredded wood became more deadly debris, expanding the kill-zone to encompass an entire corner of the camp.

It was madness, and Kraber loved it, thrived in it. The trees were a canvas he and his own had painted red with blood, and the beautiful musical screams of the foe were his orchestra. Even the rising smoke of the fires gained a touch of art, pierced by the first rays of dawn. This was his stage, and he was the maestro. Every bullet, every explosion, everything was making one of the invaders, one of those goddamned race-traitors suffer.

One nearby woman suddenly screeched in agony, a pained, heartfelt solo that drew his approving ear. She was clutching at her cheek - except, as Kraber now saw, she had no cheek left. Instead, blood was welling up from from a gash that extended all the way down to her neck. He could see her teeth through it, and with a single bullet blasted a complementary hole through her brainpan, to balance the whole. Oh man, her face was everywhere! It even got all over one of those ponies! That was hilarious!

Further tableaus were revealed to his awestruck eyes as he pressed further into the camp, acting as the lancehead of the assault.

A young human acolyte who had caught a directly spray of splinters, clutching at her mauled face, fingers probing empty eye-sockets in screaming terror? Damn! That was impressive! He’d have to try that again, he didn’t know that was possible! Had to keep the potion away from her, though - that’d be too easy for the bitch.

A PER pony who had taken a six-inch railroad spike from someone else’s launcher straight through a leg, convulsing as he bled out in vivid, arterial bursts? Transcendent!

Onwards he pressed, the unstoppable Kraber Express, critiquing each montage with blade and bullet. “I'm gonna track down your grandparents and turn them inside-out, nobody can stop the blood train that will turn your loved ones into a red splatter across the tracks of humanity!!” he yelled.

It was artistry in swords, a gale of guns.

And yet, despite all the spilled blood and wounds that should have killed anything with a sense of pain, the newfoals affiliated with the PER kept on coming, limping onwards on mangled stumps, blood, tears and splitt comingling as they fought into their death-throes.

Let them come! Let them fokking come! He’d rip them apart, make them pay for what they’d done! MAKE! THEM! PAY!

“DON’T DROP THE SOAP IN THIS LEAD SHOWER!” he roared.

The frenzy ascended mountains of violence. Kneecaps were shattered and limbs split, faces while ground against blood-stained rocks. The blood was the life, and today it flowed like sweet wine.

Kraber observed all this through the tinted lenses gas mask, smiling at his handiwork. Beside him, the HLF, his brothers and sisters, whooped and hollered, hyping each other on.

“That’s Kraber for ya!” Emil could be heard to laugh, firing his own rifle into a squadron of airborne pegasus newfoals. The heavy rounds had fearsome penetrative power, punching straight through what looked like royal guard-issue armor and inflicting instant, catastrophic organ trauma. The newfoals were dead long before they hit the ground, and as their corpses dropped from the sky to burst like rotten fruit, the potion flasks they had been carrying rained down on the HLF.

Kraber was dimly aware of his friends being ponified, and vented his ire upon them with characteristic style.

“JOU FOKKIN SCUM BLIKSEM!” he yelled, firing again, shredding the line of newfoals as they struggled to hatch out of their old body-armor. “DON’T NEVER HANG AROUND UNDER A PEGASUS KILL-ZONE!”

It was a lesson that, sadly, none of those newfoals could ever put into practice, torn asunder as they were by the churning fire of his MG.

“GRENADES!” Lovikov suddenly yelled. “Unicorns and pegasai, three-o-clock!”

Without a word, Martineau, the thin French dancer (Ah, Martineau! Kraber thought) fired her homemade pipebomb launcher straight into the advancing unicorn phalanx, the two crude explosives shattering their magical shields, their formation, and their bodies, in a one-two goregasm.

“Kaboom,” she whispered.

Exploiting the opening she’d blasted, Lovikov sighted above a pegasus about to take off, and fired his own shotgun. Caught, the creature backflipped into a stall and crashed to the ground like a broken bird, blood pouring from every joint of his barding. Kraber laughed, realising that Lovikov’s rounds had gone right through one of the ‘sweet spot’ gaps in the pony’s barding, and ricocheted repeatedly off the inside of the armor plates, multiplying the internal damage to ludicrous levels. His organs were most likely paste.

Then, an earth pony, ‘stealthed’ by Equestrian magic so as to be invisible and inaudible save for the crunch of his hooves on the mulch, rushed at Kraber, jumping and pinning him, a potion flask in its mouth. Shit. Too close!

“DONKIE KONT!” Kraber roared, ripping a knife out of his shoulder holster, and slewed it in front of him in a quick ‘z’. The first pass connected with the phial, knocking it out of the newfoal’s mouth; the second and third tore open the abdomen and exposed the meaty innards within. Freed from the pony’s body cavity, steaming ropes of guts poured out over Kraber, bathing him in ichor.

Rising, daubed in blood and intestinal juice, he kicked the dying animal in the face.

“JOU FOKKIN POESNEUS!”

Then he stamped on the neck for good measure, and was rewarded with the crunchy sound of vertebrae collapsing.

FOKKING ponies.

Satisfied for the barest instant, Kraber turned, trying to find a fresh target. And he got one, though not one that he’d wanted.

“Emil...oh, fok.”

The potion phial he had struck away had burst on the young trooper’s flak-jacket, slathering his face and neck with purple squick. The resulting transformation was already well advanced, and what looked like a puddle of writhing, bubbling flesh was beginning to sprout fur and pull itself together...

“Poeskak!” Kraber cursed, as Emil completed the metamorphosis. Where the kid had been, there now stood a pink unicorn newfoal, blue energy already swirling around his horn as he warmed up a spell. Seeing this, the bearded man sighed, and picked up the youth’s dropped shotgun.

“Emil, I’m so sorry!” he said.

“Emil?” the newfoal asked, cocking his head and launching the spell as if cracking a whip. “I’m Pas de Deux now! Won’t you dance with m-”

Kraber easily sidestepped the clumsy bolt of magic, hefted the gun in one hand, and fired. Both barrels discharged together, and the newfoal’s face was shredded instantly by a hail of buckshot, fresh pelt and skin peeling away to expose white bone in a flash. Some of the shot penetrated all the way back into the brain cavity, terminating what passed for thought in the golem’s skull.

“I’m… so… so sorry,” Kraber whispered, as the still-smiling husk went ‘splat’ on the forest floor. He dropped the shotgun onto the corpse, which still twitched, as if something inside was fighting for life, the body unaware that its owner’s soul had already fled. Emil had been… well, he was a wonderful dancer, and such a great kisser. He and Kraber had shared many a night together, looking up at the stars, sometimes falling out the tent and rolling down a hill… and he had been able to make dishes slopped together from forest mushrooms, stolen butter, and meat of unidentifiable provenance feel utterly delicious.

He’d been a kind soul, except when it came to ponies.

When off the field, he’d been almost saintly. On it, he’d been a nightmare.

“GODDAMN HOERKIND PONIES!” Kraber screamed, spinning and bringing his new toy back up, muzzle already flashing.

The best way to honor Emil’s memory was to follow his example. And as he pasued to swap out a clip, Kraber quickly scanned the battlefield, and came to a delighted conclusion: the enemy was still trying to advance.

He smiled, despite himself. If this livestock wanted to wade into the meat-grinder, then he was happy to oblige. This was gonna be perfect.

Oh, so many ponies were going to die...

“MAKE WAY FOR SCHARNHORST!” Lovikov yelled.

Scharnhorst? Kraber thought. Scharnhorst?! Oh, f-

BRRRRRRRRRRBRRRZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

A sound like tearing fabric heralded the arrival of Scharnhorst, a true giant of a man in a woodland-camouflaged, armoured hazmat suit, over which he wore a hydraulic Kawasaki exoskeleton stolen from a PHL construction site. He needed the mechanical struts to support the weight of the immense General Dynamics minigun carried in his hands. ‘Liberated’ from the wreck of Mirai a beached Japanese cruiser, the 20mm leviathan fired depleted uranium rounds designed to shoot down inbound anti-ship missiles.

Against living targets, it was beyond lethal. Ponies caught in Scharnhost’s sights simply became burst of red paint. Entire trees were felled as his arc of fire swept across their trunks, the splintering crash of their fall harmonising with the chainsaw buzz of the gun.

There was a reason Scharnhorst had nicknamed it ‘The Lumberjack’. Now the motorised patriot was laughing like a madman behind his oxygen mask as he let off burst after burst, each pulse of bullets sounding like sheets of metal being ripped in half. Where he fired, ponies and PER died. Their own weapons, low-velocity shotguns firing slugs charged with potion simply burst on his armoured carapace. Even the few grenade launchers they had, launching potion-charges from frames identical to those on which the HLF’s pipebombs were mounted, were futile in the face of a man wearing enough kit to wade through a flamethrower’s spray without even getting singed.

“SCHARNHORST! SCHARNHORST” cheered the HLF fighters, and Kraber roared along with them.

‘Emil, oh poor Emil…oh he would have loved to see this!’ he mused to himself. ‘If only I’d been quicker! If only I’d saved him, like I had…’

The epiphany, when it came, was surprisingly gentle. It neither struck him like a blow or beat him around the heat. It was more like a wave that gently washed over him, before running back out through a metaphoric hole in his gullet.

And with it went all of his rage and fire, leaving him naked and empty, alone with himself in the dark nadir of the soul.

Who had he saved recently, if he was honest with himself? Prisoners, maybe, but… had he been heroic? Had he left someone thinking “I am genuinely grateful for this man’s existence?” Had he felt satisfied for saving someone?

Not… recently. He’d killed ponies.

But… somehow that didn’t feel like enough, he thought, even as he watched Scharnhorst mow the newfoals down.

The forest blazed, and the troopers roared.

It was the height of summer, he was wearing full body armor, and yet Viktor suddenly felt cold...

What remained of the HLF had finally made it to the PER camp, thank to Scharnhorst and Kraber’s efforts. They had paid in blood and treasure to spells and ponification, but they had arrived.

Now for the part Kraber had been most looking forward to.

“Kwaai,” he said, slapping Scharnhorst on the back as he stared at the remaining tents and clapboard structures. The armored man-mountain looked at him in confused, childlike bemusement.

“Blanchett?” Lovikov called to a woman whose face was coarsely scarred from a unicorn’s fireball. In response, she produced several molotov cocktails and began distributing them. Kraber pulled out his lighter, smirking as the flame flickered into life. He placed it to the tip of the old beer bottle until the scrap of rag that served as a wick caught alight, and then tossed into the entrance of one a tent. Oh, these konts were going to fokking burn.

His squadmates did the same, setting the whole camp ablaze. The flames burst and spread, lighting the tents from the inside. Kraber watched the diffused glow closely, waiting...

“You sons of bitches!” screamed a woman, who staggered out of the tent, flames licking up the back of her jacket. She had a vial of potion in one hand. “You-”

Lovikov shot her in the head with his Lolife pistol. All around them, more tents were burning, and had Kraber not been wearing a gas mask, he would have savoured the wonderfully sweet aroma of cooking flesh. All the horsefuckers, the goddamn race-traitors and betrayers, the merry-go-round toys were burning to death.

Not exactly an ironically fitting punishment, but not an undeserved one either.

More screams, the squeals of ponies and humans burning alive. Good.

“HELP!”

A discordant note, an interruption that ran against the music of the anguished cries. Everybody snapped to alert, weapons out and scanning the area.

“HELP!” the voice yelled again. “They’ve got us in the tunnels!”

Using handsignals to communicate, Lovikov pointed towards the bluffs at the back of the old mining camp. There was certainly at least one adit back there, the kind of easily-guarded hole that was perfect for holding prisoners…

Following the Russian officer’s silent commands, the unit split into fire-teams, using the ruins of the old mineyard to flank and approach the foot of the slope. As he moved, Viktor holstered his lovely new MG and unlimbered his shotgun. It consisted of two Mossberg pump-actions that had been welded together. Answering a nod from Lovikov with a small salute, he approached first. Just as insurance, he’d already changed the filter on his gas mask.

“Please!” the voice called out.

“You heard the guns!” another chimed in. “They’re here to save us!”

This speaker sounded younger. Like a child. Oh, if the PER had taken child prisoners, he was gonna slaughter whoever was left.

“Shut up!” someone else yelled, and there was the sound of a hoof against flesh.

Kraber kept his silence as he rounded the back of a crumbled assay office, looking towards where a rock-hewn adit tunnel opened into the yard. A single unicorn newfoal was standing guard, and immediately spun towards Kraber, casting clumsy spells. They were easily dodged, but the newfoal’s focus on the South African gave a Front sister the perfect opening to slip in behind the beast and snap its neck between two gloved hands.

“Nicely done,” approved Lovikov. “Guard down, without expending any ammo.”

Viktor however had already moved to take cover at the entrance to the mine tunnel, and was cautiously shining a torch down it with one hand while cradling the double-Mossberg in the other.

“Sound off!” he called. “If you’re prisoners, identify yourselves!”

“Yes! They’re holding us captive!”

“Silence!” screamed an incoherent voice, and Kraber winced.

“How many are guards are in there with you?” he demanded, ignoring the guard’s protestations.

“Only the two! He-ARGH!”

The sound of a body being beaten gave the needed opportunity. While the guard was engaged with beating his prisoners, Kraber threw himself out of cover and sprinted down the tunnel. His eyes did not have time to adjust to the dark, but there was no need, not from the pocket of light cast by the horn of a male unicorn as he laid into his victim with a levitated crowbar. A female stood beside him, a phial of potion in her mouth. His focus entirely on the stallion, Kraber ignored the mare, whose head exploded courtesy of a well-placed sniper round fired down from the tunnel mouth.

The ‘CRACK’ of the bullet was deafening in the closed space, but not as loud as the smash as Kraber brought his shotgun’s stock down on the stallion’s head. The animal ducked at the last second, rolling aside so that the swipe missed him. The glaze of his wide, almost swollen-to-bursting eyes told his entire story: newfoal.

“They deserved it!” he shrieked. “You’re all apes, monsters, and-”

“I don’t fokking have time for this, jou bliksem,” Kraber sighed, kicking it in the face. The horizontal adit was plunged into darkness as the light of newfoal’s horn was snuffed out, but the Afrikaner heard his opponent landing at his feet, and grabbed it by the tail.

With little pause, he dragged the unconscious beast out into the open air and pressed the snout of the double-shotgun into the soft vicinity of its sheathed genitals.

D-DHOOM!

He fired with both barrels. Everything below the pony’s ribcage simply vanished, leaving the approach cutting to the adit slick with blood and viscera. The hindlegs flew off in separate directions, slamming into the rock walls with wet, meaty thumps. Ignoring the explosion of blood, Kraber reloaded the gun and, turning, returned inside the mine...

...only to find a stunned Lovikov.

“Where’s the prisoners?” Viktor grunted, before the wannabe-zampolit pointed with his torch at a few silent figures cowering against the rough-hewn side of the tunnel.

Ponies.

The beam of light illuminated a stallion and a mare, along with three little foals. They were crying, miserable beyond all belief. ‘Mutilated’ was a mild word to describe what had been done to them. The walls of their hooves had been peeled away, leaving bloody nubs of soft tissue on which it would be impossible to walk. Each equine was covered in the scum of their own tears, shit, spit and blood, leaving them so filthy that Kraber couldn’t even tell what color they had been when they’d come out of the womb. Their cutie marks had been cut off, wings clipped back to the bone, and their horns chiselled away.

And worst of all was their silence. You could see the pain and grief in their eyes, but they could not vocalise it. They had been systemically traumatized beyond even screaming.

“P...pliss,” whispered the stallion. “I… am PHL. I am important to them.”

He repeated the words, almost as if it was a mantra. Time and again he spoke, invoking the name of the Ponies for Human Life as if it was an invocation, a warding spell of protection.

And Kraber? Kraber...

...did not kill them. No, instead he shot ‘Comrade Lovikov’ in the balls and bitchslapped Blanchett to the ground with the gun. Then he’d carried the stricken family to a getaway vehicle and driven them to safety.

...yes, that was it. He’d run away with them, and joined the PHL. Repentant, he had patched up refugees as a trauma surgeon, once more devoting himself to life and healing rather than death and destruction. He’d risen high. He’d crippled the HLF by bringing along plenty of other disaffected ‘reformists’, which essentially ripped out their conscience, but made them desperate enough to do downright stupid things. At the end, the HLF would just be a hate group, trusted by few and reduced to such terrible actions that they’d be guaranteed little (if any) sympathy. Oakes would be dead, Birch would be dead too, and maybe - just maybe - he’d helped people.

He’d been skilled, and gifted, and gained enough traction as the resident ‘House, MD’ to convince command to finance the medical radio drama he’d longed to create...a dream that he nurtured from the day when Miranda Severance (who worked at PHL biology now, didn’t she?) linked him to a version of episode 19 of Night Vale, with Kevin and Cecil’s reactions synched up to show the contrast between them. And maybe, just maybe, using the traction he’d gained from that after the barrier somehow fell

how was it going to fall?

he’d be able to finance a movie about his life, maybe directed by Ilya Naishuller, maybe by Neil Blomkamp. And he’d be played by Sharlto Copley, of course… and vice versa.

He’d taught himself to draw, to paint and write. He’d given himself over to reinvent himself, to be anything other than the bastard who shot prisoners-

No. That was a lie.

What Kraber had done, what he had really done, was laugh hysterically.

Yeah. Confronted with that brutalised family of newfoals, he had laughed, and mocked the father’s ‘words of power’ as he and Lovikov dragged them out into daylight...

They’d killed the foals first, with Scharnhorst tossing them into the air for Kraber and Lovikov to test their marksmanship on moving targets, like skeet-shooting.

One daughter, a pegasus, had tried to fly away with her tattered wings, and the crunch she made as she hit the ground had been hilarious.

None of them screamed. Even then, none of them had made so much as a sound. That had been a little disappointing. They might have had the good grace to make things as amusing as possible.

So Kraber had filled the silence by laughing. When it was time to execute the parents, he’d done it personally, admiring the pretty rorschach patterns the sprays of blood had made against the rock and dirt.

Amd he’d relished every second, gleefully slaughtering each of the invaders. Each of the spies. Each of the fuckers - or buckers, that’s how they said it, ja? - that had brutalised and persecuted mankind, abused human trust and exploited human kindness.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

The mare and the stallion he’d killed slowly, placing a bullet in each limb and then gradually working his way up through the abdomen to the neck. Blanchett had taken comparative notes, and expressed surprise when the stallion refused to die from blood-loss alone.

No, finishing that bastard off had required one last slug right in the socket that had housed his horn. The rage, the betrayal, and condemnation in his eyes as he stared up at Kraber had been striking, not just for its sheer intensity, but for how impotent it had been…

...as Kraber proved when he’d laughed one last time and pulled the trigger.

BANG!

He’d gone into the camp skop, skiet, and donner, he had completed his slaughter of that familiar with a laugh, and a contemptuous kick.

Which was only natural, of course. They were ponies, they were the invaders, they’d destroyed the world and killed billions….

At least, that was what he told himself, for the longest time.

“But his soul was mad. Being alone in the wilderness, it had looked within itself and, by heavens I tell you, it had gone mad.”

“Viktor…. We’re still newfoals, Viktor,” said the equine in the other end of the canoe. It was a grotesque thing, covered in blood and eyes full of worms, one foreleg missing, a jagged stump where there should have been a horn.

Kraber shook his head as he paddled the canoe across the Umbagog. Aside from himself, it was empty...burdened down only with himself, and the colossal weight of his thoughts.

His treacherous, worrisome thoughts...

On that morning back at the mine, all that he’d done had seemed natural. At the been he’d been unable to understand how the PHL could side with the goddamn kickstands.

Oh, how the narrative he’d built for himself had seemed so simple, so logical and right. Each morning he would wake up, strap on his guns, and maybe squeeze in some target practice, wasting as little of their precious ammunition ammunition as possible.

His entire mind was set to the destruction of the ponies. His moments of relaxation, when he attempted to write, or teach himself to draw, were the only interludes he allowed himself from that focus, that lodestone of his being. But those moments did not bring him peace, no, only quietude.

Peace was what he got gesuip for, drunk to all hell. And the killing, that brought him peace too, in the knowledge that he was fulfilling his purpose.

Yes, the life of Viktor M. Kraber followed a simple creed: ponies and traitors were targets, humans who did not associate with them were heroes. Simple.

But then… Emil had died. And that family of ponies had died. Some of his friends had been ponified, again, and he’d been forced to kill them, again.

He’d laughed at the mine, laughed to fill the silence of the foals. But as they’d driven back to Defiance, old shadows had pressed into his mind. That night, not for the first time in a while, he hadn’t been sure...

When they’d returned from slaughtering everyone in that PER camp, Kraber had been sullen, quiet, withdrawn. He’d been thinking, turning towards introspection when normally he’d at this point been searching for some rotgut to quell the unease, to sink into drunken, unquestioning peace, free of doubts.

Not that night. There’d been an accident at the stills earlier in the week and three people were consequently missing limbs and various digits. The base command had consequently put a freeze on the production of liquor, and in true Prohibition-style, those who had some hoarded stocks of booze to trade had boosted their ‘prices’ to astronomical highs.

With two days the cheaper stuff was gone, and by the day of the attack at the mine, the last sips of 200-proof had been traded for twelve full mags of hollow-point ammo and a satchel of grenades. Consequently, Viktor was now going cold-turkey on his doubts, and he was not alone. Morale in Defiance was plummeting like a sub in a crash dive.

So, Captain Lovikov had suggested setting up a temporary checkpoint ‘over on the highway’, to let some of the troops vent off their frustration, and maybe even ‘salvage’ some useful supplies.

That was how Kraber’s path had crossed with that of the car driven by a pony-pounder. He’d opened the trunk and discovered the mare and the filly hiding inside, and then…

‘...a simple creed. Ponies and traitors are targets...’

Staring down at that foal, finger on the trigger of his revolver, things had suddenly seemed not so simple. He’d tried to fire. Tried to call out what he had discovered, but…he’d not had it in him. He later swore that he’d seen Kate and Anka (not Peter, oddly enough) looking back at him from behind the eyes of those ponies.

It was not quite a hallucination. It had felt, for a moment, as if his family weren’t ponified, as if he’d somehow stepped into a different universe, where they were still alive.

And in that moment, the filly had transfixed him in the light of her pity. He was not ready for that, an expression so much deeper than the shallow, unseeing joy of newfoals. Not even the dead, worm-filled eyes that dominated his dreams had held such power.

Through the eyes of a child, his had seen his family, and they had been disappointed in him. Forgiving, yes, but still disappointed.

And pitying him.

Somehow, that was even worse. He didn't know why - wouldn’t Kate and Anka want him to avenge them? Still… at least he wasn’t-

-inflicting the same anguish that he’d suffered through?

No. Couldn’t think that way-they were the Enemy and they-

-deserved to experience the same horrors that they’d dealt, deserved to see their children die in misery, just like every boy and girl who suffered? Just like him?

Yes! Yes they deserved it! That was justice! An eye for an eye, a limb for a limb-

-and so everyone ends up blind and crippled.

NO!

He’d tried to stem down those disloyal chains of thought. That kind of thinking put you in with the ponypounders.

Was it any wonder that, with no respite in the depths of a bottle, he’d needed to get away and think.

So, he’d volunteered for Lake Patrol, which consisted of taking a kayak out to the islands in Lake Umbagog and checking for any ‘unwanted guests’. It promised a solitude in which he could wrestle his mind into line, and even better, was a full 40-minute drive away from Defiance. So, after covering the ground in one of the Front’s kitbashed ‘roadsters’, something that looked like a nightmare from out of Mad Max, he paddled out into the placid lake, making for one of the islands near the mouth of the Magalloway.

It was almost like paid leave (as if any of the HLF’s soldiers expected financial remuneration for their services, and pay was a sketchy thing in the HLF. You could get anything in return for a job, be it a little cash, bullets, a gun, food), but he’d needed a day to himself, and time to try and find some accord between his warring doubts and drives. Command had been surprised at his volunteering for Lake Patrol, but who were they to disagree with one of the best surgeons in camp, and the man with the best gun that didn’t require Scharnhorst’s exoskeleton to heft? Upon returning, no doubt he’d be the murder machine they all expected him to be, screaming something about meat and fluid, but for now…

...now he could just try and find some peace, in nature’s magnificent desolation.

But as he’d paddled out across the mirror-calm, misty waters, he’d found himself plagued again by the thoughts, and confronted with the grotesquely animated newfoal from his nightmares.

He tried to ignore it, focusing instead on the beauty of his surroundings. By contrast Defiance was an ugly, sprawling collection of tents and vrek. But...he always loved open spaces, and this lake was one of the most unspoiled.

‘You can almost see the PER’s point, can’t you. Look at this serenity...’

He stamped those doubts down, even as the hallucinatory newfoal in the prow of the kayak smirked at him. And yet, yes, what he loved so much about Lake Umbagog was the lack of people - there were no ugly McMansions cluttering up the shore, no restaurants selling terrible fried seafood, buffalo wings or bear cla-

‘Bear!’

Oh, yeah! There was an actual black bear over there on one island, a young adult that had climbed up into the canopy of a tree. He snapped a photo of it on his phone, but did not reach for the .50 revolver at his hip. Unlike their grizzly cousins further west, Ursus Americanus rarely confronted humans.

”So unlike yourself, huh Viktor?” mocked the dead pony, slumped back with one bloody hoof dangling in the water. ”Is that what you are, an animal that lashes back because it was hurt? A machine following primitive code? Hah! You’re nothing more a newfoal on two legs…”

Kraber wanted to shoot that newfoal so much. But, trying to calm himself, he watched the bear in silence, wondering what'd happen if it touched the Barrier. Reports of what happened to earth animals were rather...inconclusive. They didn't seem to like it, but they could usually survive.

Usually. The higher primates, genetically closed to humans, were an exception, unable to survive the passage, and apparently some of the more intelligent marine mammals were the same way. But Africa's diverse wildlife had survived, anyway...and apparently thrived.

”Lions, Tigers and Krabers, oh my!”

But it never lasted...he’d read enough stolen intelligence reports to know that Equestria were ruthlessly ‘pacifying’ their new colonial possessions.

“The White Mare’s Burden…”

There were descriptions of thousand-pony safaris, and prescribed fires all across the Congo, clearing lands for agriculture and settlement...

”You don’t like considering that, do you...the chimps and the dolphins dying, the decimation of the jungles...because then this war becomes an attack against all sapient life, and it’s not just humans being targeted…”

Shut up. Shut up. He tried to focus on other thoughts, focused on the bear - idly he considered if it had a family...

“...and that means the PHL have a point…”

Family. Oh God.

The memories flooded back. Memories of that filly and her mother, of those ponies in the mine…

And of his own family, Kate, Peter and Anka welcoming him back after work. Not like some picture perfect vision of family life but in a way that was real and genuine...Kate calling out a greeting as she chatted with friends on the phone, Peter nodding ‘hi’ as he played videogames.

All the feelings and emotions that he’d tried to compartmentalise and push away, they all came back. Those were the years that, while strenuous beyond belief, had been his best.

And then he remembered that clown laughing… that mank genaaide bergbok Pinkie Pie...the giggles of the things that had been his beautiful children.

The rage flared again, a familiar drug that he latched onto for a second, only for his grasp to slip through it like smoke…

And he understood...and lashed out in denial.

“Don’t fight it!” said the newfoal, but this time it sounded remorseful, and sad. “Don’t deny it Viktor, accept that truth!”

The truth…

His stomach suddenly lurched, and he leaned over the side of the canoe, breathing heavily. He managed to keep the vomit down, but looking down into the water, into his reflection…

...he saw that filly, the one he had let escape.

She’d pitied him, yes. But there had been something else in those eyes, something he saw in his own every day.

Fear, and hate. Hate and rage against injustice, against the monster stealing away everything wonderful and good.

Now he was looking down into Pinkie Pie’s face reflected in the water...

That was the truth. He’d become the monster.

Shaking, he pulled himself upright, and hugged himself closely. He was shaking, almost catatonic with shock.

Despite everything, it was perhaps the most lucid he had been in weeks, months, or even years...

Shivering, his eyes drifted towards the island, where the bear had climbed down from the tree, and was walking away into the scrub. For a second it glanced back, and Viktor did not know what to make of its melancholy expression.

Why did he care? Why was that important to him? What was it in the bear’s mournful eyes that spoke to him?

“Oh, Viktor”, sighed the dead newfoal. ”Where’d you go so wrong?”

This time, it had spoken in Kate’s voice.

“I found myself back in the sepulchral city, resenting the sight of people hurrying through the streets to filch a little money from each other, to devour their infamous cookery, to gulp their unwholesome beer, to dream their insignificant and silly dreams. They trespassed upon my thoughts…”

Author's Notes:

Experimenting to see if I can move chapters around a bit without automatically shunting them to the bottom. This is just a test.

Burn My Shadow / Nightmare

In the city that pretends not to sleep
I've been having maddening dreams
And I certainly hope that they weren't of the prophetic kind
'Cause my mind ain't ready for the apocalypse
Biting Elbows, 'The Present'

It was towards sixteen hundred hours that he came back to Defiance, to the smells of body odor, roasting fish, meat of uncertain provenance, and the ever-present camp stew. Scharnhost, when he wasn’t felling foe and foal with ‘The Lumberjack’, was a surprisingly good cook, and always had something simmering away, ready for anyone to take a bowl of.

Viktor did so, and with his stew in hand, he staggered onwards into the camp, further up the proverbial river, boats against the current, deeper into the heart of darkness.

He was welcomed with all kinds of stories in the languages of dead nations. A group of children, wearing rags and holding looted, near-destroyed toys, all of them armed, wearing kalashnikovs, bullpups, and bullpup kalashnikovs on their backs. Behind them followed Mariesa, a woman everyone simply called ‘mother mary’. Kraber idly wondered how many of those kids knew or could remember anything before the War. He understood the need for child soldiers, yes, but he always felt uneasy at the sight of it. None of them, he thought, desperately trying not to convince himself that Peter and Anka might still be alive-

dead they’re dead you killed them you kontgesig you horrible father you kiddie rapist

-would be able to live a normal life after all this. If any of them could go back. If there would be anything left at the end of it all. A kid… deserved a chance to be a kid. These children wouldn’t have that.

Thanks to Burakgazi, his lover from way back when, Kraber’s turkish was passable, so he could understand yet another rendition of the story of Old Skinner, some lone HLF man who’d allegedly accomplished feats that were downright impossible.

“They say he took potion to the face and lived - ordered someone to cut off half his cheek with a knife. They say he once took a PHL outpost by himself. They say he wears a coat of pony leather, the cutie marks all facing outwards… and I know a friend, right? Says he saw him...”

More mutterings.

“I heard he can command any HLF brigade he sees fit...”

Other stories.

More myths. Ever-greater fables spun from lies and half-truths.

“I say we get rid of Kraber’s gun,” said one African man, a newcomer from one of the cities on the Gold Coast, before realizing, rather abruptly, that Kraber could understand him.

“It’s PHL. It’s magic,” he continued defensively, struggling to meet Kraber’s gaze. “We can’t trust it.”

“You fokking want it then?” Kraber asked, raising the LMG, pointing it in his direction, eyebrows narrowed. “Go ahead. Take it, kontgesig.”

The man held up his hands, backing away slowly.

“Yeah, that’s what I fokking thought,” Kraber said. Fokking vultures.... couldn’t see a good thing if it cock-slapped them in the face.

(And Kraber does, in fact, later realize the hypocrisy, the absurdity of this sentence as he tells you this story, groaning.)

He hears so many stories as he walks through the shanty-town, stew in hand. But one caught his ear, most of all.

“So,” said one man, this one American. Probably had never seen the Barrier. “I’ve been talking to Farnowitz. He’s out in the woods by the Balsams-has a job there. Says he saw four ponies up there in Colebrook, sharing a room in some B&B, with two humans…”

Kraber knew the name Farnowitz, and struggled to put a face to it. At least he remembered a twitching, nervous man with green eyes, a huge widows peak, and stringy blond hair. The two of them occasionally met whenever Kraber was deputised to run up to a drop-point near Colebrook, to trade supplies with individuals sympathetic to the Cause. Farnowitz was one of those sympathisers: he was nice enough, and he knew guns, but… being honest, he was something of a moegoe. Not enough of a believer to join them in Hooverville-Defiance, too set in his ways to leave his hometown, not good for espionage. Die man is te flou. Still, HLF life wasn’t for everyone.

“Disgusting, I bet they were fucking each other last night,” said the American’s friend, a kid.

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” the first guy said. “We probably just missed them at one of the checkpoints!”

For emphasis, he slapped himself on the forehead.

“Farnowitz remember the humans with them?” the second man asked.

“He said… a woman with hair dyed about five colors, and a short man with a pompadour, an assault rifle, and a revolver. The ponies, though… one of the mares had a telescope mark, another had a mark that looked like ballet shoes. ”

Kraber froze, ever so slightly, feeling conflicted.

’The filly and the mare from last night.’

Did he feel glad they were alright? Angry that they’d lived?

“So these guys were PHL?” the second man asked. “God DAMMIT! How’d we let something like that slip through their territory?”

PHL. He’d… he’d let PHL survive.

The HLF’s sworn enemies.

The horsefuckers. Thousands of obscenities directed at them, for merely collaborating with the monsters that had killed his family, rushed through his head.

’At least nobody’s going to get ponified, anyway…’, he told himself. At least he could tell himself that.

“I say we roll into Colebrook and kill ‘em all,” the first man said.

“I think that’s a befok idea," Kraber put in, to everyone's surprise, not least his own.

"What'd you say, horsef-" the second man said, raising a fist before turning and realizing just who he'd disagreed with.

“I said that's a terrible idea," Kraber said.

"I know what you said," the first man said. Many of them had gotten used to Kraber's use of South African slang. Besides, 'befok' was easily translated. "You going horsefucker, friend?"

“I have to repeat myself?" Kraber asked. "Think about it. Who the fok cares about Colebrook? It's the ass end of nowhere."

"...the hell are you getting at?"

"I'm saying it takes a lot of effort to move Defiance," Kraber said, studiously not thinking about how he'd be caught if that happened, and fearfully wondering what else Farnowitz might have seen or heard in Colebrook. "We do something that blatant, we fok ourselves over and paint a big neon sign on us. And why waste all that energy targeting four ponies, instead of something like an enemy base? Where’s the sense in that?”

He wasn’t worried about his reputation, but instead his life. If anyone learned just who had let those ponies go...well it wouldn’t be good.

“No. You have to think bigger,” he continued. “You think big…. you can kill a whole lot more of them than just four, with the right mindset.”

He headed back to his tent, striding through Defiance to make his way to his bunker.

‘The right mindset?’ What a joke.

As it happened, Defiance wasn’t intended to be permanent, despite the fact that many of the more solid structures used the old logging camp as foundations. But 'Intended' was the key word - you could move it, but the camp had just sprawled so much that at this point it almost seemed to have put down roots.

Calling it a ‘city’ would have been a misnomer, but it was the largest gathering of HLF in the eastern U.S. It was a destination, dammit. Sometimes other HLF brigades, traveling in while disguised as civilian backpackers or refugees, stumbled in, pitched their tents and Defiance grew just a little bit more. There were plenty of disgrunted people ready to join ‘The Cause’ after all, and government forces and local police couldn’t keep track of them all.

The result was an anthill of tents, shacks, dugouts and huts, sprawling across almost a square mile. The encampment was also a damned weapon museum’s worth of firearms. While many of them of the more ‘regular’ fighters favored guns chambered for absurd, enormous rounds like .50 Beowulf, or rechambered shotguns, those were in low supply and parceled out to members with seniority. As well as the lottery of firearms brought in by new arrivals, there were a lot of homebrewed weapons, as well as various others stolen from everywhere in Europe and all over eastern America-the HLF was desperate for anything that would fire. If someone was unlucky enough to get a .22LR or some other gun incredibly unsuited to newfoal killing, they were advised to take something from the corpse of one of their compatriots.

Besides… even as Kraber hated Defiance and the way its ugliness was imposed on the forest all around, he liked what it stood for. You couldn’t trust government these days, and you couldn’t trust any organizations that had thrown their lot in with the ponies. There were a few countries that had done the right thing and joined with the HLF, but they were either absorbed by the Barrier, or taken over.

So, if your government was corrupt, a pawn of the enemy, and you were fighting against them from the wilderness, that meant…

That made you a partisan, didn’t it?

“Stop lying to yourself”, crooned the newfoal corpse in his voice, which now trotted beside him, trailing maggots and blood. “After what you went through today, do you still believe that?”

Did he? Kraber had been raised on stories from his great-grandmother about partisans in Poland, fighting with anything they could find that would fire, managing to take out tanks with grenades dropped down the hatches of tanks…. a stolen MG42, cutting apart Nazis in the forests. Old dugouts and crappy machine pistols made from scrapmetal, whatever could be found. Those stories had been just as much a part of his growth as boerewors, rock lobster, hoernerpastei, ice cream, pear pie, mom’s chocolate pepper cookies, and malva pudding.

...He’d been a skraal kid. But almost everywhere, he saw something reminding him of those stories. He had a stolen MG2019 that looked a lot like an MG42, just like grandma. He saw dugouts-again, just like those stories.

“And what became of them after the war, those Polish Partisans? There’s a reason they call those men ‘cursed soldiers’”

“That’s not the same - they still beat the Nazis…” he said under his breath. Nobody paid him any mind - first, he was Viktor Fokking Marius Kraber. Second, it was fairly common to have him mutter things under his breath.

“And ended up fighting Stalin’s occupational government...they had allies to help fight the obvious enemy, but then had to go it alone against the bigger bear...and they died.”

It was true of course. The last of the ‘cursed soldiers’ was killed in 1963, eighteen years after the official cease of hostilities. And all their efforts had been for naught - only the collapse of the bloated Soviet giant had brought about Polish independence.

Was that the Human Liberation Front’s fate, crushed underfoot while trying to take on every other faction at once, under-armed, outmoded, starving, left behind by the advance of war? He’d seen PHL weaponry on TV, and he’d learned in Agua Caliente that his MG2019 was only a prototype. That PHL R&D never slept, and soon this weapon, such an asset to him and the HLF, would be obsolete. Along with him. And everyone else here.

Oh, God. What’ll happen to us at Barrierfall? What’ll we be after a solid year of things getting worse?

But even through those doubts, those memories that plagued him… he couldn’t deny he was just like those heroes from his childhood stories. He was a partisan! He was like one of the ZOB members!

No matter how bad it got, that gave him strength as well as doubt.

And, far from going it alone, just look at the numbers they’d mustered just in Defiance. And there were plenty more brothers and sisters hidden away up here in New Hampshire. A mistake that most people outside the HLF made was to assume they were one single monolithic group. If they were, they could have killed off those goddamn horsefuckers and showed humanity how to really fight the ponies.

And they still could, right? All it would take was something to unify the movement. Something, someone...

(Later, when he tells this story, he’ll facepalms and sigh "Fok was I thinking?" The sad truth of the matter, he realizes, is that the HLF was not a threat. Rather, they were beneath notice. What with the end of the world and all.)

In terms of total force strength, there was actually... well, nobody was sure how many units were there. The remnants of the Menschabwehrfraktion were there, as were several others. There were two American units that made up most of the population, a lot of them ex-military, with quality equipment that a quartermaster had conveniently ‘misplaced’. However, there were remnants of numerous HLF units still in action across the world, some of which were even Swiss veterans from the very first days of the Barrier’s expansion.

Though the next day would be an interesting day. A meeting was scheduled with representatives from the Thenardier Guards. Kraber’s unit, or rather the agglomeration of units that called Defiance home, were decently famous, mostly thanks to him, but the Thenardiers were leagues and miles above them.

Apparently, this involved a very big plan.

Finding his tent, he waited, hoping that tomorrow would quell his doubts.

He tried his bowl of stew. It had gone cold.

“For a time I would feel I belonged still to a world of straightforward facts; but the feeling would not last long. Something would turn up to scare it away.”

What surprised far too many HLF members was that Kraber was, in fact, an educated man. So many people built him up as the ultimate psychopath, but… he was happy enough sitting in his tent, reading China Mieville, Irvine Welsh, Jeff Vandermeer, or Joseph Conrad.

He would get a lot of weird reactions for that. Of course he read. Why wouldn’t he? At the moment, he was reading Railsea. He had meant to reread Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, but something about the notoriously grim tale of a journey up the River Congo had alienated and terrified him as a boy, and still did.

And so he found himself engaged in Railsea. It was a silly plot, (some part of him inwardly giggled at his usage of the pony word for ‘flank’) about a world spanned with an ocean of rails, but he couldn’t help but read. Heh… That Apt Ohm. That had been really hard to get the first time he read the book.

Not for the first time, passing mentions of steam locomotives in Mieville’s fictional port of Manihiki, he found himself wondering about evacuation time. About winter. While he’d likely be overcome with rage soon enough, he did there weren’t that many routes around here. And the Barrier would likely force everyone into chokepoints through areas such as… say, Crawford Notch.

Which meant traffic. Congested roads, busy highways turned into parking lots, full of people trying to get and outrun the Barrier. He’d seen it before.

So, that left trains, then. Maybe steam locomotives? He knew they were rebuilding some of the old lines up here to assist in the evac. If the Barrier hadn’t stopped by-

“How are you going to stop the Barrier?” Kate asked, speaking from the mouth of his imagined newfoal. He tried to ignore it, instead running his finger along the text to narrow his focus.

“Viktor? Answer me. What can this mob do to stop the Barrier?”

As much as he wished otherwise, those words stimulated thoughts, dark thoughts that he did not want to unearth from the grave he had buried them deep within.

"Well..." he replied at last, struggling. “Clearly, there’ll be a… a...”

"Viktor… I'm not sure if there’s any plan for the Barrier. If you want to help people survive, maybe…you could work on the railroad. Do something to make sure people escape. You don’t have to kill them."

“I have to stay hidden!” Kraber argued. “And if I'm near one pony, one of those fokking invaders that destroyed our home - then they’ll kill me. Ponify me! They can’t be trusted!"

"Then why did you let those two live?" ‘Kate’ asked.

He missed talking to her like this, even if he was imagining it. But she raised a good point. Why hadn't he killed them? He should have just-

And once again that wave of unwanted emotions broke upon him.

Fok.

He didn’t need this shit. Kate was dead! But that voice was so close to him that it could have been right next to his ear.

His finger was on the trigger before he was even aware he was touching his revolver’s grip. He thumbed back the hammer, walking out of his tent, curious.

The dead newfoal had vanished, and with it the voice of his wife. Not entirely ready to accept that he was losing his mind he stalked all around the perimeter of the tent, staring out through the woods.

Had… had Kate asked him that? Somehow spoken to him. No, impossible - she was hundreds of miles and an entire universe away. Practically braindead!

But that didn’t mean that the possibility didn’t have merit. This was, after all, a world that now had magic in it...and her question nagged at him.

How could the Barrier be stopped? Honestly he didn’t know. The Front would all talk about a miracle, or ‘finding a way’, but none of them seemed to know if that miracle was some kind of nuclear warhead or God Himself smiting the Barrier. None of them seemed to have a plan beyond ‘kill every geldo in sight.’

The ponies wouldn't be a threat without that goddamn Barrier, and yet his attention was always on the continued reduction of the enemy’s numbers. He'd honestly never thought about the giant pink elephant looming over the horizon, except as something to run away from…

Run away...as he always had. Ran away from the Barrier, from his past, from his doubts and now from this all-important question: was he in this just for the killing, for the thrill of revenge? Had there ever been any deeper or nobler motive behind every time he had squeezed a trigger?

He didn’t know.

He didn’t think anyone in the Front did. It was all ‘find a way,’ or ‘kill as many ponies as possible’. There was some faint notion that the Barrier was tied to Celestia, so that killing her would collapse it. But how the fok were they supposed to kill Celestia, assuming she even left Canterlot? And if she did, how would he ever get close enough to shoot her? He’d need a Big Fokking Gun to damage her, and somehow he felt like everything here was inadequate. Maybe a .50 BMG, maybe a 20mm...

Nukes? Yeah, maybe. But how would they even get nukes? And he’d made a point of watching the Reykjavik footage released by the PHL, where the bitch’s lunar sibling had shot herself in the head. Princess Luna had been drained of her power, and yet a .45 ACP round didn’t even penetrate deeper than her skin. Would an atomic blast have even give her a tan?

And Celestia stood on a plinth compared to her sister, or so it was said.

If they couldn’t kill Celestia or bring down the Barrier, humanity was doomed. But in Kraber’s darker moments he honestly felt like the HLF would be forced into the Pacific before they could even get Celestia to bat an eye at them.

It was galling, as if she found them beneath her attention. How dare she! How dare they!

Being a partisan was about doing the right thing. It was about saving lives. So how the fok would Kraber do that?

It was just as he realized this, swilling in impotent rage, that Captain Lovikov came by, a .50 Beowulf rifle in hand. Almost instinctually, Kraber brought the revolver up at the sudden new target, before forcing his hand to lower back to his side.

What kind of impression had he just given, standing her in the open woods, pacing in circles with a gun in his hand?

“Kraber...Viktor,” Lovikov said, sitting down on a rock and gesturing for the Afrikaaner to do the same. “There’s some concerns circulating amongst Command. Concerns, that you might have certain… sympathies.”

“Whatever the fok’s given them that idea?” Kraber asked, spitting on the ground. He did not sit.

Lovikov had one hand on his Lolife. His hand was twitching.

“Your little sojourn on the lake today has confirmed the fact that you’re...politically unreliable…”

‘They had me followed!?’

“Oh, fok you,” Kraber said, right to Lovikov’s face, grip tightening on his own revolver. “Now. If you’re going to shoot me, I deserve to know why.”

“You defended ponies,” Lovikov said, far too certain, far too calm. “Not only that, but there’s been…mutterings, in Colebrook.”

“Yeah, I heard about Farnowtiz’s scuttlebut. What of it?”

“There’s more sympathetic eyes in Colebrook than just Farnowitz…” Lovikov said slowly, with forced calm. “We have ears too, and they tell us that some very interesting stories were being told in the Dancing Bear last night...it won’t be long before those stories percolate through into the general populace of Defiance.”

Neither man moved or spoke for a while, simply eyeing the other up. Aside from the distant mutters of the camp, all was silent save for the rustle of the trees.

“That woman you let through last night was PHL…” Lovikov said at last. There was no hint of question about it. “She had two ponies with her, and now they’ve hooked up with two more kickstands and a horsefucker.”

The Russian licked his lips.

“You’re going to have to make up for that, Viktor...we all have our ‘wobbles’, but when one of our best and most celebrated players falls like you have…”

Both of them slowly slid their attention to Kraber’s gun.

“What,” he sneered. “Do you expect me to fokkin’ ‘do the honorable thing’ and shoot myself?”

Lovikov’s hand twitched across his pistol’s handle.

“In so many words. How you go about it is your choice, but if you don’t, then one of us will do it for you. And then you’ll be celebrated for all time as a hero, a champion of mankind. You’ll have a legacy, status, and repuation…”

“And the only cost is my life?” Kraber sneered.

“Yes.” Lovikov responded with equal malice. “It’s only your status that has kept Command from ordering me to organise six men and take you behind the chemical shed to be shot.”

“And I bet you had the grave and the bag of quicklime ready too. What a fokkin’ privledge!”

“The Front is stronger than one man, Viktor…” Lovikov said cooly, and Kraber remembered that he was talking to a zealot with no fear of what lay beyond death. “Kill me and you won’t get half a mile before the men and women you’ve trained in slaughter turn those lessons back on you. So you can either die here and be remembered as a dog, or go out in a blaze of glory.”

“Fok jou,” Kraber said, the words far too steady, “I made a mistake. But Command-”

(”...Who was command?” you ask.

“Bunch of scared moegoe that’ve probably never gotten in a pehrer, enough power to make their own little fiefdoms but not enough sense to do something good,” Kraber answers. “I’ve no idea if Lovikov wasn’t just making shit up.”)

“-Command knows me. So blaze of glory it is.”

Without answering, Lovikov took his hand off the pistol, and walked away, wordlessly.

In his dreams, Kraber can smell the weed. He’s attending college in America, in Boston, before the war, before candy-colored equines from another universe proved to be the greatest threat to human existence, and he is deeply regretting everything. It's actually back in October.

As per fokking usual.

He’s regretting the wager he agreed to, the thing he’d suggested for his own bet, and the fact that he’d lost said bet.

And so, as a result, he’s stuck wearing a plump chicken costume. Made by taking a white leotard, wearing it over yellow tights, putting some wool batting around the leotard, putting on another white leotard over that, draping it in feather boas, and also wearing a pilot cap with a chicken’s comb sewn on. It’s just… it’s so silly. People are staring, but fok em, he’s gonna try and have fun. Cause what else can he do?

And then he sees this black girl… Kate! Oh, it’s Kate! He’s known Kate awhile. This summer, he’d been around her a lot, going to a couple anime conventions. She’d giggled at his cosplay of Sweet JP from Redline, he’d laughed at her jokes, she’d drawn him in to Milky Way and the Galaxy Girls... even showed him some of her comics. Jazmin Carter was a damn master! Something about how a lot of the comics she’d worked on emphasized family… it resonated with him.

So many happy memories from that van, driving across states to be among silly people that nonetheless shared the same interests.

She’s not gonna laugh at him, is she? He’s had his eye on her awhile, he wants her to like him, and Rick just isn’t all there anymore.

“Interesting costume,” Kate says. She’s dressed as a zebra, in a white unitard decorated with black stripes. She has a mohawk, and neck rings made of some faux-gold material.

“Oh, it’s…” Viktor pauses. “Huh. Yeah, it is! It’s like, ah, wearing a pillow.”

Why are you having such a hard time talking to her? he asks himself.

“I like your costume, by the way.”

“Really?” she asks. “Thanks! It was either that or one of those ‘sexy’ costumes and...” she looked down. “I hate those.”

“Yeah, me too,” Viktor agrees.

“You saying that just to agree?” Kate asks.

“Nah. They’re just… tasteless,” Viktor says, to Kate’s nodding. “I mean, ‘sexy baby?’ Who does that?!”

“That is so messed up,” Kate agrees. “Which is why I like yours! It looks like a girl’s costume, but you, you’re making a statement! You’re making it your own, and you put a lot of work into it…”

“I actually lost a bet,” Viktor admits.

“Well, wish I’d lost it,” Kate says, “Like I said, it looks comfy… and so much better than my roomie’s selection of halloween costumes. Aaaargh… if I ever get my hands on an assault rifle, like that Steyr AUG I wanted, I’d tear em to bits!”

“...your roommate or the costume?” Viktor asks. He doesn’t mind the mention of guns, too much. Over the summer, his American hosts had gotten invited to go shoot some weapons at the range. He’d gotten quite enthusiastic at the prospect, especially when they arrived and seen an AR-15 available for rent at only $20. He'd never shot an AR-15

Ammunition had been $10 a pack, and he’d laughed his ass off at the safety warning on the back of the packaging: may result in exposure to lead.

And then, after trying his hand at the shooting butts with the rifle and his host’s Browning 9mm, a random bystander had noticed they were having fun and invited them to shoot a Kalashnikov, only for a bit of a shock as Kraber had been excellent. The kick from that had left some serious bruising on his shoulder, but it turned out he’d been a good shot even after all those years.

Yeah, it had been a really fun afternoon.

Fun, but not something he'd like to throw himself into. While his father had been military, and he had gotten to shoot old Galils, Mausers, and .45s Viktor personally disliked the idea of a gun-culture like the Americans had. That had been driven home when his hosts had driven him round to the local Cabelas - the sight of an entire wall of firearms in a sports supply shop, with disturbingly enthusiastic sales assistants advising him on what models were best for ‘home defence’, based on penetrative death and stopping power, had left him feeling ill. From what he’d gathered, the gun industry in America ran on paranoia, which was just begging for a disaster. His dad? He'd respected guns. He'd never idealized them or treated them like anything but tools.

“...it depends on my mood,” Kate admits. “Andrea’s nice, but she’s just impossible sometimes.”

“My sympathies,” Viktor says, wincing. “Believe me, I know bad roommates. Which is why I don’t have one anymore!”

“Oh, she’s not-” Kate stops. “Wait. Didn’t you try to eat your last one?”

“It wasn’t my fault!” Viktor protests. “He was high! I was on PCP! It wasn’t what it looked like! He had mescaline in his balls! It was self defense! He was a fokking kontgesig that said I was pregnant!”

Kate stifles a giggle. “Which one?”

“...yes,” Viktor says, looking off to the side. “Man, Sheja Rutabiyiro. What a hoerkind. Ek hoop hy breek sy spier van plesier af in 'n goedkoop hoer en sterf van bloed verlies.”

“I’mma just assume those were insults,” Kate says. “I mean, he was an asshole, but… What?”

“You don’t want to know what I just said,” Viktor says.

“You’ll have to teach me some Afrikaans sometime,” she says lightly. “It sounds like a beautiful language.”

“You’re right. It is beautiful,” Viktor admits. “Not as beautiful as you though.”

It just slips out, the cheesiest come-on possible, and Kate dissolves into laughter. His self-esteem crumbles with every second, until, through her breathless peals, she manages to speak the four most wonderful words possible.

“Did you mean that?”

And Viktor finds out that he does, and tells her so, a smile on his face. They get to talking, talking moves on to walking together, and suddenly the costume doesn’t feel so bad.

Suddenly the two of them are dancing, the woman dressed as the zebra and the man dressed in the… ugh, he can’t say this with a straight face…. chicken costume, which suddenly feels like his best outfit ever.

“Aha!” Kate says at one point, a smile on her face, “Got you liking it! Yellow is a good fit for a coward who murders ponies and can’t even realize whAt… he... Is...”

Wait, what the fok?!

“Kate… what did that have to do with…” his voice trails off.

And Viktor comes to the worst realisation possible.

‘Wait, shit, I’m dreaming. Ain’t I?’

And everything crumbles apart and falls to nothing.

Having sex in the back of Kate’s old car, the horrible realization afterwards that Viktor is 19… while Kate has only just turned 17. Nearly five months later, near Viktor’s birthday and premature, their children are born. Kind of sickly, both born with autism, but as parents, the two of them love their children. What decent parent wouldn’t? No potion from PER members, no ‘miracle treatments,’ no therapists for autism that just end up treating his kids like they’re retarded (Those kontgesigs! Kraber kicked one of them in the face, which made Peter giggle a little, and then he’d treated him to ice cream) can change that, and Kate and Viktor love them so much.

Kraber selfishly wishes that maybe he hadn’t talked to her, maybe he hadn’t lost the bet, maybe he hadn’t gone to Germany or that he’d stayed with Kate’s family. That he’d been anywhere, anywhere at all except…

Here.

It was Innsbruck again, in Austria. The Three Weeks of Blood have taken their toll, in that sanguine anarchic May of 2019, during the last days of the world as it was. You couldn’t walk a street in almost any city without something violent, some disruption of the peace. Ranging from minor demonstrations to....

Well…this. Ponies, most of them newfoals, lie splattered on the ground. Cars are overturned and wrecked, storefronts are shattered, and the fires are raging.

The violence has officially stopped, but things are still not settled. The word on the street is that Equestria has sealed up the Conversion Bureaus and their Consulates...in Innsbruck they were just a day too late.

Kraber saw to that. On May 20th he participated in blowing it all to hell, and revelled in it. It was his first action with the HLF, his baptism and launching ceremony.

And yet, even as he thumbs the detonator, he and Kate are still in the car, still making love, only for Viktor to suddenly realize Kate is a newfoal unicorn the color of maple leaves in fall. And as she continues to manically bounce on his thrusting crotch, she levitates a bottle of potion to him, her zebra costume discarded like a snake's skin. It is dripping blood, as if someone has meticulously skinned it from her.

He reaches for a knife and stabs her, ramming the blade down into her neck and barrel, into her eyes, anything to keep her from ponifying him. But on the tenth or eighteenth stab of the knife into her neck, she is suddenly human again. Blood is gushing from her neck. Viktor tries to stop the bleeding, applying pressure to the wound, but there's far to many cuts to stem, she's losing too much blood...

She looks up at him, pleading even as she looks betrayed. He pulls away from her in fear, and topples out of the bloodstained car, weighed down by his clanking HLF military kit.

More newfoals are coming. They wear bandoliers of potion, and leading them from the rear is that mank genaaide bergbok Pinkie Pie. He grabs a baseball bat, Kate's baseball bat, and runs out the door. The stolen revolver at his belt is heavy, the MG34 on his back so cumbersome. Newfoals are everywhere. He empties his LMG into them, screaming madly. He’s trying to make his way to cover and reload. If they get a drop of potion on him, or open up his mask, he’s fokked.

But when he gets a perfect shot in, a 7.92 round cutting through up to seven unshielded newfoals at once, dozens of maimed human flash into this place, expressions of agony on their faces. They glare at him in accusation, gurgling, hands over the wounds, blood pouring between their fingers.

FOK!

One pegasus with a cutie mark of a snowflake divebombs Kraber, and he pulls out Kate’s baseball bat and cracks its head, splattering brains and blood all over the wood. And, to his horror, there is a human woman on the ground, everything above the bridge of her nose simply pulped into a mass of red.

“Eh-haaaah,” she gurgles, trying to look up at him. “Eh-haaaaauuurhhhhh…” she points a finger.

He takes the 9mm semiauto pistol at his hip and fires into her skull, maybe as a mercy, maybe just to finish her off, and he sees one of the newfoals practically pounce on her and baste her in potion, watching her scream and scream, thrashing, her eyes growing so wide it looks like they will pop, her smile so wide it looks like it’ll split her face in half-

Kraber takes his eyes off her and runs. In the windows facing the street, he sees Pinkie Pie in place of his own reflection, the pink mare weighed down with all his equipment, burdened with his sins…

He throws open the door to a shop, finding a storekeeper with a homemade double-barreled shotgun standing next to a mare. The storekeeper is ready to fire at him. Acting on reflex, Kraber swings the bat at the threat, caving in the storekeeper’s head from the side, teeth and spittle flying to one side, a spray of blood from the mouth and nose, one eye about to pop out. In midair, it looks like the storekeeper changes, becoming a pony, and he looks angry, hatefully staring at Kraber, trying his best to damn him with only his eyes.

The mare, this one a violet pegasus with gray eyes and a black mane in a bobcut, screams, jumping at Kraber, but he’s faster. He rams his knife into her throat, and puts pressure down on the knife like a pry bar, a quick wet sound as he pulls it out….

Of a rather cute human woman’s throat. Her gray eyes are so sad, her bobcut covered in blood.

“No,” Kraber wants to whisper. “NO!”

She falls to the floor wordlessly. Kraber, noticing this, takes a shelf and throws it in front of the door to form a barrica-

FOK! There’s windows, that won’t work!

He rushes out the front door and exits into an hotel corridor. Now he’s running up a flight of stairs, trying to fit the ammo belt into the gun’s feed tray and slam down the cover. A human armed with potion-grenades jumps out, and Kraber switches to his shotgun, firing all four barrels into the the man’s abdomen, practically cutting him in half. There is blood everywhere, eating into the wood like acid.

I have burned my tomorrows
And I stand inside today
At the edge of the future
And my dreams all fade away…

He runs, careful not to touch the corpse.

Running away, always running away, down streets that blend architecture, styles and nationalities flowing like water. Austria to Turkey, all down the Mediterranean to Africa, then over to America, off in the distance....

Desperate to escape, he clambers down a fire escape, into a ship’s hold, finding himself before a burning storefront. A dull purple stallion rushes out, half on fire, and runs up to Kraber. His hooves rap on the riveted metal deck.

“Oh thank Celestia! You have to get me out of here! The newfoals, the ponies at the Conversion Bureau, they’ve gone crazy!” he stallion babbles. “They’re trying to ponify everyone, and the HLF are going nuts and-”

He looks up into Kraber’s eyes. “Oh Tartarus no.”

Kraber smashes Kate’s baseball bat against his head, knocking his snout to the pavement. Then he grabs the stallion by the neck, and throws him into the flames. For a moment, he sees a human face, burning, screaming in agony.

Two newfoals, a filly and a foal, dissolve out of from the hull walls and rush at him. Kraber fires his LMG in short controlled bursts like he learned in training, one for each of them. But, when the killing round hits them both…

They are Peter and Anka. Light, brownish skin, with Kraber’s not-quite-curly-but-full hair, Peter with his one eye and Anka in that same costume - a horse costume, what are the fokking odds - she had insisted on wearing for her birthday, giant bulletholes through her.

“Kill them,” says a voice, and he turns to see a furious young woman. She’s armoured like him, and has a shotgun holstered on her back and an assault rifle in her eyes.

“Kill them,” Verity Carter repeats. “They murdered the people we loved…that’s our creed, our mission, you fucking coward. YOU KILL ALL OF THEM!”

“I CAN’T!” Kraber yells back. “They’re my family, my children, they’re… I can’t kill… I’m not...”

And suddenly Verity is a pony. Dark brown coat, her hazel eyes ringed in blue.

“Kill them all! Kill me too!” she roars, vocal cords raw and pained. “Murder everything that ever hurt you, because we’re all just fucking animals. Laugh while you do it, laugh at them like you did for me, you bliksem! Your whole life is one poisoned JOKE!”

Anka coughs up blood, and stares up at Kraber. “...Why?” she whispers. “Why?”

“...Daddy?” Peter asks, looking up at him. “Why’d you do that? What’s happening?”

‘No,’ Kraber whispers/says/thinks, though he can hear no sound. ‘No… this… I didn’t do this! This hasn’t happened!’

But it will, he realizes. I’ll kill them. I’ll have to kill all of them, and there’s no way I can stop it.

He turns to scream at Verity, and finds her tight black ponytail of a mane has exploded into orgasmically pink coils. The warlike mare moans lewdly, and like an elastic band, springs into another new shape, one Viktor knows all too well.

“You might as well have killed them,” Pinkie Pie says, a manic gleam in her eyes, like that of a child pulling off the wings of a fly or roasting ants with a magnifying glass just because, like Kraber had always told Peter and Anka not to. “You invited me, didn’t you?”

Four newfoals grab Kraber, holding him down.

“You wanted me to plan the party, and I did!” Pinkie Pie says, all happy and bubbly, bouncing over to him, that gleam still in her eyes. “Yupperoony, I gave them the best present of all!”

“FOKKING KONTGESIG!” Kraber spits, struggling against the newfoals. “LET ME GO, YOU GODDAMNED FOKKING TWO-BIT HARIME NUI RIPOFF! I’LL RIP YOUR EYES OUT AND FEED THEM TO YOU!”

“Don’t be like that! Parties are supposed to make you happy, and they’re going to be happy, perfect, pretty little ponies forever!” Pinkie Pie laughs. “Why didn’t you take it?!”

“He was helping meeee!” chirps the one newfoal holding down Kraber’s right arm. Kraber recognizes him, somehow, a flicker of self-awareness, something screaming behind those wide glassy orbs fixated on something only newfoals could see. Echoing behind its words is a tortured and distorted howl of misery.

“Dietrich,” Kraber whispers. The boy. The boy he’d been helping. The one that had gotten drunk and made him work overtime. Oh God, he’d even failed at that…

“Yeah, I’ve talked to your foals, and they’re right, you are a failure!” Pinkie Pie says, so sickly-sweet, like someone that thinks they’re being nice by being cruel, but is just being condescending, made even worse by their obliviousness. “But if you’re a pony, well, you might just be better!”

“NO! FOK JOU, MAG DIE DUIWEL JOU HAAL, JOU BLIKSEM! GOTTVERDAMNT… FOK! JY NAAI JOU MA VIR SAKGELD, JOU NAAI!” Kraber screams, and suddenly, impossibly, he throws off the newfoals. He rushes at Pinkie Pie. “SLAAN JOU BINNE JOU MA SE POES, JOU FOKKIN TEEF!”

And suddenly, he realizes he’s naked. No clothes, no nothing, no knife.

Ah, what the hell.

He punches Pinkie Pie right in the face, enjoying the satisfying crack, ready to…

To…

Oh FOK! Oh God, oh fok, oh no! FOK! There’s… potion. It got on his back there’s no way to get it off-

“Just wait, you’ll be happy soon enough-”

He screams wordlessly, something that might have made sense in any one of the many languages he knows, and pounds his fists against her face. Over and over, until the fingers meld together and become hooves, even as something keeps on telling him he shouldn’t be doing this, she’s his rightful better, he’d be happier as a pony, no matter what happens, and even as his life flashes by he keeps pounding and pounding with both hooves, roaring and shrieking till his throat bleeds and runs dry, and he wishes that this could all end that he could just-wake…

“Hi there!” he squeaks, in a bright, feminine voice. “I’m the Pretty Private, Victory!”

He, no, she...what, no! What’s happening to herself?

“I’m your toy soldier…” he/she chirps again. “I’m a cutesy killer!”

Oh yes...being a ‘pretty private’, whatever that is, enthuses her even more, and intensifies the drive she has to keep punching the face of the disgusting, bearded human male beneath her! This is her creed, so simple and right! Kill and destroy them all!

They’re gonna scream, just like she did; open mouth, open heart, blood and noise forever piercing her skull, poisoning her with psychopathic purple liquid. She watched it all, and felt the knife edge split down the middle…

She can feel her nethers moistening in glee as she fulfils her purpose. Everything’s clear now, no more doubts, no more pain. She was forged to fight and fuck, to slay and suck! An animal without desires beyond primal rage and lust...

And she’s gonna serve her Queen, she’s gonna keep hitting him till she can squish his brains between her hooves-

fingers

LIKE A FOKKING SAUSAGE!

And his identity floods back in…He can’t stop the killing...

AND HE DOESN’T FOKKING WANT TO! HE’S GOING TO KEEP PUNCHING THE KAK OUT OF THIS PONY, RIP HER FOKKING THROAT OUT WITH HIS FOKKING TEETH, AND SPLATTER HER ACROSS THE TRACKS OF EXISTENCE! RIP THE PAIN OUT HER THROAT AND SHOVE IT IN HER EYES, BITE OFF HER EARS AND SHOVE THEM UP HER FLANK, RIP OFF HER FOKKING LEGS AND BEAT HER WITH THEM AND STAB HER WITH THE JAGGED SPIKES OF THE RADIUS AND ULNA, THUMBS IN HER EYES AS THEY SCREAM AND AS HE DRIVES THEM UP INTO HER BRAIN! HE’LL LOOK INTO THE HEART OF DARKNESS, AND HE’LL EAT IT ALL! FOK THIS FOKKING KONTGESIG FOR ALL THE CRAP SHE’S PULLED, HE’S GONNA RIP OFF HER FOKKING HEAD AND PISS IN HER FOKKING SKULL! HE’S GOING TO MAKE HER REGRET EVERYTHING SHE’S EVER DONE, HE’S GOING TO-

-wake

up.

Wake Up.

Kraber gags, coughing, rolling over. He is trembling, cold, drenched in sweat. He clutches the stuffed animals so tightly to his body that his arms ache. His .45 automatic is in one hand, rattling. The safety is still engaged, but there’s probably a round still in the chamber. He is breathing heavily.

Thank God. Everything is back to normal, even that dead pony in the corner of his tent-

“The buck you looking at?” it asks, unmindful of the bloody hole in its head.

Oh, FOK. It's Emil. This is a new one.

Kraber draws in a deep breath, shaking his head, trying not to scream.

It’s gone. He takes deep breaths. Count to four. Inhale. Count to four. Exhale. Deep breaths.

Morning coffee, that’s what he needs. And more HLF rotgut if the stills are back in production. And then a good op. Saving the world.

Right?

Today was the day they’d be working with the Thenardier Guards. The day they struck a blow against the horsefuckers, and finally accomplished something good…

The day on which he had to die...or did he?

Was there something else he could choose?

Author's Notes:

A note on the quote: It could say "Murdering dreams," not "Maddening dreams." But, well, both work for Kraber.

Toothpick

Some folks got the patience of the angels
Not me, my heart, well, it yearns for vengeance
When I leave their place, I'm gonna leave it smoking
Hearts to be healed and their ribs to be broken
Hearts to be healed and their ribs to be broken
When I leave their place, I'm bound to leave it smoking

Gas to the floor, I see no moving ground
Park brake holds me down
Release and I'm halfway across my town

Eat red lights, chew tram tracks
Stole my morals, I don't need them back
Now they got a stand in a problem museum
Evening is dull, stick a toothpick in their skull when I see them

Biting Elbows, Toothpick

And back...you’re coming back…

Back from madness, to lost innocence. From rage and pain, to love and care.

Back to the filly named Dancing Day.

“You’re saying you saw Kraber… around there?” Cheerilee asks you over a videoconference connection, concerned.

Right now you’re in a building the PHL has commandeered for evac efforts - this one is in Littleton, not too far from Colebrook, and it used to be a big box store. It’s been fortified, and is patrolled by armed guards, though a small section of it extends into what was once a parking lot, open to the public and bristling with various PHL sensors. And autoturrets, of course. Though only a fool would try to bomb it.

You’d been looking forward to seeing Quebec City, but Johnny, Kiki, and mommy have gotten scared, so they took a u-turn and drove back here for your safety. But it’s not a problem because you like Littleton - you like it a lot. From the car you could see that wonderful scenery surrounds the town and there are these two other foals to play with, Amber Maple and Rivet. Their pappa Mr. Aegis is almost as big as an actual Earth horse. On top of that, there’s a railroad running right through the town. Johnny says it’s just ‘come back’, and now trains go by all the time. The ones in Equestria seem so tiny by comparison, because these ‘diesels’ are massive, almost house-sized.

On the way back, Johnny C asked your group detour through Bethlehem to visit what he calls a synagogue. You don’t…you don’t exactly know what it all means, or understand the language he speaks when in prayer, or the concept of a religion where your god(dess) can’t walk down and say hello, or praying to ask... some celestial weather team, you think?... that the weather will be better.

You, and Mr. Aegis’ foals, liked Bethlehem as well, from the tiny glimpse you got to see. It’s a funny place, an artist’s town, and Johnny C claims to have many happy memories there.

“Well, I didn’t see him, but Kiki did,” Johnny C explains to Miss Cherilee over the phone. “Same with Dancing Day and Astral Nectar.”

He gestures you over. You would desperately like to be off indulging in summer activities, but evidently, you are needed for…’debriefing’?

According to Johnny C, ‘briefs’ are human underwear, and that gives you a quick giggle.

Viktor Marius Kraber, you think. You can’t believe you didn’t know it was him before. Not the worst of those horrible HLF man. That’d probably be that nasty Mr. Carter or his daughter. But Kraber’s certainly up there, and Kiki says he’s got enough crimes to his name to spend a looooong time in prison.

“Ms. Palmer, do you think you can point out exactly where you were?” a local officer named Rachel Womack asks Kiki, one finger placed on a road map of Northern New Hampshire that has been projected onto the far wall.

‘Google Maps’ - that’s a funny name. You almost giggle, but want to seem grown up in front of these adults.

“Hmmm...” Kiki says, holding up a large stick brought in from from outside, running it along the length of the road until she suddenly stops. “Right there.”

Everypony, even little you, knows what Kraber has done, of course (to varying levels of detail). They also know that where there’s one HLF man, there’s probably more.

Insanity loves company, after all.

Nearby, Typewriter Ribbon, a PHL earth pony newsmare is typing something out on an awkward, ugly keyboard custom-made for hooves. She’s practicing using minor TK fields extruded from her hooves to work a normal human keyboard, but it’s not easy.

The headline she is writing for the new PHL circular, the Beacon, says, rather unflatteringly: “Serial Killer Epidemic: The HLF are Nearby.”

You later learn that ‘Serial Killer Epidemic’ is a common shorthand for the HLF, invented by a drunken Scotsman named Francis ‘Franco’ Begbie. There'd been other, catchier terms in his drunken tirade that were even now making its rounds on the internet, but 'serial killer epidemic' was the only one that was actually printable.

Right now you wondering in all seriousness why anybody would want to hurt breakfast cereals. Count Chocula never hurt anyone.

“Was anyone else you remember there?” asks Johnny C.

Kiki and your Mom all look thoughtful, very wise and contemplative. You try to, even as someone offers ‘the brave little filly’ a chocolate chip cookie the size of your head. Gracefully you accept it, and try to chew on it in a manner that at least looks worldly and knowledgable.

Yummy. Maybe Mr Kraber and his friends just need cookies like this to see why they’re on the wrong team…

...and then you shudder. No. No amount of cookies would be enough to ease the animal pain you’d seen in those nights, only the night before last.

So what would help? What would a man like Mr Kraber need to feel happy? Because as much as you hated him in that moment when he had a gun in your face, you do feel sorry for him. There was something in him that had been torn out and might never come back. Nobody deserves to lose that much.

As you ponder this dilemma, the grown-ups rattle off various details about the HLF members they hear. There are unfamiliar names tossed around, like “Randall Lovikov?” and a few others.

“Thenardiers?” someone asks. “Could they be involved.”

“Nah. This isn’t their territory, elusive bastards that they are. It’s not the most unbelievable thing I’ve heard, though,” Aegis says.

Apparently he’s known for keeping silent. He seems very chatty now though, in a quiet sort of way. “But... why would Kraber do that?”

He seems to be asking the same question of himself as you are.

“Do what?” Rachel asks.

“He let my friends live,” Aegis says, gesturing to Kiki, Mom, and yourself. “...why?”

“Maybe he was planning on following you?” suggests Cheerilee. “Tailing you to your destination?”

“No. We weren’t followed…” Kiki says. “I pulled over after five miles and parked in the bushes for ten minutes. Nobody from the HLF overtook us.”

“There was this shifty-looking guy with a huge widow’s peak, green eyes, and stringy blond hair outside the bar, though,” your mom adds. “Looked like a starving coyote stuffed into human clothes.”

“Did he do anything?”

“No,” she says.

“I feel kind of sorry for Mr Kraber,” you put in, and everyone looks at you like you’ve grown a second head.

Aegis will say you’re far too calm for a young filly.

You talk to him all the time whenever you meet up with him. After one of your magic lessons with the lovely Ms Nkiruka (a mare with beautiful black stripes all over her grey body), he says he worries about how you’ve grown up so fast, being on the run, being so afraid and hungry.

“How are you going to go back to normal life after war?” he asked, and you thought at first that he was being silly. “No, wait, scratch that. What’ll normal be?”

You pondered on that as much as you could. What’s the problem? It has been nice to unwind in New England, meeting locals who’ve taught you so many interesting skills and facts, like how to not leave a trail, or how to shoot a gun from the assault harness that’s being fitted for you. Honestly, you’re fine. What’s abnormal?

Aegis later tells you that he suspected pony refugees are trying to become like natives of earth in a sort of rebellion against Equestrian propaganda, but he can’t prove it. He’s not a psychologist, and he hates those who posture themselves like that.

Your main concern though is what will happen when the Barrier makes landfall? Will you and momma be on the run again?

And more importantly, what about all your human friends, and the dozens of kind people you’ve met along the way. What will happen to them, and all the thousands (you’re getting good with big numbers!) of other people who live on Earth that have proven a ‘fucking’ lot nicer than some of the ponies back in Equestria.

You’re getting good with ‘big’ words too.

“You feel sorry...for Kraber, Dancing?” Mr Gransvoort says. “Really?”

“Something really terrible happened to him,” you explain, glad to have the grown-ups listen to you, and trying to not look like a little kid.

“I could see it,” you explain, gesturing with the cookie. “It was like there wasn’t anything behind his eyes…something had ripped what should be there out.”

“Even so, can’t see why he’d have any pity,” Aegis said. “I saw him at Agua Caliente, and it was...”

You are still for a moment as he continues speaking. Aegis tells you stories, but never talks about Agua Caliente, or, as it’s known among some troops, A.C, sometimes ‘Ass Crack’ or ‘Air Conditioner’. Whenever you ask him about it, all he’ll say is that “Agua Caliente was a grudge match curb stomp, not a battle.”

You’re not sure what the means, but you have seen pictures of Agua Caliente looks - spells everywhere, grass and bushes growing over the buildings, and horrid bloodstains all over the ground, you gained some idea.

You did wonder about the thousands of little holes visible throughout the pictures, but after trying out your new gun-saddle for the first time today, you now know bullet-holes when you see them. Thousands of them...

“...it’s not his usual stomping ground but I doubted he’d have missed it for love or money,” Aegis is saying. “The bastard just had no mercy. That’s vouched for by the HLF suvivors - about all of whom are in our ranks now, or trying to reform-”

Your mother and Johnny C snort at this. HLF reformists are, putting it lightly, delusional.

“They’ve kept him on a short leash since.”

“I met that man once,” says a mare named Tempest to the assembled PHL before her, a story flowing naturally from her mouth.

”It was in Year One. Back in Innsbruck, before the Barrier started moving. The Three Weeks of Blood had left people confused and scared. Most, if not all of us ponies ‘Earthside’ had been horrified by Equestria’s actions, and yet that hasn’t stopped the riots. We had no idea what was going on, we still thought Equestria was Equestria, not an Empire.

The army was sent in to control the city, and the local Bureau had gone ‘proactive’...kinda a precursor to the ‘official policy’ that was yet to come. They were herding humans in like cattle, saying that the Bureau was a secure place to ride out the violence, and then persuading as many as possible to take the potion. Enhanced persuasion methods were being used.

And me, well I’m in like a neighborhood watch, just trying to keep the peace on our streets. And it’s hard...we’re fighting people who’ve gone made from the violence across the world, and the fights are getting uglier. Some of them are bringing guns, and we’re having to use knives and home supplies…

That, that was the week when I made my first kill. Some kid with a shaved head, screaming about how Equestria was out to kill us all. She came at me with a police baton, and I closed my eyes and swung a box-cutter in my hoof TK...cut her right across the neck…

But there was one man in the neighborhood who was worst. He just showed up with some other crazies, not locals, about two weeks into the madness, and gave us five or six days of hell, climaxing when they blew up the Bureau. Before that though they worked themselves up by going after equestrian expatriates, torching homes with molotov cocktails, flushing ponies out of burning houses and then laying into them with guns and cudgels. They had, like...military equipment. I think the German HLF found some old Nazi stashes lying around and distributed them.

Because these guys were HLF...like new recruits inspired by the May Day attacks. And one of their worst thugs was a guy in a gasmask, weidling a baseball bat, a revolver, and an MG34. He didn’t care about anything-or-anyone. If anyone came at him, he’d hit them with the baseball bat, disassemble them with an LMG, just cut them up. Didn’t matter if you were neighborhood watch, police, army, or innocent - if you walked on hooves or associated with ponies, he butchered you.

That man was Kraber.

How’d I know that was him? Because there’s a video. Somebody filmed their escape outa the neighborhood with a smartphone, and caught footage of ponies running out a burning storefront, only for that bastard in the gas mask to pummel them with a bat and throw them back into the building.

All the time, he’s screaming in Afrikaans, and at one point he bellows his name and pounds his chest like he’s fucking King Kong. Don’t watch it.

I don’t want to know what expression he had under that gas mask. On the third day after his arrival, a police officer tried to arrest him...and Kraber just shot her in the leg, and belted her with his baseball bat till there wasn’t anything left to hit, ranting in more languages than I know.

Knowing what I know now about guns, I don’t think he was shooting to kill, just to wound. Then he could get in close and beat the shit out of them with his hands.

There are so many people that owe crippling injuries to that bastard. So many friends dead.

Soldiers came after him, you know, right as he was putting the torch to this shop. And he killed them all. He would duck out of sight whenever they found him, open fire with that MG34, just chainsaw right through their body armor. The stragglers? For them he’d get up close, holding this quad-barreled ten-gauge, and cut them apart. The ones still standing got a taste of his knives. Always the same M.O. Wound from a distance, then get up close and...well, you get the picture.

He killed children. Foals, even. He crushed the skulls of newfoals. He’d stab ponies to death, skin off their cutie marks. He hung Reitman’s activists from lampposts, garrotted them, left them to die of shrapnel in their windpipes.”

“There is so much blood on that man’s hands,” Tempest finishes. “From his week in Innsbruck alone, that it doesn’t matter how many of either side he killed.

She looks hollowed out and empty. Momma had tried to cover your ears seconds into the story, but you’d ducked away and insisted that you needed to hear, and needed to understand.

“...Kraber needs to go down,” Cherilee agrees onscreen. “Any trace that can lead the law right to him is valuable.”

“Yeah,” mutters Mr Aegis. “And, if we’re lucky, it’ll open a bigger can of worms.”

“Look Dancing,” Tempest says, “Don’t waste pity on the man. By the Golden Lyre, I don’t think there’s much left in him to separate him from the beasts...”

And after what you’ve heard, you’re inclined to agree.

Homebase ‘Marlow’, Maine

“AWWWW... It’s so cute and fluffy!” Kraber laughed, petting the fluffy white samoyed dog that was currently trying to lick his face off. “Look at youuuu, oh, I just want to keep hugging-”

“Are you quite finished?” Colonel Galt asked, glaring down at him.

"...nah," Kraber said, verbally flipping off the commander of the Thenardier Guards with a shrug, before going back to petting the dog, who was panting, its tongue hanging out.

They were in the back room of a hardware store in one of the towns outlying Portland, Maine. Kraber and his ‘escorts’ were in the company of Galt and that annoying Russian aide of his.

Atlas Dagney fokking Galt. Despite all of his prattle about ‘equal opportunity for each man to prove his worth’, he was probably blanching at Defiance not having sent someone classier. What a snob.

Still. That was Galt for you. The picture of the average HLF ‘code-head’, a commanding officer obsessed with phrases and codewords, obsessed with his own philosophy. Obsessed with making things by his own hands, be they tables, weapons, maps, plans, or units.

But what Galt didn’t want to admit was that in this case he was a beggar, essentially forced to take what came to him - which, in this case, meant he had to take what few safehouses and allies he could get.

If Galt had his way, his best options, they’d likely be in a hotel with some even more pompous codeword attached to it in official HLF communications, even if the so-called ‘communications’ were just children that were probably too young to remember things before the War, and almost certainly too young hold anything larger than barroom .32 pistols.

He would’ve even taken a farm run by a sympathetic survivalist with a lot of guns, but all those contacts had dried up. The money, or at least what little of it was left nowadays, was in employing Earth Ponies as work to squeeze even larger yields out of the fields and orchards. That, and the fat government subsidy for employing earth ponies was too much for all but the most radically anti-government and anti-pony HLF to ignore. And the government had a nasty habit of confiscating the property of those who refused to provide for the country during wartime, like with Clive Mudget.

“Bloody fascists!” was the HLF’s usual response to this.

Which was why this meeting was at the back of this hardware store in Portland, instead of a farm like Mulvey’s. Galt was looking speculatively at the shelves, and giving particular attention to a shiny new Black & Decker power drill.

“I see Birch isn’t here?” Kraber observed, taking a brief break to look up at the Thenardier Guards that had come to visit.

“Why, you miss him?” asked one woman, a redhead in clothing that looked like it was made of more patches than original fabric.

“Fok no!” Kraber said, briefly throwing up his hands. “Bastard’s got more neurosis than Woody Allen in a drugstore!”

The Samoyed, belonging to the HLF sympathizer who owned the store, briefly looked up at him, making a high-pitched whine of concern.

“No, no,” Kraber said, looking down at the dog, reassuring it. “I’m fine, I’m fine…”

Searching for the animal’s name, he held up the dog’s tag.

“...Fluffy. See, I’m fine, it’s just that Birch is batshit crazy,” he continued, still adressing the samoyed.

‘Fluffy’, cocked his head, visibly confused. Arroooo?

“Well,” Kraber explanation. “Our boy Birch talks about seeing ponies kidnap people before the war, zionists, chemtrails, reptilians…and he desperately wants the sane people to share in his madness, so he preaches this shit all the time.”

Chuckling, he scratched the dog behind the ears. “God help us all if that man ever becomes a officer. You wouldn’t want to serve under Lieutenant Birch, would you?”

Fluffy whined, and licked Kraber’s face.

“Awwww… stop it, stop it!” he laughed, unmindful of everyone staring at him. “That’s what I thought, though. You know, you know a lot about this stuff...you’re a very wise dog, brother Fluffy. And for that I salute you! Where’s a dog biscuit?”

“You’re one to talk,” muttered the youngest of the group, a twenty-something standing just behind Galt, dressed in civvies, augmented with a pair of under-arm holsters. Her hair was tied back with a bandanna, and her entire body had a youthful roughness to it that was simultaneously offputting and beguiling. Her bearing however was professional, and her twin pistols bright and polished.

“Verity Carter…” Kraber stared at her, wondering where he had last seen her. Had he run into her recently? Damn silly name she had. Wasn’t it latin for ‘truth’?

The youth shook her head in revulsion, eyes glinting. “You’re disgusting.”

Dismissing his wandering thoughts, Kraber smiled, showing his yellow teeth and wild eyes. “I didn’t even say anything this time! But yeah. I am, bakvissie. Doesn’t that at least give me some right to judge? Can’t I have standards?”

Shaking her head in disgust, Verity pulled on a short jacket that neatly hid her weapons and tugged on her ponytail, revealing it to be a clip-on. With it removed and a scruffy baseball cap (turned backwards) replacing it, she suddenly looked five or six years younger. A denim skirt pulled on over her jeans completed the image of a disaffected teen. Yay for counter-culture.

“Redd, you’re with me,” she beckoned to a young man dressed similarly to herself, before saluting Galt smartly.

“Colonel, requesting permission to proceed to the waterfront and finalise preparations for the mission with ensign Flamel.”

“Granted, Captain Carter,” Galt said blithely, not even looking in her direction. The girl and her one-man escort left with another lip-sneering glance in Viktor’s direction.

In her absence, uncomfortable silence reigned supreme for a few seconds.

“Well, at least Viktor doesn’t talk about zionist conspiracies,” Lovikov said when the quiet became too much to bear. “That’s one up on Birch.”

“Because Judaism, bru,” Kraber said.

“-Or any conspiracies that don’t involve the PHL or that bitch Yael,” Martineau finished. “That means our madman is better than yours. Besides, Viktor here does surgery.”

Galt threw up his hands. “Fine. Your insane person is better than ours.”

“Don’t remind me about that bull-dyke kike Yael,” Andrei Rianofski sighed, drawing the ‘evil eye’ from Kraber. “Our allies have lost over a hundred to her raids alone!”

For any members of the Front near to the Canadian border, Yael Ze’ev had become a sort of local boogeywoman. Not more famous than Marcus Renee, of course not. That’d be silly. But she and a pegasus mare named Heliotrope were infamous for leading brutal, cutting raids against the HLF.

It hadn’t helped that they frequently played the Front’s fragmented structure against itself, exploiting the convuluted code phrases and passwords some units so loved, misdirecting and distracting them in friendly fire, then shooting up the remains. She’d apparently been demoted just yesterday for burning one Canadian redoubt to ashes with a squad of flamethrower tanks, but that was unlikely to stop her.

“We have far more important things to discuss,” Galt said, leading them into another room. “Myself, Rianofski, Captain Carter and several others have come up with a plan that might just cripple the PHL locally…if only for a moment, but a moment is all we need.”

And that was why Galt was where he was, and why he had even Kraber’s attention, if not his respect. The guy was very good at planning and executing daring raids. He’d built the Thenardiers around himself on the results he could produce on demand. Non-descript infiltrators like the Carter girl were the silken blades to Galt’s armored fist, opening up cracks and seams into which a booted foot could then be driven.

Infiltration, Assassination, Exploitation, Paralyzation. Any wetwork Defiance needed done, the Thenardiers could deliver.

Which to Viktor was why it was so delightful to be here on their own terms, as the shock troops Galt needed to pull of his plan. It must have been galling to the man who’d cast himself in the role of a Randian uber-being.

Not even trying to hide his displeasure, the Colonel placed a chess piece, a black King, on the map, sitting it about thirty miles out to sea from Portland.

“Tell me”, he asked, voice as treacherous as water flowing over rocks. “Have any of you ever heard of the Sorghum Exile?”

‘I feel a reference coming,’ Kraber thought, still running his hands through Fluffy’s fur.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ve heard of it. Some mobile rig of theirs?”

“That’s right,” Galt answered, like he was talking to a child.

‘As if I was some kind of fokking retard, like Sheja, that kontgesig,’ Kraber thought, struggling not to pull out a revolver and splatter Galt. But that’d bring people running, so that was out.

“The Exile is a mobile drilling platform, bigger than anything else of it’s kind. The PHL took it over from Phalanx Energy last year, and thanks to their ‘magic’, it’s now capable of also extracting and distributing oil brought up from any wells it’s tapped,” Rianofsky explained.

“Yeah,” said Lovikov. “Just imagine the boom it’d make!”

He rubbed his hands together.

“I get the implication it’s one of a kind,” Martineau added.

Galt nodded. “It’s also a-”

“-slow, fat sea cow of a boat that needs tugboats to keep it moving any faster than the bare minimum speed needed to outrun the Barrier, and it has enough defenses that any… Oh fok I’m actually saying this… privateers...who get too close end up as red mist if they show undue interest. So we’ll have to be real careful with whatever you’re planning to do. So we can’t go in skop, skiet, and donner.”

All of that had come from Kraber, which earned him another baleful stare from Galt.

“...Yes,” the Colonel grunted.

“I told you, that Viktor’s more than he seems,” Lovikov said.

“Trauma surgeon,” Kraber said, as if that explained anything. Internally, he was wondering if Lovikov was talking up his reputation to sweeten his legacy when he was reported ‘K.I.A.’

He refused to let those thoughts show however. For now, he was stuck in this situation, and would see where it led him.

“The platform is due to be relocated from its current position on Usherfall Bank in one week’s time”, Rianofski was explaining. “There’s consequently increased activity to and from it in preparation for the tow.”

“This is our opportunity,” Galt continued.

He tapped another chess piece, a White Queen, on the table.

“Through my contacts I have commissioned an ‘amenable’ shipwright down south. He has modified a ocean-going tugboat for our purposes. It’ll have a submerged basement of sorts for you to keep additional personnel, as well as concealed weapon lockers to arm yourselves… anything you could need.”

Everyone was now intrigued, as Galt slid the Knight across the table towards the King.

“Captain Carter has obtained us the passcodes and documentation necessary to get aboard the Sorghum, and then... ”

“We make like Captain Kidd and go Errol Flynn on them!”

Galt’s eyes swept over all of them, with especial focus on Kraber. “Don’t kill the enemy forces you encounter. Your primary goal is to take hostages. Then, as soon as you’ve secured the platform, place those hostages under guard in a location where you are unlikely to be visible to snipers. I’d also suggest destroying any PHL tech or weaponry that you find.”

“Excellent,” Lovikov said. “We can all do tha-”

“I wouldn’t say that’s a good idea,” Kraber interrupted. “Enemy tech can be useful.”

“Kraber, shut up,” Lovikov hissed.

“As a last resort, we might need their toys,” Kraber persisted.

“You sure that PHL gun you have hasn’t made you a ponypounder?” Mariesa asked, eager to please.

“No, I’m just saying it makes sense to turn the enemy’s tools against him,” Kraber said, slapping his new runically-enhanced MG. “Your guns don’t break shields like this thing. It’s just… it’s something I’m worried about. PHL guns break shields, Equestria has more newfoals. We’re going to need to step up, cause I’m getting worried about where we’ll be next November-”

“Your tugboat,” Galt said insistently, packing as much of an incentive to shut Kraber’s mouth as he could within those two words and three syllables, “Is in Portland, Maine. Our agents have logged a falsified profile with the authorities, as well as the PHL themselves...”

(In at least one week’s time, during the Great HLF Purge, most of those same agents will be either dead, incarcerated or forced into penal reserve battalions, if they haven’t been found ‘resisting arrest’. In the telling, Kraber makes clear that he was a lucky survivor)

“As far as the Sorghum is concerned, you’re heading out to set up the initial tow south,” Galt said. “As soon as you take the hostages, we can make our demands.”

“Which are?” asks Lovikov.

“The release of our comrades, such as Yelena Schmidt, Fedorova, and Captain Carter’s father, as well as military supplies,” Galt says. “If they do not acquiesce to our demands, we’ll maneuver the Sorghum into the mouth of Portland harbor and fire on the city with the platform’s defenses.”

“But… the city’s full of refugees!” protests Mariesa.

“It is,” Galt said, unconcerned. “And there are also ponies there, PHL…”

“Yes,” Lovikov murmurs thoughtfully. “There are…”

“In the event of an escape,” Galt continues, placing a White Knight on the table, checkmating the Black King, “there’s a fleet of narcosubs in the vicinity. They can be used as an escape.”

It was raining, and the sky was the color of a television tuned to a dead channel.

So it was gray, then. Thunder roared off in the distance, and the rain poured down and down on the city.

Before the Barrier, Portland hadn’t been what it was today. There were so many languages spoken here now, with signs in the languages of so many atomized countries dotting the streets. The pedestrians - the human pedestrians, anyway - were dressed downright weird, in whatever clothes they could find, which weren’t many. There were weapons carried openly, either professionally manufactured or hammered together in caves or someone’s basement. Kraber thought it reminded him of Blade Runner, Sunset Overdrive, or that one… that one Mexican flash animation he loved as a kid, the one with the smileyfaces and the giant robot clown.

Of course, that didn’t mean he liked how the city now looked. He would have loved a melting-pot like this back before the war, but it was another thing to live it. All the rich people, virtually anyone with enough money had left to go east, buying themselves a few more months to live in comfort on the west coast, in deserts, in America’s heartland, or in the mountains. Anywhere that’d buy a few more hours of (comparative) luxury before it was destroyed.

And filling the gaps were… Kraber’s lip curled into a sneer. Ponies. Zebras, even a few griffons. None of whom wore any clothes.

“Fokking disgusting”, he said to himself, and yet the invective that should have lent venom to the words was missing.

Foods from other countries were combined with poor amounts of ingredients, substitutes and replacements, to form strange new culinary combinations. Kraber had happily visited a restaurant selling Nigerian ice cream alongside more American flavors like Moose Tracks and Husky’s Lover, which was vanilla malt ice cream with pretzels, peanut butter and chocolate swirls. The same fusion was tangible, visible, and even audible wherever you went, what with mongrel pidgin slang, mingling with dialects and languages from all over the world.

Improbably enough, there were a few places selling stolen Equestrian goods and ‘Equestrian-prepared baked goods’, which nobody in the HLF would touch. There was graffiti over the signage for these stores, and signs of broken windows, and yet, business seemed brisk.

The city’s primary industry had always been shipping, but the routes that outbound and inbound vessels now followed changed by the day, with cargos of wood, ammunition, food, and other necessities departing for southernmost Africa and America. Imports consisted for raw materials, scrap metal, neglected Soviet or American military hardware, all commodities that would be reused in the war effort. A cargo of steel ore might end up smithed into guns, or forged into rails for more locomotives, or any other possible permutation of human skill and technology. Who could say? There was even a huge ship, emblazoned with the Crowe Labs logo, armed with strange blocky guns and offloading multicolored containers.

They found the tugboat, as promised, near the Maine Street Pier. It stood out next to all the other vessels nearby for being utterly normal in appearance. Compared to the junks around it, made of half-sunken cars and scrap, held together with cable and ropes, the meaty ocean-going tug looked trim and ready to put to sea. As they approached, a pair of diesels could be heard turning over, and fumes belched from the twin exhaust stacks aft of the orange wheelhouse.

That was another difference from the other boats, many of which appeared to run on strange, magical engines pioneered by pony expatriates - Kraber noticed one outbound fishing boat, helmed by a mixed crew of humans and ponies, all clad in oilskins, that appeared to run on clockwork wound steadily by a hefty earth pony and a small, slight woman. He had to admit, it was fascinating.

“Alright, this is our tub,” said Lovikov warily, “the Arctic Warrior.”

“Ain’t she a beaut?” called out the young corporal Kraber had seen leave the briefing with Verity Carter. Redd Flamel was his name if memory served, and right now he was coiling ropes on-deck. “Welcome aboard!”

Kraber jumped down on deck and nodded. “You a seaman?”

“Yessir. Raised on my family’s fishing boat, Antonia Graza. I’m your deckhand and engineer for this voyage.”

He seemed squirrelly, excitable, and yet utterly in command of his environment. Kraber liked that.

“Where’s the Carter girl?”

“Up in the wheelhouse, readying us for departure. Both herself and me were trained by the builder to operate the boat, but the fake Master’s Certificate is in her name.”

Kraber shook his head. A twenty-something slip of a girl as the captain of a vessel. Well, that wouldn’t do.

A quick inspection of the Warrior showed everything to be in order. As first impressions showed, it had been kept almost immaculate. By comparison to the other floating wrecks in the harbor, anyway. The tug wasn't pristine, but on the other hand, it was full of the concealed weapon lockers Galt had promised.

Even better was a hatch apparently leading to the bilge, which in truth opened up onto a secret compartment outfitted with bench-seats sufficient to seat twenty. It would be… perfect.

Over the course of the next hour the troops arrived in groups of two or three, keeping their numbers discrete. Thenardier Guards, and Menschabwehrfraktion alike, they came aboard. Most headed for the submerged compartment, cramped, smelly, dirty, and more than a little leaky, but the best place to conceal such a force.

At last, with everything ready and all supplies loaded, and the light of day dwindling into evening, Verity gave the order to cast off all lines, and turned the Arctic Warrior’s prow towards the harbor mouth. Down below, Kraber watched with approval as Redd busied himself with the twin diesel motors. The young man was clearly born to the sea.

Leaving him to it, Kraber himself went up to the immaculate wheelhouse, where Verity Carter was manning the helm, looking deceptively small as she stared forward through the reinforced viewports out towards the dark eastern horizon. Although she still wore her turned-back baseball cap, she’d swapped her civvies for body armour concealed under a heavy seaman’s jacket. To his delight, Viktor had earlier found a matching garment that fitted him hung in the captain’s cabin, along with the requisite peaked cap.

“Avast!” he cried as he entered the wheelhouse, a smile on his face and one hand on his revolver. The other hand was clenched around the snapped-off hook from the coathanger, completing the appropriate pirate-y image. “I be Kapitan Kraber!”

“... Shut up,” Verity muttered, pointedly tapping the framed Masters Certificate made out in her own name. Mariesa on the other hand, the only other woman in the crew, was smiling.

“Fok you, I always wanted to say that,” Kraber laughed, stepping outside onto the bridge wing. The tug was ploughing steadily through the swells, her navigation lights and portholes aglow with light, and she seemed to be a pocket of light and warmth in the ever-increasingly vastness of the Atlantic.

Pausing, he leaned on a gunwale and enjoyed the scent of salt on the warm evening air. His fate and appointed doom were furthest from his mind now. All the mattered for the moment was the op. If everyone kept their heads and did their job, something great would be accomplished.

Their comrades would be free, the geldos and the horsefuckers will be dead, what could be sweeter?

What could be? Kraber asked himself, a little too insistently. Was that to be his legacy?

Yes, something still eluded him. Even under all this bluster and excitment, he knew that he was just not getting something. Some deep, important puzzle piece.

And why didn’t he feel right about this op? There was something, some sensation that something was off…

“Platform ahoy!” Mariessa announced at last, sighting forward through a pair of binoculars. She seemed to have somehow become Verity’s first-mate during the few hours it had taken to head out to sea. Following her gaze, everyone sighted a cluster of lights on the horizon, a slice of Christmas adrift at sea…

“Big bliksem,” Kraber muttered. And as the tug grew closer, the structure grew even larger - a massive leviathan kept afloat on two submerged hulls, like a giant catamaran. Four cylindrical columbs supported the superstructure, whose small, jagged skyline bristled with light and activity. The columns themselves seemed to shimmer softly, ripples of something (magic perhaps?), descending to radiate in the sea.

As they closed to within five miles, a sudden squall of rain came down, drawing a curtain around the tug and hiding the platform from view. With it came a shroud of anxiety, the unspoken fear that now was when things would go wrong.

“State your business, Arctic Warrior,” Kraber heard the radio crackle, the hiss of static whispering in tune with the rain fizzing on the windows.

“Platform Sorghum Exile, this is commercial tugboat Arctic Warrior. I am her skipper, V Carter. We are approaching on a bearing of 100 south-easterly and are under instruction to moor up beside your north-western column. Over…” Verity said trimly into her radio handset, having yielded the helm to a scowling Lovikov with the whispered orders to “keep her straight and point her where I tell you.”

“Arctic Warrior, please state your business. Over.”

Kraber stifled a laugh at the sight of the young girl strutting around the wheelhouse as she continued to banter with the platform, switching between coded frequencies on demand. Annoying and bitchy she may have been, but the girl’s balls clanked like wrecking balls. He could see how she survived in a unit like the Thenardiers.

“Please confirm security passcode?” the platform’s radio officer demanded at last.

“Break a fucking broomhandle off in Celestia’s flank,” the youth said. “Over.”

“Thank you Arctic Warrior, your documentation has been filed and you have permission to approach. Please turn to heading 154 and reduce speed to six knots, then proceed to final. Over.”

And like that, a pall had lifted over them. Verity twirled the radio handset on its cord with all the cocksure confidence of a gunslinger, and hung it on its hook with a satisfied smirk.

“We’re in,” Lovikov said, a smile on his face. “The hard part is over.”

”Really?” you ask, in the not so distant future where you find yourself on the same side as Kraber.

And here’s where he breaks into laughter. He laughs hysterically, a bellowing guffaw that switches in pitch near-constantly, like you haven’t heard him laugh since the… incident… with the ponified, yet not zombified, HLF infiltrator in the brig below, screaming, driven mad with hate, almost certainly in the throes of a mental breakdown.

You find it hard to say she doesn’t deserve it though.

“...ya done?” Aegis asks, raising an eyebrow.

Kraber shakes his head no, doubled over laughing. “Oh, no. It only got harder after that,” he manages to get out, eyes moist from tears of laughter.

But then he grows somber, and produces a book, a book in which he has underlined choice quotes, mining them for inspiration…

“Heart of Darkness?” you asked, managing to read the cover upside-down. “What’s it about?”

“It’s about me, little Day...and about you...and about people…and where my story took me next. There’s lank I could use, but this… it fits better than Trainspotting or anything else I could think of.”

And he turns to the very last page, to the very last lines, and read aloud...

Dope Fiend Massacre

Co - Authors / Editors
TB3
Rush
VoxAdam
Kizuna-Tallis

“It wasn't just the baby that died that day; something inside Sick Boy was lost and never returned.”
Renton, Trainspotting

I had a vision
I saw Mr. Brown on the television
He was talking crap as he always does
I had to reign him in, why? Because

I don't like who he is
And I don't like who I am
I don't like what he does
And he makes me a man
On the verge of his mind
A spectacular view
Mr. Brown, I've got an issue and its got to do with you
Biting Elbows, Dope Fiend Massacre

February 2023

The story of a life’s journey is a winding narrative, threaded through the rocks and shoals of time’s ocean, spanning ravines of thought and traversing deserts of memory...

“I! FOKKING! WANTED! TO GO! SKIING! JOU FOKKIN BLIKSEM!” Kraber will yell, kicking one HLF man in the face.

And sometimes it crashes off the rails and straight into the cornfields, into less poetic territory. In the life story of Viktor Marius Kraber, this is one of those moments…

The HLF man will fall to the ground, clutching his face, and Kraber will whip out his heavy revolver, landing a shot on another Frontman down the street, one who had been aiming a rifle at them. It’s a sloppy shot at this kind of range, but enough arterial blood will spray up like a fountain from the remains of the man’s shoulder to guarantee he won’t stop falling for a long, long time…

“Did you want to try skiing, Aegis?” Kraber will say, almost conversationally.

Beside him, immense equine bulk and enchanted kevlar providing cover for Kraber, will be Aegis, Kraber’s best friend. A stallion to whom our unlikely protagonist will soon enough entrust his life.

But all good things in time.

“Ah… I’m terrible at it,” Aegis will reply, his loud rumbling voice conveying more than a little uncertainty. “Tried it once on the backside of the Canterhorn and ended up off the course and in a gully, wrapped ‘round a tree.”

He will pause for a second, suddenly contemplative. “But maybe, hrm...I wonder if they could find human skis that’d work for me while I’m rearing up.”

And on that runnel of introspection, Aegis will blaze away with the twin F3-Thunderlords on his back firing in percussive tempo, the MMG’s bullets stitching a line through the HLF forces poking themselves out of cover in this snow-choked mountain town. The earth pony titan’s long thick limbs and head (which is disproportionately small compared to his massive frame, almost as if another pony’s skull has been transposed onto some muscled golem) will be impassive as he bites down on the trigger, and the red-tinted goggles that cover his eyes will reflect nothing but death.

Beside these two brudders-in-arms-and-forelegs, Johnny C and Fiddlesticks will stand their ground, Johnny firing his Leshiy and Fiddlesticks opening up with the two enchanted M249s on her battle saddle. A small layer of snow builds up on her ancient, battered, nicked stetson as she fires.

“Don’t understand!” a cowering civilian shall wail from the back of a car from which she had been selling various hot foodstuffs for the winter. “The HLF! We thought we could trust them but they’ve just gone crazy! It’s all gone mad, trusting geldos and horsefuckers, but the HLF ARE CRAZY! They just went insane when that weird newfoal got here!”

“Oh, they were crazy a loong time before this,” Johnny C will call over. “Hey, Kraber, remember that story you were telling Dancing Day? The one with the Sorghum Exile?”

“IS THIS REALLY THE FOKKING TIME FOR A FLASHBACK?!” Kraber will yell, reloading his revolver in case he needs it later, holstering it, and bringing his new MG2019 up for a killing burst.

“Fiiiine. Maybe later?” Johnny C will beg, almost pleading.

Kraber and Aegis will shrug.

“Okay. That’s doable,” Aegis will say. “How bout… near a fireplace, with hot chocolate?”

“EMBRACE CELESTIA’S SUN!” a PER member will call down, opening up with what looked like a paintball gun.

“Gotta be really fokkin good hot chocolate though,” Kraber will say, far too casually. “Maybe with mint…”

“What about peppermint?” Aegis will suggest.

“Even better!” Kraber will gasp.

“And now these PER assholes are here too,” Fiddlesticks will curse, before ducking back into cover and wearily beckoning to Kraber. “Viktor, show them the light.”

“Aww yeah, you want enlightenment, I’ll give your fokking enlightenment!” Kraber will yell, tossing a thermite grenade up at the PER man. “Here! HOLD THIS! YEHI ‘OR!”

Yehi‘or. Fiat lux. Let there be light…

“OH CELESTIA, THE BURNING!” the PER member will scream.

And Victor will look upon the light, and yea verily, see that it was good.

Fokking good.

“YEAH, YOU BETTER RUN!” he will yell, firing in the general direction of the immolating men. “YOU WANT ME TO DO THE FOKKING BEER TRICK?!”

“Oh shit! It’s them!”

“NOT THE BEER!”

“SPARE MY POSTERIOR!”

“MY GENITALIA!”

Music, sweet music.

“...You’re going to do it to them anyway, aren’t you?” Aegis will sigh, firing off his Thunderlords again.

“Why? Do you disapprove of the coors beer trick?” Kraber will ask.

“No, no,” Aegis will say. “They’re PER – fuckers probably deserve it. I’m just…well some things are just you being you.”

“What can I say? I’m a spirit of violence, and you can’t cage a free spirit…”

Wanton violence against PER is endemic to him by now, if we’re going to be honest.

Kraber will line up another shot and fires, nailing an HLF man in the knee, dropping him from a rooftop, sending him falling to an awning… only for him to bounce upwards off it, and awkwardly ram into the side of a van and bounce, landing on his stomach on the icy street.

“MY SPLEEN!” the man will scream.

Seeing the ragdoll slapstick comedy, Kraber will attempt a roguish smile and a punchline. “Besides. They’re resisting arrest, right?”

More than anything, his attempts at Hollywood badassery are just disturbing.

“...That is so fucked up,” Johnny C will sigh, half-jokingly, though he’s used to Kraber’s insanities and bloodlust at this point. “Stop trying to be cool and keep shooting, you batshit fuck.”

“I don’t need to try. Besides, who cares that I kill them? They’re PER,” Kraber will ask. “A couple months ago, I counted as one of the sanest men in the HLF.”

“...That’s even more fucked up!” Johnny C will yell back.

“I know, right?” Kraber will agree, momentarily leaving Johnny C speechless at this singular moment of clarity. “And as I said, who’s gonna miss these kontgesigs?”

“Friends, family…” will be Fiddlesticks’ dry response. “Ever wonder how many happy widows and orphans you’ve made?”

“You’re such a buzzkill at times.”

December 24, 2022
PHL base in New York

For you, Dancing Day, the unicorn filly listening to this rambling account, it feels as if it has been a long time since you started this story. Right now you’re looking through some of Mr. Kraber’s books. They’re odd things, with weird titles like The Scar’, ‘Marabou Stork Nightmares, Perdido Street Station, or Veniss Underground. You remembered Venice from the pictures, from the short found-footage projects of lost cities and landmarks that are so common nowadays, but you had questioned why it was spelled with two ‘S’s.

“Cause it’s the future,” Kraber had explained upon your question, awhile back. “It’s implied to be pretty degraded there.”

Kraber and Aegis are telling the story, and this time, more foals and children, even a few adults have come to listen. Babs Seed and Scootaloo (that poor pegasus! What happened to her wings?) are listening intently, curious for this man’s stories. Some foals lie against human children, and vice versa, sitting on mattresses and chairs that somebody brought into this room. Even Vinyl Scratch is here! You love her music so much....

A brown earth pony mare lurks at the back of the room too, secured to a wheelchair and escorted by a smirking zebra shaman. She’s got a particular loathing for Kraber it seems, from the fire blazing in her curious, blue-rimmed eyes.

“So you’ze sayin’ Sutra Cross’s murder didn’t start the Great HLF purge?” Babs Seed asks.

“That was just the spark that lit the fire. There’d been people thinking the HLF could be trusted, that they were chommies to all refugees – so long as you didn’t count ponies.”

To that, Kraber can’t restrain his disgust, and his self-loathing.

“We said it was only bosbefok radicals that stole from people with nothing left to rop, but Sutra...well what happened to her destroyed that idea,” he glowers, like a banked-over fire. “And… Honestly? We were all kind of bosbefok radicals. And any that weren’t then, sure are now.”

His gaze drifts over to the blank-flanked mare in the wheelchair, and spares her a momentary, mocking sneer. “You gotta feel sorry for those poor deluded bastards that think they can outdo the PHL…”

“Even da reformists?” asks Babs.

“Yeah, they’re just sorta low-wave varknaaiers – total dicks,” Kraber says. “Like, if the main body of the HLF is New York, then the reformists are New Jersey. Nobody gives them any heed, and most of the HLF like to point and laugh at them. Even if they have good ideas, they get ignored because the ideas of, say, John Birch mean that more ponies die. Aren’t even aware of how much harm they’ve done. At least I admit I’m a piece of shit.”

“Don’t get us wrong,” Aegis says, struggling to get the conversation back on track, “Sutra was a wonderful mare, kind to everyone, good friend of mine… but there was a lot more going on. First, she was one of the most prominent PHL members - she was one of the first, and she joined medical organizations to help earth right out the gate. I think she even met Reitman before she went nuts. But, when push came to shove, she had to join the PHL. Let’s say she didn’t consider the potion to be ‘medicine’, so she was fired from the hospital she worked at and blacklisted by the Equestrian medical community for not accepting a position at a Bureau… and for protesting the Potion. Poor mare nearly lost an eye in those riots... But the HLF had been assholes long before that.” He’d looked over at Kraber. “No offense.”

“Why would I take any?” Kraber asks. “They’re kontgesigs.”

“Don’t ask what that means, my little ponies… and mares. Anyway, continuing on from that, the HLF managed to piss off Salem, Boston, and the entire state of Massachusetts by torturing her.”

“I should point another thing out,” Kraber adds. “American HLF… mostly, they’re the paranoid kontgesigs you would’ve seen carrying kalashnikovs into a Panera before the War… The rest of the HLF from other countries are mostly refugees, Boston was almost three quarters refugees at this point, so they alienated the fok out of their target demographic.”

To the outside observer, it’d seem bizarre to hear Kraber say business jargon like that, but then again, Kraber reads China Mieville books without a dictionary, and the works of Joseph Conrad in the original Polish.

In the background, the mare in the wheelchair is being removed against her will. She might be too sedated to fight, and her voice hoarse from days of screaming and mad laughter, but at this rate she might just discover her newfound earth pony strength and rip a new ‘plothole’ in Kraber’s story.

“I am gonna get so much kak for that when she can move again, but that was worth it,” Kraber says to himself. “Adieu Verity Carter, adieu…”

As for yourself, Dancing Day, well you remember the day that the name Sutra Cross went national. Very, very well. Too well, even – you still wake up screaming from the memory of what was done to her.

“Boston’s one of, if not the closest port to Europe,” continues Kraber. “So Massachusetts had a lot of refugees. A lot of which just didn’t have the money to leave, so they were practically stuck at the umkhuku – that’s Zulu for chicken coop, you can guess what it means back home – by the docks or on someone’s roof until one group or another took pity on them.”

“It’s one of the reasons the PHL came there, and Sutra Cross had brought enough supplies to help everyone there. It was an enormous convoy,” Aegis takes over. “Hell, I’d helped make a lot of the supplies there. Even repaired some of the trucks! They were for people suffering from severe malnutrition, a hell of a lot of diseases, starvation…”

“And what do the so-called fokking liberators of fokking humanity do?” Kraber asks sarcastically. “They rop all the supplies, fill two of the ponies with more lead than the plumbing in a high school dorm, gorge themselves on them and get chwee chweereekeys off the painkillers in the most fokking horrible bust-up in the history of man or equine, and decide to fok over the nurse administering it every way they can! Klein kakfokkers…” he muttered. “Even made me and Burakgazi think they’d gone too far. I just… It made me ask what the point was. I mean, what the fok were we accomplishing? We were flou, pure and simple. IF THERE WAS A FOKKING THING THEY COULDA DONE TO PISS EVERYONE OFF, IT WOULD BE–”

“...And ‘flou’ means?” Scootaloo asks, ever the blunt-speaking roadblock in the path of a diatribe. Aegis mouths her a faint thank-you.

“A weak, unfunny joke,” Kraber explains, calming down slightly. “I actually did try to help out in Boston. I felt responsible for it, kinda…”

“But you weren’t there,” Vinyl says, confused.

“Well, I... I wanted to help somehow,” Kraber says. “I felt like I owed them. Anyway, what I’m getting at is that there’d been plenty of incidents between HLF and PHL. ‘friendly fire’, defections, all kinds of things. It was at fever pitch, and the HLF’s raging inferiority complex towards the PHL just got worse and worse…”

July 25, 2022
Off the coast of Maine
Near the Sorghum

It was amazing what industry a few horsefokkers – Perdnaaiers? – could manage. That wasn’t what Kraber would think in a couple month’s time, but that’s how it was back then.

As the good tugboat Arctic Warrior eased its way through the night and sleeting rain, they saw the colossal bulk of the Sorghum Exile. The mobile platform truly was an immense rig, its light shining out even into the darkness outside. It was dusk now, almost true night, and everyone there was getting a little twitchy as the boat closed the final mile to the target..

“Stay on course,” cautioned Verity, checking repeatedly forward through a pair of binoculars.

Everyone else stood alert, but Lovikov in particular had a huge smile on his face, staring up into the huge cannons mounted on the PHL rig.

Or at least, what they presumed to be cannons. Kraber wasn’t sure how Lovikov thought, but something in him was ever-so-close to breaking.

If it wasn’t gone already.

“Oh, it will be!” chirped a forest-green newfoal mare, balanced on the gunwale like a sprite. Kraber whipped out his .45, ready to shoot it in the face, only to find that-

“Oy va'avoy...”

She was covered in blood, one eye a mashed and jellied mass, pulped against a bullethole in her skull. Kraber could see her mane visible through the hole in her skull. A little hair actually appeared to have gotten stuck in there, waving out the empty eye socket.... her smile appeared to be held open with rusty hooks, blood oozing out from where they pierced the skin, the fur and skin underneath discolored by both blood and rust. Maybe she had once been beautiful, or as much as a pony could be nowadays… but there looked to be lines through her face, around her eyes. She looked like a porcelain doll, a decayed piece of Victorian automata, steadily cracking and unwinding...

“Isn’t that just wonderful?” she giggled.

‘Fok me, another hallucination?’ Kraber groaned inwardly. “Who are you?” He thought, doing his best to think at it. He was on a tug with the Thenardiers, after all. He had to… he couldn’t get shot too early into the mission.

“I’m you, silly! I’m Victory, your Pretty Private!”

FOK! It even sounded like Pinkie Pie.

“Or at least, I’m what you will be…”

“FOK JOU! I’ll never… EVER take the FOKKING POTION!”

“Oh, don’t be so defeatist! Who knows what the future holds? I don’t, but it looks wonderful…”

“Hou jou fokkin bek…” Kraber gritted his teeth.

“Now, now. Don’t be that way! You’re so grumpy aaalll the time. I miss your smile, Viktor!”

“Well, what the fok is there to smile about?!”

“As a human, there’s nothing,” the newfoal said. “But if you become me, you’ll be happy all the time!”

She jumps down off the gunwale onto the deck, trailing a string from her back that’d gotten stuck in a scupper…

… A pullstring, like you’d see on a child’s toy. As she hits the deck it comes taught, and she moans lewdly.

“You’ll be happeeeeeee, nice and happeeeeeee…beyond measure, purest pleasure. Sexy, sexy pleasure!” she giggled, sounding like she was on the verge of an orgasm.

“Fokking turn into a hoer to the Queen Bitch,” Kraber said. “I’m not a mare.”

He sighed, “Goddammit,” not knowing that in the future, foals would nitpick the story for how unbelievable his reaction seemed.

The truth was, Kraber was just too tired to know whether to be disgusted or disturbed.

“The queen can fix thaaaaaat….” the newfoal that called itself Victory said, fading away into the rain. “Seeya soon, Vicky…”

It was at that moment that Kraber became acutely aware of just how much he hated his life. Under his breath, he muttered a quick prayer – “Shema yisrael, adonai eloheinu, adonai echad…”

“Hey, Kraber.”

Kraber stood bolt upright, hand on his .45 pistol, ready to shoo-

“Whoa! Take it easy!” Mariesa yelled, hands up. “You’ve been jumpier than usual.”

“Jammer,” Kraber apologized. “I’ve… I haven’t been sleeping that well lately.”

“Wait, you actually sleep?” Mariesa asked, raising an eyebrow. “A lot of us hear you trying to sleep in that tent you have. You never sound good, always thrashing around… some of us are worried you might be going hatchers.”

”Even the HLF had standards awhile back. ‘Going Hatchers’ was their word for bosbefok,” Kraber explains, then, noticing that Aegis is the only other one in the room that understands Afrikaans, he explains: “Shell-shocked. The stress of battle getting to you. You know.”

You do know, yes. Too many ponies and humans have had that happen… especially Mr. Kraber. It’s sad, really – sometimes, you can see glimpses of who you think he once was. But those are fleeting, and you’re not sure what to look for.

“Anyway, we called it ‘going hatchers’ cause of this one woman, Beatrice Hatch. She was an old HLF, she’d known Mike Carter personally, and it seemed fokking nothing could shake her. She’d go in skop skiet and donner, come out unscathed,” Kraber continues, “But then… They were at a battle, somewhere. Probably the East Coast. And her son got ponified. But the newfoal, well, I don’t know what happened to the poor bliksem. Last I saw, her son had been running, going voetsek for a portal with a load of C4, trying to kill himself and take a bunch of ponies with him, but he fell in the portal and survived, right as the potion got to his skull…”

He pauses, and shudders like a skyscraper in a quake.

“The newfoal that came out, it was wrong. No, seriously. The regular newfoals already set the ‘wrongness’ bar pretty fokking high. But this... its eyes never focused on the same thing, and it kept babbling randomly. It didn’t want to kill anyone, it couldn’t talk without the words spilling into each other, but it wouldn’t leave Hatch alone, and it was always fokking crying.”

Everyone in the room, even Aegis, stares up at Kraber, disgusted and horrified. You think you’re going to be sick, and you feel a lump in your throat as Kraber continues.

“Was that… was that where the slang came from?” you ask.

“No,” Kraber says. “It’s from what his mother did. Hatch, well, she couldn’t leave things well enough alone, and smuggled it back to Defiance. Somehow, she’d managed to get herself exiled to this kakhole cabin a bit west of Defiance, and she forsook the HLF. I don’t know how she got the idea, but she’d gotten too bosbefok to be left to her own devices, and one day I was heading off to Errol for… for graze or something, maybe to use the wireless, or maybe I just wanted to see a pub. Decided to stop by – even if I didn’t like her keeping a newfoal, I felt sorry for her. And… And I found her with the newfoal on her kitchen table, sewing a fokking speaker into its stomach. It wasn’t protesting, it just looked like it had gone limp, its tongue hanging out as the needle steeked him. She just… she turned herself into the thing’s nursemaid, talking to it as if it was alive and still her son. Still human.”

There is an uncomfortable pause.

“What was… what was the speaker for?” Scootaloo asks.

“She claimed she could hear her son’s voice coming out of it,” Kraber says simply.

You are all mesmerized, staring in rapt attention at this sudden ghost story. “Well, could she?” you ask after a brief silence.

“That’s not important for awhile,” Kraber says, a bit too quickly. “I’m not sure I want to ova about it.”

“Trust him, it’s pretty fucked up,” Aegis says.

“Anyway, Mariesa had just asked how I was. And I’d said...

“I… I don’t think I’m hundreds,” Kraber said.

“What?” Mariesa asked. “Sorry… most of us don’t speak Afrikaans.” She paused. “Or, well, whatever other languages you speak.”

“Means I don’t feel fine,” Kraber answered. “Just – I can’t shake this feeling. I keep on asking myself… the fok am I doing? I’m hallucinating my family calling me a bliksem–”

“No we’re not.”

‘Hou jou bek, you.’

“And the worst thing is,” Kraber continued aloud, “they have a point.”

“Are they telling you to join the Tyrant Sun?” Mariesa asked. “I’ve heard that the PHL have hypnosis spells they can use to lure you in…”

“No we fucking don’t!” Vinyl yells. “Only the PER does that!”

“Yeah, well the HLF are…” Kraber muses. “Well, here’s the thing. They do not fokking understand the PHL any more than I can understand vaporwave music or seapunk. Or normalcore.”

“The hell is normalcore or seapunk?” Vinyl asks, head cocked to the side, one eyebrow raised over her huge purple sunglasses.

“Fokked if I can explain. It’s too tumblr for me.”

“You mean they don’t understand us?” Aegis corrects him.

“Right – sorry. Even if I’d say you’re all my chommies, it’s just a bit hard to get used to,” Kraber says. “We exist in completely different stories, different levels of reality. I mean, it’s like… the Europe Front, and whatever the Dragons of the East are doing. Same world, but different kinds of stories,” He took a breath. “I’m not kidding. The PHL – you guys – are from a story where there’s always hope, where you just have to work together to save the world. Where you can solve problems with science and magic… then apply it to bullets for a big fokking gun right out of District 9. Maybe we’re in Warframe?”

Aegis and Kraber share a Look at that. A look of ‘Ah, memories!’ that reminds them of testing massive grenade launchers, and that time Kraber used a thermite gun on newfoals.

“The HLF, though…” Kraber continues. “They live in Mad Max. They’re in a world where we’ve lost everything, where everypony or everyzebra or whatever is the enemy, where you’re with them or against. In the PHL, you’re – no, we’re fighting to protect the spirit of freedom for all species. In the HLF, it’s already dead and nothing is sacred. They don’t understand the PHL, they don’t understand why I joined or anyone else did. So they made excuses.”

“...That’s pretty bleak,” you say, visibly disturbed at just what that implies about the HLF.

“It’s why the HLF you see that joined, like this one Scotsman I met in a pub with these Englishmen… Angus Reid, I think – he practically had fokking sensory overload!” Kraber says.

“No, nothing like that,” Kraber said. “I’m just wondering what the fok I’m doing. I’m thinking, maybe I should have… I don’t know, helped build a railroad. Go work in a hospital, do something, anything that’ll help people out of Defiance.”

“We have to be ideologically pure,” Mariesa said. “If one of us brings back something from ponies–”

“Are you fokking saying that, or is Lovikov?” Kraber asked. "We're human. Let's live up to the name and do some fokking liberating."

She looked open-mouthed for a second, and leaned against the tug’s gunwale, watching the waves below. Kraber did the same, right next to her.

“I just… I look at Defiance. Then I look at the rig. I look at the gun I have, and the shit they have on the news, those… those damn rainmaker grenades."

"I heard about 'em from one of the Canadian brigades that got away from Yael," Mariesa said. "They're a holy terror. Thank god they're in the prototype ph–"

"And what happens when they're the standard? Or if the PHL have fokking AGLs of them… and I just realized this, but I’d really love to fire one. What the fok happens to us if they turn the rainmakers down on us and our chommies?” Kraber asked. “The PER, they have magic gear, and a couple billion newfoals on their side. What the fok do we have? And what do we do with it?”

“That’s dangerous talk!” Mariesa hissed. “Lovikov will kill you!”

“He wanted me dead anyway,” Kraber said bitterly. “Not like it’ll make a difference.”

“Please, keep your voice down!” Mariesa insisted.

“The HLF isn't a dictatorship,” Kraber said. “This… Our age is fokking ending. I don’t know how I know, but I know. One day, things will have gotten so much harder… and we won’t even wake up and realize it. It’ll be after a battle, or maybe just around midday, and I’ll just think: ‘My God, we’re fokking obsolete’.”

“I was… I was working off old anxieties there,” Kraber explains. “I mean… The MG2019 I had was a prototype. It’d be standard soon, and when that happened we’d be fokked. Thing put the war into perspective…”

"What're you talking about down there?!" a voice called down from the bridge. "Kapitan Kraber..."

It was Verity, and the snide on the last two words was acidic enough to etch steel.

“NOT YOUR FOKKIN’ BUSINESS!” Kraber replied, yelling over the roar of the tug’s bow-wave.

“I don’t care what you call yourself, Kapitan, but right now this is my boat, and that makes your business, my business!”

They glared at each other before Mariesa stepped in between, one hand placed on Kraber’s chest and the other held up towards Verity, palm out.

“Please, we’re all on the same side here. We’re all HLF...and that’s what we were talking about, Captain Carter. The cause.”

Verity tipped her head and made a half-shrug. “Fine.”

She didn’t move away however, she and the tall, muscled man continuing to cross-examine each other in silence. The young woman staring down from the bridge wing, and the soldier gazing up from the main deck.

“Alright, what’s the deal between the two of you. Why do you get along so badly?” Mariesa asked, projecting her voice ever so slightly.

There was a pause, as Kraber stared up at the pilothouse, feeling Verity looking down on him.

“I think kids should have a chance to be kids,” he said at last. “I mean… look at yourself, Verity. You’re twenty-something years old and you’ve spent your entire formative years as a soldier. Before the war, even. You never finished college, were never in lov–”

“Don’t you dare make guesses about me, Viktor!” Verity yelled back. “The way I’ve lived my life is my decision, my choice!”

They could see her bunching her fists on the rail, and her shoulders shaking, trickling with raindrops as the sky itself wept.

“All of it, I chose all of it. Because neither of you saw… saw what they did to my mother.”

“And you never saw what the potion did to my kids…” Kraber answered softly, and the two hardened warriors, divided by age and gender, but brought together by circumstances managed to share a smile.

“I met your mother once, did you know,” he said, tone cautious. “It was at a convention, once. The Boston Comic-Con, 2015 – I slipped out of class for it. I needed a fokking break...”

“Comic-Con 2015…” Verity mused, and both of the observers saw her visibly slip into nostalgia for back when people had big, flashy, decorated conventions like that, when there was money, clothes, and materials to spare for whatever costume you needed. When pop culture was a hell of a lot more important than living hand-to-mouth on what scraps you could find. “That...that was my first cosplay… I was in an Autobot exosuit. Wait, were you the guy with the pompadour, at the IDW panel!?”

“I’m assuming you don’t mean the stocky fat guy in the Kill La Kill shirt, right?” Kraber asked. “He was a funny guy. Could stand to shave a bit more, though… I saw him dressed as one of the Galaxy Girls the next day...”

“So close… and yet so far...”

“At least he looked good in tights…”

Verity waved a desperate hand. “No goddammit no! The guy in leathers, dressed like a greaser… kept asking my Mom all the questions about her work for DC and Dark Horse, who was he cosplaying…? Oh yeah, Sweet JP from Redline!”

“Oh, that dipshit…” Kraber said. “Yeah, that was me.”

“You looked kinda funny,” Verity admitted.

“Hey, I smaak Redline! I even ghostwrote a paper on it for a friend in film school!” Kraber defended himself. “What the fok was I supposed to watch? Tailenders? Sies, man. Hated that so much.”

“Yeah, I saw that,” Verity said. “It… wasn’t all that good.”

“Say, did you know that JP’s real name is actually…” Kraber sniggered. “James Punkhead?!”

“No way!”

“I’m not tuning your kak, it really is!” Kraber protested.

They chuckled softly, sharing a memory. Then Kraber’s expression darkened.

“Your mother was a brave woman. What the ponies did to her, that… that wasn’t right. Look, Verity,” Kraber said. “We might not get along, we might be too similar to really… get each other, but I understand your–”

A crack over the radio snapped the conversation’s tail off.

“The hell is that?” Mariesa asked.

“That’s the PHL’s local radio station,” Lovikov said. “It’s broadcast from the Sorghum by some horsefucker and her friend. I was hoping to take it over too. Add a little… personal touch.”

“I like your style,” Verity said approvingly. “Go ahead!”

“You… you can sympathize with Verity?” Amber Maple asks.

“We all lost something in this war. Our pozzies, our chommies, our families, our lives… though that doesn’t mean it wasn’t hilarious what happened to her,” Kraber says. “Except the PER. They gave it away.”

There is an uncomfortable pause after this sentence.

“What about Kasparek?” you ask.

“Kasparek damn near killed himself to get to the PHL,” Kraber says. “I can’t hate a man like that. And he gave us all big fokking guns.”

“...I’m not sure what to say about your attitude towards forgiveness,” Aegis says.

“Well, it’s not easy,” Kraber shrugs. “We’re not so different, really.” He pauses. "...now I feel pretty fokking terrible about what I said to Verity.”

“Well, she’s HLF, cast adrift, left without…” Vinyl starts, her sentence stillborn.

“So was I,” Kraber says. “If I didn’t have Aegis, I’d be fokking ponified, dead… or stretched out on a table somewhere with a toolbox next to me.” He looks up at Aegis appreciatively. “She’s got nobody, pony or human.”

Aegis moves closer to Kraber, comforting him with his great pugnacious bulk, and Kraber leans against his barrel, gently sipping some hot chocolate that you suspect to be alcoholic.

“Thanks,” Kraber says, a warm smile on his face as he moves slightly, Aegis inclining his great neck towards Kraber for a hug.

“Just… don’t squeeze too hard, alright? I still think you cracked some ribs,” Aegis says.

“Sorry,” Kraber says, looking a little embarrassed as his best friend – his bru, his chommie – hugs him, and Kraber hugs back. “I love you so much, Aegis.”

“Me too,” Aegis admits, blushing slightly, the expression out of place on such a huge stallion.

“Hold on,” Kraber says, something dawning. “...I’ve got an idea. For Verity’s christmas present… Verksoon my a mo, I’ve got to talk to the Major! I’ve got a Hanukkah idea!”

And with that, he and Aegis have dashed out the room to requisition, leaving you looking confused.

When they return, Kraber talks about the rig, and how it was...

In a word, enormous. Saying it was a city unto itself would have been trite and cliche, though it was one of the only descriptors that Kraber could think to use. It was massive, colossal towers, drilling platforms and pumphouses and inscrutable rugged-yet-kitbashed PHL machinery balanced by improvised buildings that made it look like nothing so much as a mass of paint, girders, and rust. Shipping containers and deceptively hardy driftwood dwellings had been hammered and welded into place where possible. A few didn’t look to have ladders down, and were perched high up on the rig. Probably pegasus houses? But beneath all that, Kraber could see those huge PHL weapons, bristling like hairs from the upper echelons of the four pillars that bore the Sorghum’s weight. The cannons had been modified in some odd, exotic manner, with additional machinery added on, strung and bound with cords that steamed softly in the drizzle, glowing lightly in the cloudy night.

The light cast by the platform reached down and illuminated the darkening ocean below, which was populated by a multitude of boats, swaying gently in the sluggish, frigid current. Most were tugs, running the gamut of the four types America could manage –

1. New at the time of the war...

2. Fairly modern, which usually became...

3. Long overdue for scrap...

Or finally...

4. The rare homebrewed one made from said scrap and odds and ends lying around, or old boats frankensteined together from spare parts. The latter types were smaller, rarely built on any large scale, weaving in between the boats guarding the rig, its various tugboats, and the other semi-permanent boats docked and anchored near the rig.

To Kraber’s amazement, there looked to be small stores on the boats weaving in and out of the mass of vessels. Most of those were taking turns at the docking ports around the feet of the rig’s support columns.

Squinting, he saw that on one moored-up boat a large earth pony in a lifejacket was passing baskets of fish up to a longshoreman on the rig.

Supplies, this was how the floating community kept itself found. And there were many more boats clustering around - tugs not-so-different to the Arctic Warrior (bar of course, the submerged compartment full of ruthless soldiery) along with a smattering of gunboats, both purpose-built and improvised, and patched, half-scuttled ships that clung to the Sorghum’s bulk like pilot-fish to a whale. Kraber doubted that a lot of them had more than one voyage left in them, save for the last desperate trip down south as the Barrier made its way to America…

Down below, hovering just above the waves, he saw a pink pegasus hammering in a large metal patch to a boat that looked like it should have been scrapped… in the nineties. It listed to one side, on account of the various houses bolted onboard like odd growths or barnacles. The label ‘Winterstraw Market’ was emblazoned on the side of it.

Yeah, Kraber reflected, Someone out there definitely has a sense of humor about this.

Tethered to the market and other boats, he could see aerostats made from a reclaimed and incredibly large potioneer ships, the PHL logo sprayed over eight-layer-thick graffiti on the gasbag.

If the rig was a city upon the sea, then here was the umkhuku suburbia, exiled from who-knew-where or making their way down from the wilderness of northern canada. Some of them looked to have beaten to high hell. Lots of the boats bore the scars of some kind of offensive magic, such as strangely transmuted wood with grain that appeared to be interspersed with metal wire, or shoots of plants growing up from the wood.

The largest of the support ships bore the name Genesis, and appeared to have began life as a bulk grain carrier. Now, its lengthy foredeck was a colossal hydroponic greenhouse, glassed and tented in to grow crops, likely the closest that most ponies on the rig would have to an orchard or vegetable patch. Kraber had heard that most of the PHL’s ‘oceangoing’ ponies were pegasi – their ability to fly made staff changes easy, and a life on the ocean wave satisfied their avian desire to roam, but a ship like Genesis would probably have at least some earth ponies at hoof to staff the greenhouses and artificial orchards.

‘Pegasi are simple, they usually have SMGs or bombs or molotovs, but earthlings favor those ridiculous little assault saddles with the light machineguns...there’ll definitely be some unicorns, if only because the PHL is addicted to with their magic...’

Still, even with those considerations in mind, the majority of the ponies present would be ‘peggies’, who tended to be overconfident and had lightweight, easily broken bones. So this should probably be an easy job.

“Shit,” Mariesa said. “I didn’t think there’d be this many people...”

“Huh?” Viktor grunted, and then realised that he had been so focused on the ponies that he’d neglected the veritable army of human security personnel patrolling both the rig and the large ships. So many guns were out there… and of course, he doubted the people on the boats were unarmed. That was a luxury few could afford nowadays.

“That makes things interesting,” admitted Verity, who had come out onto the bridge wing to join them.

“...Are we changing plans? Doing something else?” Lovikov asked, clearing balking at the thought of taking orders from someone so much younger than him.

“No. If we wait, the actual tow will arrive, and then the rig will leave. And once it’s under way, getting aboard is going to be near to impossible,” Verity said. “And since they swallowed our cover, they’re expecting us, so we have to do it now. There’s no other option.”

Hundreds, Kraber thought, making a mental shrug of acceptance. Not like he had a way out of this sort of thing.

With Verity keeping up a string of repeated commands from the rig over the radio, the Arctic Warrior muscled itself through the teeming vessels towards the nearest of the pillars. Wider across than the tugboat was long, the vertical pillar was coated in umber-red anti-fouling paint, and featured collapsible jetties around the base that unfolded for vessels to tie up to.

“Redd, be ready on the aft lines,” she instructed. “Viktor, go forward, and don’t try be a pirate. Just take the coil of rope and sling it to the guy on the jetty…”

“...and then shoot him in the gesig while his hands are full?”

“...And the gesig is…”

“Face.”

“Wait, so you keep saying ‘kontgesig’, so… DAMMIT! No, you hick. You want his buddies to return fire? Are you trying to get killed?” she snorted. “Once we’re made fast I’m going to use the tug’s engines to whip the whole jetty sideways and knock em’ to their knees. Then you can go Johnny Depp batshit. But no guns. Keep it silent.”

It was a beautiful, elegant plan…

...and unlike most, it survived first contact with the enemy.

The enemy however, did not.

“Alright, you’re tied up. You can shut off your engines n-hey! Hey! What are you doing! Go ASTERN, TUGBOAT WARRIOR, GO ASTE-ARGH!”

“This part isn’t easy,” Kraber said. “...Not the outright worst fokking thing I did in the war, probably. But it’s the one that hits the most.”

Perhaps, in years past, this would have been a dream come true for Kraber. He would have strode straight into a building, smile on his face and a huge gun in his hands.

The crew on the mooring platform had gone down as free and readily as good whiskey. While they were still dazed, Kraber and his crew had jumped aboard and ‘helped them to their feet’. It was partly common sense, but also important that the cluster of boats not realise what they were seeing and report it up the chain of command.

So yeah, jump onto the jetty, grab each of the defenders (two per man, keep it simple), and then hustle them through the door into the support columns inner shell. The rest was just the free application of violence.

And now the Arctic Warrior was secured tight to the column, the boarding-party were disembarking from their secret compartment onto the platform…

… and nobody or nopony knew that it had happened.

“Beautiful!” enthused Lovikov as they climbed the stairs to the upper works. “A perfect insertion, just perfect. Almost fun.”

‘He’s getting worse… Fun, yeah’, mused Kraber. It had to be fun, didn’t it? It had to be fun killing the damn invaders and their toadies, those fokking mank genaaide bergboks!

He made a promise to himself. He had to give himself over to this, body and soul. If he was going to die here, as Lovikov had promised, he was going to be damn good at this.

The top of the column’s spiraling staircase opened up into a courtyard in one corner of the platform’s main working deck. Pipes as great and huge as felled redwoods rumbled, spat and hissed, forming a lattice roof over their heads. It was like walking through an industrial jungle.

“Hey. You’re… you’re the new tug crew, aren’t you?” asked a viridian-colored pegasus trotting up to them. He wore a light, inconspicuous assault yoke with two PDWs that vaguely resembled a P90, though Kraber could still pistol grips for humans protruding from the bottom of the things. Good touch. “Don’t think you’re supposed to be here.”

Now, there could have been a bloodless, easy way to do this. The HLF could have appealed to the reasonability of the PHL. They could have held the pony hostage. They could have been convincing. There could have been minimal bloodshed.

That would have made too much sense.

“Don’t think you do either,” Kraber said, and before he knew it, his revolver was in hand.

The pegasus’ head exploded all over the hot pipework, congealing and cooking immediately upon contact. The smell of burnt flesh and blood filled the cold air as more of the sanguine red liquid poured from the pony’s twitching corpse.

In perfect time, the assault team poured up the stairwell and spilled around Viktor and Lovikov, and like parasites introduced into a body, began to divide, and spread, and slaughter.

Author's Notes:

Edited a bit to show how the HLF took the rig. Red was a bit pissed about that...

Sunset City / God Bless us Every One

Co - Authors / Editors
TB3
Rush
VoxAdam
Kizuna-Tallis

”And here, we come to the biggest flaw of the HLF.”

“Jealousy?” Scootaloo suggests.

“Overconfidence?” Babs offers.

“They’re total dicks?” Vinyl adds.

“Their insanity in hiring you?” snarks Dinky.

“Let’s just say I had an… impressive resume,” Kraber answers. “Funny you should mention that, though, cause I ended up having to be the fokking sane one a couple weeks from the rig.”

He pauses for effect.

“YOU?!” Dinky gasps.

“...What,” Vinyl says, bewildered beyond even including inflection in her voice.

“I know!” Kraber agrees. “It was fokking awful! I mean, there they are, planning to blow up a dam, and I’m just there saying ‘AM I THE ONLY ONE THAT SEES A FOKKING PROBLEM WITH THIS?!’ And then they go, ‘DO NOT INTERRUPT MY BEING INGENIOUS!’ while about to do some stupid fokking shit, like, I don’t know, using mustard gas that could blow back into the camp and kill everyone.”

“...I would have thought that was the thing you mentioned earlier,” you yourself say. “The… different levels of reality thing?”

“Oh yeah. Good points... all of you. Except for you Dinky. But anyway, I talked to Sebastian Irving about it, right after I tried that thermite gun,” Kraber says. He rarely talks about his friend “Said they promote people just for hating ponies.”

“That’s terrifying!” you say.

“It is. Sometimes, you get someone competent, like Galt, but most times, you get varknaaiers like Birch.”

“And now that I think about it, most HLF officers,” Aegis adds. “Which reminds me - wasn’t that why Angus Reid left the HLF?”

“Heh, yeah. He said that the old man in charge was concerned with their public image…” Kraber adds. “Which is where you see the flaws. The PHL promotes people for effectiveness, eccentricity be damned. Which is how I’m where I am now – Hauptgefreiter Kraber.”

“I gotta admit, it came as a surprise, but congratulations, bru. You worked hard for it,” Aegis says.

“Why thank you!” Kraber says, genuinely surprised, as if he’d never expected to hear that. He puts an arm over Aegis’ neck. “But the HLF’s the reverse, so you get clinically fokking insane people commanding the ranks.”

“...Like you?” Babs suggests.

“I’m bosbefok, not crazy,” Kraber dismisses her. “Besides… I wasn’t good at following orders, or organization back in the HLF.”

“I wouldn’t have guessed,” Babs says.

“I know, right? Turns out that exploding a newfoal’s skull with your mind is therapeutic…” Kraber sighs contentedly.

“Wha– HUH?!” Scootaloo gasps.

“We’ll go into that later,” Kraber says a little too quickly.

“Who is Birch, anyway?” you ask. “You mentioned him a while back.”

“This one kontgesig from the HLF that nobody likes,” Kraber says.

“Oh, I remember him!” says one ex-HLF woman, only just approaching the end of her teens.

“Where’d you see him, ah…” Kraber’s voice trails off as he racks his brain for the memory of her name.

“Elena Shapiro,” she explains, to Kraber’s thanks. “It was back in ‘21, over in Atlantic City. Typical conspiracy nut, believed in reptilians, chemtrails, illuminati-”

“-So, basically Lazarus from Deus Ex,” Kraber interrupts.

“-I loved that game! Probably gonna get ponified in a year, if he hasn’t been already. But the weirdest thing was that he believed that he’d seen ponies kidnapping people all the way back to 2016.”

“Actually, Kraber and you colts and fillies,” Zecora calls back, leaving her irritable and weakened charge out in the hallway, “I find that it might not be so silly.”

“Eish?” Kraber asks.

“Potions and medicine demand a test,” Zecora explains. “As you may know, the first version is rarely best.”

“But that would mean…. hmmm,” Kraber says thoughtfully. “Alright. It is pretty weird that nobody ever considers the test subjects. Anyway, he was a crazy, bosbefok guy that–”

Meanwhile, in the future…
November 18, 2023…

Kraber will be lying in a hospital bed with a cracked scapula and several torn muscles, along with a few minor injuries from the downright fokking awful train ride here. He has the stuffed animals he’s carried with him all this way. His nose is broken – amazing how he forgot that – and his eyes have dark circles under them, he’s trembling, his skin is almost gray, his eyes dart from side to side, his hair is lank and greasy… he looks almost dead. He’s dimly aware that something should hurt like hell. Thankfully, nothing major has broken, but Kraber will be in the bed more for rest than anything. Besides, Major Bauer, Lieutenant Trixie, Colonel (emphatically not ‘commander’) Renee, and Cheerilee wouldn't want him to be in that other Equestria. He and Aegis would be the first to admit it – Kraber would have a psychotic break as soon as he got there. Only an idiot would have thought he should go there. Still, he will have to wonder about... About Pinkie Pie. He'd liked her when he talked to her over the phone, in spite of his distrust of PER. So... What was the real her like? What the FOK was she going through?! Nobody deserved that....

Wait...

Suddenly, so many things about Maud and that bizarre fokking note in the PHL archives will make sense. While he hates the betrayal, he can't hate her. They’re not so different, are they?

He will decide he hates the queen more than ever – that fokkin teef saw some of the most trusted ponies in her empire just as assets, and made them into monsters just to ensure loyalty. Worse, she did it the most sadistic fokking way possible.

“Shouldn’t you be asleep by now?” Aegis will ask. They will be playing Warframe, and Kraber will be playing Mesa, having armed himself with a Brakk and Boltor Prime.

Aegis, however, is using Rhino. How fitting. He’s also armed himself with the Twin Gremlins and a Karak. The one from the game, not the common frankengun that Kraber's had the misfortune of using.

“I’m not sure I want to at this point,” Kraber will say, stifling a yawn.

“Hey, you said you’d sleep when you have time,” Aegis will reply. “And here we are...” he will cast one foreleg out, pointing to nothing in particular with his hoof, “We have time!”

“I know, I know,” Kraber will say. “It’s just… the kak I’ve seen…” he shoots one Infested ancient in the face. “I saw experiments. I saw the potion get made. I fokking saw Twilight Sparkle begging for mercy, as she experimented on people that... couldn’t have all come from after the Manifestation,” he’ll realize. “Son of a bitch.”

“Wait. So you’re saying that Celestia kidnapped people before the War, which means… which means... Birch…” Aegis will continue, similarly aghast.

And they will say in unison:

"MOTHER FOKKER!”

“Oh, the shit we two know, huh?” Kraber will laugh afterwards.

The stamping of feet on deck and the first distant gunshots drew attention fast.

“What’s going on Seafo–” blurted an older soldier with a shotgun and older equipment, rushing into the courtyard before taking stock of the situation. A UN patch shone blue on his shoulder.

He saw everything. The invading troops, Kraber and Lovikov… and the dead pony.

“Seafoam! YOU SONS OF BITCHES!” he screamed, unholstering his shotgun. “I’ll–”

Kraber’s LMG is lifted clear of his duffel bag, or perhaps the duffel bag fell off around the LMG. Instantly, he’s fanned the trigger and three blazing rounds through that man’s gut, leaving the varknaaier screaming, clutching his bleeding, crimson stomach.

The Battle of the Sorghum had commenced in earnest.

It would be hard for Kraber to ever describe the firefight to secure control of the platform. Not for the violence involved, no. Nor was it because of brutality, or some new cruelty visited on people, like his masterworks of disemboweling PER members (and then tying them to trees for wolves to eat, cooing as the adorable fluffy wolf pups nibbled on the stomach), or that time he pretended to dump potion on someone’s head and it was really… well, that wasn’t important.

“See, in action movies,” Kraber would tell a grouping of fillies and young adult mares a little over a year later, “...And most of my life, actually, firefights are choreographed long-range spectacles. Blood spraying everywhere. And the Conversion War, that’s pretty fokking large-scale.”

This… this was small-scale, at point-blank range for an MG2019, and it ripped them apart, punching massive holes.

Inasmuch as a firefight could be, it was an intimate affair, personal and tender.

As the HLF force inveigled themselves through the corridors and compartments, ponies revealed themselves, along with men and women holding shotguns. They placed themselves behind corners and barricades, weapons at the ready… only for the HLF to launch grenades and pipebombs at them, the shrapnel and nails inside shredding the poor varknaaiers and adding dashes of colour to the industrial grey of the platform’s decor.

PHL with combat vests (often festooned with glowing markers that showed them to be shielded) were priority targets, with grenades tossed at them. They hadn’t expected this - how could they? The typical HLF response to combat-ready PHL soldiers was simple. Toss out some of the nonlethal grenades such as flashbangs that hadn’t been all that prominent in the war, and take advantage of the lull to pour bullets into their skulls, legs, or areas with weaker armor, wearing down the shield under an avalanche of fire and improvised explosives. The armor was durable enough that aiming for center of mass was almost a moot point.

PHL shields were durable. Enough that you could empty a magazine from one gun into them without so much as a spark on the shield, if you were unlucky enough. But then, the combined weaponry of several Thenardier Guards and Menschabwehrfraktion at near-point-blank range, that was enough to give the scant few soldiers on the rig pause.

Best of all, the HLF had the element of surprise on their side when going up against soldiers. And, most of all, numbers.

The rig's workers were most, if not all, of the defenders. People in jumpsuits and fluorescent vests, with a museum’s worth of arms. Some had cheap milisurp, Century Arms weapons that John Fitzsimmons from Maine had told Kraber not to bother with, and some had things that might have been taken from actual armories, but those were the minority. Most were armed with pistols, hunting rifles and shotguns that had likely never been intended for actual combat, and still others had taken the target rifles and bird guns ignored by more fortunate folk. They were the firearms of the desperate majority who had been unable to acquire actual military-grade weaponry, and against HLF body-armor, many of them had all the stopping power of a wayward breezy.

“...My God, we barely have a real military here!” Kraber heard someone scream. “They’re just murdering workers! And us, if we don’t-”

Her voice was cut off, as Kraber saw a woman with dyed-blue hair falling to the ground choking, clutching a .45ACP-sized hole in her throat.

And so a pattern established itself. Advance into another room, receive sporadic defensive fire, return with extreme prejudice. The defenders were loaded for bear, and the aggressors were loaded for tanks. Kraber's .338 rounds punched through up to two, even three of the PHL kontgesigs at a time, leaving bloody ruin and glistening trauma in their wake, pink and purple and putrescent.

He barely even had to shoulder it – at this range, he could just spray, with no need to pray. Any round he fired would probably hit something.

And hit they did. So many people and ponies fell to the ground, clutching massive holes, screaming as Kraber fired… and fired… and fired again.

When the MG2019 ran out of ammo, he simply pulled out his .45 pistol and fired that, the .45ACP rounds punching through head after head. When that was done, Kraber tried for the revolver – headshots with that thing didn’t leave pretty little holes, all he could see were a few remnants of the lower jaw when he fired.

This was fun, wasn’t it?! WASN’T IT?!

“You’re enjoying yourself, aren’t you?” that new hallucination, Victory said, as Kraber slipped into another room. “Go on! INDULGE YOURSELF!”

She was holding her own pullstring in her hooves, and yanking it in tune to every dying scream and gurgle.

“Hi I’m Victory, the Pretty Private. Hi, I’m Victory, I’m your death. Hi I’m Victory, your pocket-monster psychopath, hi, hi, hi, DIE!”

“No, Kraber! This isn’t you!” the older newfoal screamed, screamed in Kate’s voice.

“HOU JOU FOKKIN BEK, JOU VARKNAAIERS!” Kraber yelled back, not sure if he was yelling at the PHL or the two newfoals in his head.

Shouldering the MG2019, he aimed for one PHL man’s knee, the round tearing through it and shattering a pony’s hoof as it exited on the far side. As added insult, Kraber strode up to the PHL man, and kicked him in the face.

“You fucking sonova–” the PHL man screamed, just before Kraber’s boot shattered his jaw again, cracking his skull against the wall. The pony behind him, a purplish-colored earth pony stallion, tried to jump up, but fell, the stump of his hoof oozing blood. He gritted his teeth and tried to move, but–

“Hi,” Kraber whispered, getting down on his knees in front of the pony and slipping on his brass knuckles. “I’m Viktor, the smiling psycho.”

Kraber drew back his fist and bliksemed the PHL man, fist driving into his skull. In the corner of his eye, he could see Victory applauding him, and rushed on, laughing hysterically.

“JOU FOKKING INVADERS! JOU THINK JOU CAN SCREW WITH US, JOU BLIKSEM?!” Kraber screamed, lashing out, gouging and punching, again and again.

His victims, pony and human alike screamed incoherently, and Kraber finished each by driving a razor-edged fist into their throats, feeling a grim satisfaction everytime something went squish.

“Oh!” called out Victory, offering out her own golden horse-shoes. “Do you want to try these out? They’ve got bladed tips and are perfect for this kinda fun. Course, you’ll need hooves, but we have just the medicine for that.”

“Stop it Viktor!” screamed the shade of Anka, her voice high and piercing. “Please, just stop this and listen to me!”

But Kraber was beyond listening. Right now he’s managed to reduce one pony’s skull into a concave bowl, and is far from spent.

“JOU LIKE HURTING KIDS, HUH?!” Kraber screamed, feeling something crack, and the corpse’s skull splits, releasing the soft centre. “JOU LIKE HURTING PEOPLE THAT JUST WANTED TO FOKKING RUN AWAY?!”

Another punch.

“JOU FOKKIN POESNEUS!”

“You… you’re one to talk,” the shade of Emil sighed in disappointment. “You… you’re just scared little children, murders and rapi–”

“AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGH!” Kraber yelled, and headbutted a fresh pony, the spikes on his helmet impaling her eye. The mare screamed, a high piercing note that made Kraber’s ears ache.

“NOBODY! FOKKING! CALLS ME THAT!” Kraber yelled, pounding his fists into the earth pony. This was… it felt good, right?! IT WAS FOKKING SUPPOSED TO BE RIGHT! NOTHING WAS RIGHT!

Maybe if he pounded a corpse further into dust again it’d be fun. Maybe then he could finally feel like a hero!

Maybe... if he punched her again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again–

“Kraber…”

There was a voice screaming his name, but it didn’t feel unimportant.

And then a pair of hands caught his fist, twisted his arm behind his back, and forced him into a submission hold, breaking his focus… and slamming him face-first into the floor.

“I know who you are, you bastard,” the man hissed, and Kraber was thrown at a wall, choking as the wind was knocked out of him. He wheezed, and coughed up blood inside his mask as a booted foot slammed into his stomach.

Kraber could see the name written on his PHL vest - Imbeault. “Viktor Kraber,” he said. “They’ll pay me good for your body.”

Kraber headbutted him, and Imbeault looked stunned… if only for a moment, before throwing Kraber at another wall.

FOK! He was so strong!

Kraber was thrown out of the room, the door smacking against his back, as he tumbled back outwards. Oh, fok!

“Dodge… this…” Kraber said, as he rolled over, unlimbering his MG2019, and opening full-auto.

Now, strong as Imbeault might have been, good as his shields might have been, it was still a machinegun chambered for .338 Norma Magnum at close range. And aimed at Imbeault’s head.

Imbeault staggered back, the weight of bullets smashing against him.

“But how?! How the hell did you get that PHL-”

And finally, impossibly, a hail of bullets shredded through Imbeault’s skull. He swayed for a second, and crumpled down. His armor was mostly intact, but his head was a pulped mess, barely more than a few scraps of flesh attached to the neck.

“...Oh holy shit,” Kraber wheezed. “Thanks for the save. Except you, Lovikov!” he yelled.

“I’m your commanding officer, you sonovabitch!” Lovikov yelled.

“Then why…” Kraber coughed, blood dripping onto his vest, “Didn’t you shoot the kontgesig?!”

“You know, he’s right,” one Thenardier Guard said. “What the hell was with that guy?”

“We’ve gotten as far as the radio suite” called down one other Menschabwehrfraktion woman named Katrin, originally from Amsterdam. “They’re resisting pretty heavily!”

There was a scream, and a bang.

“What goddamn resistance?!” the newfoal asked in Kate’s voice. “They were just doing their jobs! They were doing something that’d help during Barrierfall! And you've refused to do anything like that! Oh,” the creature said in his voice, playing back what he’d said last night, “And if I'm near one pony, one of those fokking invaders that destroyed our home – then they’ll kill me. Ponify me! They can’t be trusted! I’m willing to bet they’ve done more to help humanity than you have in the last couple years!”

“Oh, don’t stress about it,” trilled Victory. “I mean, its all just more dead humans and traitors. You’re actually making it easier for Her Majesty by reducing the surplus population. When you’re me, you’ll thank yourself too! Keep up the good work.”

“Shut up…”, Kraber hissed as he walked in the direction of the Menschabwehrfraktion man’s voice, eventually finding himself in the radio facilities, a small cluster of soundproofed rooms, each broadcasting on a different frequency and topic.

It wasn’t a long distance - for all its size, the rig occupied a very small footprint, after all.

He practically waded through blood to get to this deck. Ponies, most of them pegasi, lay dying on the floor, some of them with their heads...

‘What manner of liberator does this?’

...their heads missing, blown apart by HLF munitions, the gray-pink residue of their brains spattered against the wall. Some were still alive, and two HLF members, a short man and woman with an AK74S-U each (Burton and Sarah Mallett) held a screaming pegasus down, sawing her wings off with a hacksaw.

‘Does this accomplish anything?’

One dead pony looked to be a foal, and Kraber’s heart seized up as, for a moment, he saw the foal he’d saved two nights before superimposed over her. Looking at him with pity again - not anger, pity. An ass-mark of what looked to be ballet shoes fitted for hooves, whatever they were called, was emblazoned on her flank, but when he walked past her, it… It wasn’t there. He turned around – had she only gotten a cutie mark on one flank? He turned around a little, curious, to find that it wasn’t there on that side either.

It wasn’t there! Okay, just a…. just another hallucination. He had to keep going but–

He remembered something. Something from back in Istanbul, a moment with Burakgazi. Right after they’d blown up the Bureau there...

July 29, 2019
Istanbul, Turkey
Right after the Istanbul Conversion Bureau bombing
A cafe with really good baklava

“Thanks for recommending this place," Kraber said appreciatively. "So... What was so important?"

"I found some textbooks,” said Burakgazi, the strange, stocky man that Kraber had met planning a completely separate terrorist attack on the Bureau, through the use of what seemed to be homemade chemical bombs. He was perhaps best described as ‘indeterminately brown’ – he looked Turkish, but there was a trace of something asian in his features, owing to one Japanese parent, which, he claimed, owed to the fact that Japanese and Turkish were very similar languages. He had somewhat wrinkled tan skin, early graying, prematurely receding dark hair, and a thick short dark beard that appeared to go out in every direction. “Textbooks from Equestria.” He looked to be somewhere into his thirties. It was hard to guess.

They were sitting at a cafe in Istanbul, looking on approvingly at the emergency services rushing by them, ready to rescue the Bureau personnel. Not much point, really – Kraber was half-tempted to stand up, take a look at the various mosquitos (as a Boston policeman by the name of Django Miller had termed the onlookers that flocked to a crime scene, back when Kraber was still in college) and others rushing to the site of their handiwork, and call out “STOP RUNNING, JOU FOKKING KONTGESIGS! THE HUMANS THAT RUN BUREAUS ARE FOKKING DEAD ALREADY!”

“Why the fok would you want to look at those, Mr. Burakgazi?” Kraber asked, disgustedly.

“Please. Call me Kagan,” Burakgazi said warmly. “We blew up that fokking concentration camp they called a…”

“You know, I’m Jewish, but the description seems accurate,” Kraber said.

Burakgazi breathed a sigh of relief… then he made a noise of disgust. “Was that bad to you, eh?”

“It was fokking Dachau in there!” Kraber exclaimed. “Praise the Lord and pass the thermite. But… why textbooks?”

“Well, I cherish knowledge,” Burakgazi said. “...Eventually, your knowledge of where to get thermite grenades. But I even cherish knowledge from goddamned gluesticks. They’re quite fascinating, really. Apparently, ponies have something called alicornal tissue – it’s thaumaturgon-superconducting...”

“Did someone read Perdido Street Station when they came up with that?”

“....Huh. That is weird. Still, I suppose it’s a good name for the particles that alicornal tissue can interact with. Damn, you’ve read that book too?”

“I love that book! New Crobuzon… amazing city, but I wouldn’t want to live there. I do like the point Mr. Mieville makes about criminals being marked for life…”

“It’s really not all that different when you get down to it,” Kagan agreed. “Anyway – turns out those ass-marks they have grow out of super-concentrated alicornal tissue pockets in their flanks – sometimes in other places, but that’s rare – and marks them with the skill they’re best with at, what they’ll be happiest with… No damn clue what it’d be. Usually it activates by the time they’re eleven.”

Kraber staggered against a blood-spattered window, against which sleeting sea spray was hurled by the wind, his head reeling. The navigation lights of ships on the ocean below danced in strange orbits, as he tried to comprehend the body before him. There were sporadic firefights all over the area, some of which were on the boats below. Let the kontgesigs come. He wouldn’t mind.

It had a cutie-mark. So that meant it wasn’t a newfoal – newfoals were always part of the PER or what have you. He’d shot a ch–

‘You fokking lying hypocrite…’ he thought, only for an unwelcome voice to finish the thought.

“You did this two days ago, and you laughed!” giggled Victory, the Pretty Private. “You stupid, stupid human! But don’t worry…” she said, waggling one hoof back and forth like a mother chastising her son, one of those STUPID FOKKING PSYCHOLOGISTS THAT TREATED HIM OR HIS KIDS LIKE SHIT! “You can forget this if you just go pony…”

“Don’t listen! Viktor… this isn’t doing anything!” the other newfoal pleaded in Kate’s voice. “This is your last chance for reclamation! There’s only so long before the PHL and the U.S armed forces slaughter any HLF that don’t surrender, or before the HLF do something so terrible that the police might just decide you all resisted arrest! They know you, Viktor!”

“Then,” Kraber said, looking uneasily at the remains of yet another pony, pinned to the wall with what looked like a railroad spike, “I have to fight, if the PHL will resort to-”

“It won’t be them that resort to despicable things” the other newfoal interrupted. “It will be you. You’re already doing them! You know what happened to that mare named Sutra Cross, Kraber. Surely you heard it on the radio?”

It was the first time the newfoal sounded so…. real. So powerful. So much like it was just next to him…

Kraber’s eyes darted around, not sure where the voice was coming from. Maybe the PHL would get him for this raid. Maybe they wouldn’t. But… moments like this… there was only so long the authorities could justify ignoring the HLF. And he’d have to be bosbefok, fokking crazy, to believe he’d get out of this with no consequences.

… If he lived, assuming the PHL or Lovikov didn’t kill him, what then?

Nothing, not even those fokking annoying hallucinations, had an answer.

All was silent, save for the sounds of Lovikov and various other ‘brothers and sisters of the liberation’ roughing-up the civilians in one of the radio rooms. There were no screams, not at this stage. He could hear the sounds of fists striking flesh, and dry sounds that...
Were those made by people? What few ponies were left on the rig didn't have long to live.

Looking and feeling a little gray, Kraber stepped through and surveyed the scene.

Yeah, no screaming. There came a point when it became impossible for the victim to scream.

“What kept you?” Lovikov asked, in what Kraber hoped was a joke. He didn’t answer.

“Well, Verity, your informant did us well again,” Flamel said. “Not sure I trust her, but she certainly got the job done.”

“Verity has an informant?” Kraber asked, surprised.

“None of your concern,” Verity said, a dangerous edge in her voice.

“You… sons of bitches…” one woman hissed through her remaining teeth, only to contract in shock when Lovikov shot an earth pony who had been laid out beside her.

“Now,” the Russian asked levelly. “Can I broadcast from this station?”

“You… You killed Shortwave,” the woman whimpered. “He… he was my f–”

“Ah, get off it,” Lovikov said dismissively. “Ponies aren’t your friends. I just did you a favor.”

“Favor?!” the woman yelled. “FAVOR?! You bastard, he had foals! He smuggled them out of Equestria, just to–”

“Kraber?” Lovikov asked. “Persuade her.”

This… this was what Kraber did. This was what he had to do… he was HLF, he reassured himself. He was protecting humanity…

Which was why he punched that poor woman in the face, knocking her to the ground and leaving her clutching the bloody hole in her face that had been her mouth, wheezing and whimpering in the agony beyond mere screams.

Ja, that was some fine-ass fokking protection.

“Now…” Lovikov said, pointing down at the woman as if the finger he had to her face was a gun. “Can. I. Broadcast from here?”

“YES!” she gasped. “We were on the air when you attacked! We still are!”

“Good,” Lovikov said, and pointed his pistol to her head-

“Hey! Stop that!” Verity yelled. “We still need some hostages! Not that you and that crazy bastard left many to work with…”

“Fine,” Lovikov sighed, sounding like nothing so much as a petulant child. Shoving him none-too-gently aside, Verity changed places with him, holding her sidearm to the poor woman’s trembling head, as Lovikov stepped up to the console and started to speak.

“I’m sure all of you brainwashed sheep listening into tonight’s scheduled propaganda have wondered who we are,” Lovikov said smoothly. “Well. We’re not your salvation – that’s a shitty excuse. You’ve had enough salvation. No, we’re your LIBERATION!”

He paused for effect before continuing. “If you heard our attack ‘live’, then know this. We have waited as you welcomed in those invaders, those fucking gluesticks. The ponies, the zebras, the like. We are the Human Liberation Front. You’ve now heard with your own ears what we are capable of. And unlike you–”

“...is it really for the best if we’re guilting them?” Mariesa wondered, earning herself a stern look from Verity.

‘We’re on thin ice’,Kraber realized. Then, unbidden: ‘Oh God, what if we’re… what if we’re just a distraction for the Thenardiers? Would Galt throw away one of his best infiltrators for a bigger score - are we just a diversion, a distraction for the PHL?’

“Of course you’re disposable,” laughed Victory, who was dancing up and down in the bloody cavity that had been Shortwave’s abdomen. “Sticks and stones break human bones, but newfoals never worry.”

His paranoia was mounting – he hadn’t been this wound up since that time in that subway with all the newfoals where there could have been a newfoal behind every corner.... And now Lovikov...

… Lovikov already planned to shoot him, and was acting under orders from Defiance command.

And if the PHL came, if by some miracle the government acquiesced to the HLF’s demands it was incredibly unlikely that they’d get away without consequences...

“Die by hand or die by hoof, or shed your doubts and be me. All your cares just melt away, when you drink Her mercy…”

“-we have not forgotten what Equestria has done! We have not forgotten our families and friends being ponified, our homes destroyed! Unlike some of you...” Lovikov continued, disgusted.

“A newfoal’s life is full of glee, why die to stay human? Embrace I’m your destiny, and murder all your creeeewmen.”

“...there shall be no be peace between us and the ponies, not until every last pony is dead. You have seen what ponies have brought to this world – they cannot be trusted! It is the end of the world, and madness to trust those that have brought so much suffering!”

It is a stirring speech, and this is a hell of a victory…

It’s the rant of a zealot and this was nothing even approaching anything that can be referred to in the same space as a triumph of any kind. It’s a massacre…

“Both wrong, foolish mortal mind, this is to our glory. Simply slaughter all your kind, that’s our scripted story…”

No, Kraber unravels, trying to nail down the voices in his head. He was trying to ascertain what they were accomplishing here? Wishing that they could do something bigger than hunkering down in the woods and just killing PER?

This was that greater destiny. This raid. It will be his epitaph, his legacy...

And yet… something didn’t ring true.

“A wise man,” Lovikov said, “Would trust in humanity. Which is why we, the HLF, have taken over the Sorghum Exile oil platform, just off the coast of Maine. We have hostages at gunpoint - and we will slaughter all of them, and bombard Portland if our demands are not acquiesced to within twenty-four hours. Firstly, we demand the release of Michael Carter, who is being held unlawfully by lackeys of the Equestrian column. Secondly…”

“Don’t worry – it gets better,” Kraber says. He pauses a second. “Well, no. I get better, trust me. But not by much.”

He stares down at you and all the terrified foals, and realizes, for the first time, that he may not exactly have the best judgment when it comes to storytelling. Or at all.

What a way to spend Christmas Eve...or the last night of Hanukkah...or the first night of Hearth's Warming… it really got confusing when the ponies starting lighting their own menorahs!

“...you kids sure you want to hear this part of the story?” Kraber asks, visibly concerned.

“Well, I don’t know about them, but I do!” you say. “I asked why… I wanted to know how you got to the PHL… but I have to know.”

“You’re sure? I mean, I end up hitting rock bottom three times in about four weeks. It’s pretty fokking bleak,” Kraber says. “‘Cept for the part where I meet Aegis…”

“Go ahead.”

“Do I get to narrate this story when I come in?” Aegis asks.

“Absofrigginlutely,” Kraber says, clapping a hand on the back of Aegis’ neck. “Remember what you said about me hogging all the screen time… on interviews?” he added hastily.

“Ah, yes… you kinda do.”

“Sorry about that. And don’t worry, you’ll get your turn,” Kraber says. “For now, we’re still on the rig. Anyway, Lovikov’s speech, about freedom and honor and safety among all those dead people, it–”

“Hauptgefreiter Kraber?” asked a white earth pony mare with a wavy blue mane. “That laptop you asked for is here.”

“Ah, okay. I’ll get back to that later then,” Kraber says. “I’ll be back in a few, then – I’ve got an apology to make.”

“To who?” you ask.

December 25th 2022 in New York dawned without the stereotypical fall of snow, except over Central Park, where some PHL pegasi had driven away the rainclouds (Thunderwing from the Stampede Fleet has released an academic paper, hypothesizing them to be a consequence of various atmospheric magic used with little thought about their effect on Earth, and blamed Queen Celestia’s shortsightedness) and, with their innate magic, conjured a winter wonderland.

“Come together one and all,
In the giving spirit,
Gifts abound here great and small
Joyously we feel it…”

From a makeshift hospital-cum-prison at 55 Central Park West, Verity Carter can not only see children and foals frolicking in the park, but hear the rising sound of voices singing in harmony. There is a church right next to the building, and from it comes the glorious carols, defying the horrors of the war.

“Blessings sent us from above,
Guide us on our way.
We raise our voice as we rejoice,
Bow our head and pray.”

Right now, she wishes she could just step on that church… squash it with her monstrous new hooves. Trying to drown that out, she awkwardly turns on a nearby radio. The first station’s playing something that sounds like pop-influenced house, and she can’t figure out how to turn its knobs with hooves, (How the hell did ponies manage so much without hands?) so she just sighs and tries to sink her head deep, deep into the pillow.

To add insult to injury, she can still hear the carolers outside.

“A miracle has just begun,
God bless us everyone…”

‘A miracle’, that’s what the doctors had called what had happened to her. They all insisted she should not have survived that level of exposure, that the dosage should have left her a gibbering wreck of cancerous tissues. Then again, according to Viktor, “that sort of kak’s a fool’s game worrying about. We’ve all been exposed to magic at one point or another, and if the Queen hadn’t been talking gara out her poephol, we’d all be masses of fokking tumors,” so it wasn’t as remarkable as people would have you think. While Kraber is trying to work in PHL medical, and steadily gaining traction as a reliable surgeon and medic, nobody’s willing to test his hypothesis on account of it being scary. Or so she’ll be told by ponies such as Wildfire.

She shifts restlessly in her bed, and feels the fur that now covers her body tickle against the blankets. The hairs are short, dense and glossy, except for on the back of her neck and the small of her back, where they grew out into a flowing mane and tail…

They’d had to secure her head in place to prevent her trying to chew that last appendage off with her own teeth, but then it wasn’t like she could pick up a scalpel and slash her wrists in her current state.

“To the voices no one hears,
We have come to find you.
With your laughter and your tears,
Goodness, hope and virtue…”

Lying there on her back, she curls into a ball, hooves tucked up under her chin, and weeps. It is Christmas Day, and in an instant she had lost everything, and is now alone. Trapped in enemy territory, in an enemy body, naked and exposed.

“Let me die…” she sobs. “Just please, let me die! Haven’t I lost enough?!”

And then somebody knocks on the door. Her head snaps to one side as the newcomer lets themselves in, and feels her huge new eyes narrow.

“You… it would have been you…”

Kraber honestly half-expected her to fly into a rage, but instead the freshly-baked mare tied to the hospital bed just begins to make snuffling sounds, a kind of DMZ between laughter and crying that only a pony’s vocal cords could quite manage.

“So… sniff… you’ve come to mock me?”

“No, Carter…” he says softly, and takes a laptop computer out from under his arm. “I’mma be honest. I felt fokking awful about what I did to you while I was telling that story.”

“You? Regret?” Verity asks incredulously.

“I mean… that was just fokking sadistic. So I brought you a Christmas gift.”

“You’re Jewish…”

That’s rich, coming from a girl who lies somewhere in the middle of a spiritual three-way involving agnosticism, Catholicism and the Prophet Joseph Smith.

“Well, then it's a Hanukkah gift... The spirit of the holidays transcends religion, my sister Tania always said. I’m also the man who’s managed to secure you a call with your father. And besides, Hanukkah ends in a day or two. So why not?”

“Wha... Oh… thank you Viktor…”

She sniffs back a tear. Though she’s not going to hug this man – it’s Viktor Kraber, after all.

“Thank you…”

The laptop is set up with a military-grade teleconferencing program. It had taken some work, but with a bit of effort he had been able to convince PHL High Command to allow Verity brief access onto the channels reserved for secret negotiations with the HLF. Despite their mutually opposed ideologies, the two bodies still maintain a few avenues of contact, for discussing the terms of prisoner exchanges and such-like. Originally, back when Lyra was alive, that had been meant for discussing potential alliances, PER activity, and enemy troop movements. There’d been contacts in the HLF, stand-up-people you could trust to work with you, that considered the destruction of PER more important than racial animosity.

The last time these channels had been used for their original purpose was during Agua Caliente. Most of those contacts had filtered into the PHL by now, and any hope of cooperation had long since died out.

But now, they're being fired up again.

He sits beside her and works the keyboard for her, raises the back of the bed so she can see. She begs him to not turn the webcam on as he opens up the connection, is put through to HLF HQ, (wherever that is) and searingly curses and browbeats his way into a conversation with Michael Carter, doing an almost dead-on impersonation of Robert Carlyle putting on a Scottish accent so thick that she has to wonder if the HLF on the other end are intimidated from its incomprehensibility, the profanity, or the pugnacious cause-ah-fuckin-well-sais surety in his voice.

“I never knew you could put on a scottish accent that convincingly,” Verity says.

“Ah, it’s an old habit,” Kraber says. “Ah played Begbie awhoil back at some theater down in Boston.”

“Wait… would this be the one where that woman went into labor and–” she pauses. “Oh.”

“Ah kept in practice in case ah had to go on the run,” Kraber continues. “Like that time back in college I burned down that-”

It is fortunate that they are then interrupted.

“Verity… is that you?! Oh Christ! I was so worried about you when you failed to report back in.”

Mike’s ragged expression of relief is almost painful for Viktor. He remembers a man who, with the voice of an impassioned preacher, called hellfire and brimstone and damnation down upon mankind’s enemies. What he sees now is not the man who had stirred armies with his rhetoric, but a tired and concerned father, aged before his time. He looks almost ancient.

“I’m… I’m okay Dad...they’re, they’re treating me well.”

“They’d better be! Let me know what their demands are and we’ll set you up for release straight away. Do not tell them anything except your ID!”

Kraber knows Verity is adopted. The sheer physical differences between the hispanic girl and her black father shows as much. But the sheer amount of love in the room could have fed an entire Changeling hive.

“Dad...there’s, something else...I had an accident on my mission.”

“Father, mother, daughter son,
Each a treasure be.
One candle’s light dispels the night,
Now our eyes can see…”

The touching reunion between a father and daughter had been enough to stir his own treasured memories of fatherhood, and for a second none of them had been soldiers anymore. Just people…

“Okay… I’ll show you what happened. Just… please don’t hate me, Dad.”

“Yuir sure ye want him tae see this?” Kraber asks gently, keeping his voice low and Scottish-accented. He felt it was best if Carter not realise just ‘who’ was supervising his daughter. There was bad blood between them, even before Kraber had left the Sorghum…. and the Great HLF Exodus had only made things worse. A lot of people directly blame Kraber for gutting the HLF ranks. Still, that was something to be proud of, wasn’t it? “There'll be no going back.”

“Who is that?!” Michael Carter demands. “If you've done anything to my daughter, I'll–”

“Ah promise ya – Ah daid nothing,” Kraber says. “She’s fine. Ye just have to trust in us...”

“Trust? In PHL?!” Michael Carter asks, as if the very thought is an absurdity.

“Just promise me,” Kraber says. “Promise me tae listen.”

“I will promise nothing until you show me my daughter right now,” Michael Carter commands.

Kraber inclines his head to Verity, visibly worried. There’s a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach, that something’s about to go to kak.

Verity nods, and Kraber reaches over, slides his finger along the touch-pad, and ‘taps’ on the ‘camera’ icon.

The side-window opens, and Verity’s image appears in it. The stubby muzzle and expressive eyes, hazel with a touch of blue. The dark mane and brown coat.

The pony that Verity has become.

“Burning brighter than the sun,
God bless us everyone.
A miracle has just begun,
God bless us everyone!”

Carter’s reaction is slow. He has expectant, worried joy for the first nanosecond that he sees Verity - no, that’s not how he’d think of it, he’d think “The pony in the bed.”

There is a pause. Seconds? Minutes? Hours? It’s hard to say how long, and they all maintain eye contact, staring at each other. There is an incredulous look up at Kraber, the realization that he must have been the scottish-accented man. Clearly, Carter wants to demand that Kraber, the Great Turncoat, their Judas, tells him where his daughter is, and where this mare is. He’s in denial, the shock to great for him to even make demands...

...Which disappears as Verity breaks the ice with all the subtlety and delicacy of an artillery shell hitting a frozen lake and causing an avalanche.

“Dad, please, it’s still me! I swear, I’m not a newfo–”

There’s no sudden shock or recoil from his camera. There’s just a hint of confusion, a moment of recognition. Then denial. It's like that time Kraber had gone skiing in Tuckerman's Ravine, and watched an avalanche in the making. For a moment, the surface was icy and impassionate. Then, movement -– it collapses, cascading downwards in a multitude of shapes, running the gamut of shock, to denial to anger, to horror. Kraber can see a few glimpses of the man he once was as the man's face falls. The color drains, and he looks like he is about to cry as far too many men and women in this war have ever cried. For a moment, he’s a simple, grieving father, and anyone who doesn’t know the Carters may think they can reason with him.

No.

… And then the other man’s face hardens, contorts into a scowl that Kraber has seen all too often mirrored in spilt blood.

BLEEP!

The connection is closed. Mike hung up on her. She won’t accept it at first, pleading for Kraber to call back, to check and make sure the Wifi connection didn’t just happen to fail at that moment.

But there is no response. And with one exception, which would not come to light for a long time, that was the last time ever that Verity Carter ever spoke to her father.

Kraber himself later receives a message from Mike in the classified mail.

‘You South African pigfucking traitor. I will find you, and end you, and the fucking golem you made out of my little girl... I will kill you, chop you into pieces, and feed them to the neighborhood dogs while you’re still conscious!

Yeah, to say Kraber is mad is putting it lightly, having effectively just watched a young woman become an orphan. No, worse than an orphan, cut off from everything she held dear. She’d just been declared dead to everyone dear to her heart, and nothing, none of what she’d grown familiar with over the past few years, would ever accept her.

It had been his calm that surprised her at first, three words which were muttered – no, snarled – under his breath yet contained all the warmth of a blizzard at the height of winter:

“That fokking kontgesig.”

“Come together one and all,
In the giving spirit.
Gifts abound here great and small,
Joyously we feel it.”

It’d be doing Viktor a great disservice to say he’s not very good at offering comfort. Rather, he’s just… out of practice, and he hates that fact so much. He thought of himself as a father back in the HLF, so without that… what is he? Is there anything left of who he was before the War? So as Verity cries her heart out, grieving for the family she has now entirely lost, he tries defaulting back to the mindset of a soldier.

“You can join us…”

That cuts her sobs off, and she sits bolt upright in the bed, her restraints tearing right out of their mountings, defenceless against her sheer equine strength.

She stares at him, not saying a word. The blue specks in her eyes seem to blaze. Kraber, glad to at least see her no-longer weeping, repeats himself in greater detail.

“I hate to say it,” he says, trying to delve on what fatherly calm and nurturing he’d mustered when Peter had scraped his knee, or when Anka had hurt herself skiing, when one of the PHL’s foals or war orphans had done something similar. “The HLF won’t take you back. And even if they do, it won’t be home.”

She is shaking.

“I’ve fokking seen it,” Kraber continues. “Do what I did, and join the PHL. They became my family – you saw how all those ponies liked me back there. And Aegis, he’s a right solid bru. They can be your family too…”

She hits him, actually rips her way out of bed and cocks him across the jaw with enough force to knock him back across the room. The door collapses under his weight, and before Kraber can even response, he’s being born back again by her furious blows.

“How dare you! HOW FUCKING DARE YOU!”

It’s actually the toughest fight he’s had in a while. Neither of them are armed, but that has never proved a handicap before.

“AFTER EVERYTHING YOU’VE DONE, YOU TREACHEROUS CUNT! AFTER ALL THAT, YOU ASK ME TO BETRAY THEM!!”

Viktor isn’t holding back either, or going easy on her. His fight-or-flight response is heavily skewed towards one side of the spectrum, and frankly, being attacked tends to elicit only one response from him.

He kicks her in the face.

She stumbles back.

“I’M GOING TO KILL YOU! YOU AND ALL THE DAMN GELDOS! THEY’LL TAKE ME BACK WHEN I TURN UP WEARING YOU AND RENEE’S SKULLS AS FUCKING HORSESHOES!”

“JUST YOU FOKKING TRY!” Kraber yells, and kicks Verity in the face again.

“Why do you keep doing that?!” Verity yells back.

They managed to trash the ward. An oddity of newfoal transformations that Kraber has noticed is that the ‘wetware’ for their new bodies seems to come pre-installed. Verity is just the same, despite her unique circumstances, and she is punching, dodging, weaving and bucking as if she’d been born on four hooves. Still, they’re evenly matched, remembering the old HLF hand-to-hoof combat maxim that ‘It’s only an unfair trick if it doesn’t work,’ Kraber managing to suplex her and throw her into a wall at least once.

In the end, she manages to pitch him down a fokking staircase, just before three security guards manage to ponypile her and stick her with enough sedatives to send a enraged hippo off to slumberland.

Kraber is honestly stunned. If Verity hadn’t have been stopped, he would have almost certainly have ended up dead, and even barring that she still managed to dislocate both his shoulder and jaw, concuss him, and break three of his ribs, without him even laying a single incapacitating blow on her. She’d just ignored the pain, even though the average newfoal would have suffered a critical existence failure by this point. The pehrer itself becomes the stuff of legend and behind-his-back sniggers. Not that anyone would mock him about it to his face – they know what he’d do to them.

He’s there though, when Verity wakes up. In truth, he’s wrapped in bandages in the next bed over, and tripping on some kind of morphine alternative Zecora prepares from ‘dragon hibernation hormones’.

The first words she says are ‘thank you’. The fight, it seems, was cleansing for her. Aegis, standing next to the side of Kraber’s hospital bed, is relieved to see him alright, and glowers at Verity.

“Father, mother, daughter, son,
Each a treasure be.
One candle’s light dispels the night,
Now our eyes can see.”

He’s not convinced her to switch sides however – the old loyalties, and there’s much of them, have not been beaten and starved out of her like him. The HLF loyalty in Kraber that other HLF try to capitalize on hasn’t existed since August.

In fact, she will run off to try and shack back up with the HLF within a month or two. And so, come February of 2023, Kraber, Aegis, Johnny C, and Fiddlesticks will be sent to retrieve her from some hole-in-the-wall snowy town in Appalachia.

She shall come back willingly, tail between her legs, humbled by her experiences and the knowledge that there’s no place for her in the HLF. Even then however, she still racks up record stints in the brig, never quite able to let old grudges die…

‘V for Vendetta’, the others will come to call her, in time.

But as they lie there, reminiscing and laughing over past victories (the details of which are really disturbing to the ward staff) as Aegis lies against the wall on a huge pillow, reading a new China Mieville book, the music of the church’s evening chorale wafting through the windows, they do at least find some common ground.

And the seeds of doubt are at last sowed in Verity’s mind.

“Viktor… why did you defect?”

“Remember the Sorghum?” he grunts through a steadily healing jaw. “It was too fokking much.”

“Burning brighter than the sun,
God bless us everyone.
A miracle has just begun,
God bless us everyone!”

Merry Christmas, and Happy Hanukkah.

“You never did finish that story about how you left, though,” you say, trotting into Kraber’s hospital room, alongside Amber Maple and Rivet, Aegis’ foals.

Or in your case, happy Hearthswarming.

“Oh, get the hell out of here, you fucking–” Verity snarls halfheartedly.

“You okay, uncle Viktor?” Rivet asks, staring up at the hospital bed. “We were worried when we heard about that.”

“Ah, don’t worry, I can barely feel a thing!” Kraber reassures Rivet.

“That’s disturbing...” Amber Maple says.

“Well, it could be worse,” Kraber shrugs. Though the movement is a little tender for some reason. “You know that little things like getting thrown down stairs or being stabbed are just minor fokkin annoyances.”

“Trust him on this,” Aegis suggests. “I’ve seen him get shot in the head with a 9mm and just lose a tooth and get pissed off.”

“I’m glad you’re alright though,” Amber Maple says. “I wanted to see you light the menorah for Hanukkah!”

“Wait. Don’t you have menorahs too?” Kraber asks, confused.

“Yeah, but that’s for Hearthswarming! I wanna see what it’s like for Hanukkah!” Amber Maple explains.

Not for the first time, Kraber is struck at just how similar and yet different Equestria and humanity really are.

“Okay,” Kraber says. “I think I have some candles around here…”

“Can I hold one and light it?”

“When you’re older,” Aegis says. “Right now, you’re… a little too small to be lighting a menorah.”

“Shutupshutupshutup…” Verity muttered.

“Sssssh,” Kraber says, distractedly running his fingers across Aegis’ red bandanna, the one concealing the scarring the car-bombing back in England. “Ssshshshshshsh. I made her a promise, so I’ll keep it.”

“I gotta admit, I’m curious about the rest of the Sorghum too,” Vinyl says, walking in. “I brought some get well wubs too…”

She levitates a box to him, and Kraber unwraps, wincing slightly.

“A new Die Antwoord album! Thanks so much!” Kraber laughs, ruffling her already messy electric blue mane. She smiles, her eyes bright under the sunglasses.

“Okay, Aegis I understand,” Verity says. “But why her?”

“Well, we both ended up on punishment detail, and had to wash the dishes together,” Kraber explained. “I didn’t like it at first, but… well…” And a grin breaks out across his face.

“ And then she said there’s no way you can make a dishwasher that cleans dishes with wubs, and I was like ‘Screw that, I’m Vinyl Scratch! It was a good day!” Vinyl yelled.

“And he likes punk rock even more than Aegis,” Vinyl added. “ AWWWOOOOOO! DO YOU WANNA BE DIFFERENT…”

“OR DO YOU WANNA BE STRANGE! ARE YOU AFRAID OF FAILURE, ARE YOU AFRAID OF CHANGE?!” Kraber belted out in response, the two of them singing some song that’s equally inscrutable to you, various fillies and humans watching, and Verity. Though you have to admit.. it’s familiar…

Yes! That’s the song! Sunset City, by the Bronx. From one of Mr. Kraber’s favorite videogames, made into an anthem of resistance by a brown earth pony colt from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil with an extreme fondness for gaming, who had brought the song to the attention of local PHL.

“THERE’S A NEW DAY DAWNING, YOU BETTER RUN AND HIDE! HOW YOU EVER GONNA CHANGE THE WORLD IF YOU NEVER TRY!” Aegis joins in, to Verity’s shock.

“SUNSET CITY’S CRUMBLING! THE TIME WON’T CHANGE A THING!”

“WE’RE LIVING THE NIGHTMARE! THERE’S BODIES EVERYWHERE! SUNSET CITY IS AT WAR, JUST KNOCKING AT YOUR DOOR! NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS! NEVER BEFORE!”

“WE MIGHT BE HUMAN! AND WE MIGHT BE DAMNED! BUT WE WON’T GO SOFTLY… WE WON’T GIVE IN!” Kraber calls.

“NOW THAT WE GOT YOUR ATTENTION... WE’RE HANGIN ON YOUR EVERY WORD… Wait, do you know what comes after that?” Vinyl asks.

“...Fok, I forgot it too,” Kraber groans. “I love that song, but I just can’t…”

“Dammit, I hate that too,” Aegis adds. “You just love a song so much… but you can’t remember that one lyric, and you fall apart or you have to sing gibberish…”

The three of them look at each other and break into laughter. “Ah… that was a great fokking day too…” Kraber reminisces.

“You never finished your story, Mr. Kraber!” you remind him.

“Oh yeah….” Kraber says. “Where was I?”

“The speech Lovikov was giving,” Amber Maple says.

“Oh yeah. Well, anyway, that speech–”

“Speaking of which, can it come after the King’s Speech?” Aegis asks. “I spent a lot of time in Britain, so I’d love to hear it.”

“I was in England once,” you add. Your mother, who’s come by to say hello, adds that it was to see Lyra herself, though they were delayed by a car-bombing. And Mr. Aegis, that huge earth pony adds, “Wait, could I have met you?” and says one of those adult words that mares like your mother don’t want you to say.

“Yeah, I liked London!” Amber Maple agrees.

Now that they mention it, Amber does seem familiar.

And there’s a chorus of positive remarks to the effect of yes, yes. Let’s listen! from both ponies and humans alike. To be honest, Kraber was going to listen anyway. He’s met enough englishmen, and fooled enough scotsmen with his imitation of Francis Begbie that it’s hard not to feel something about this.

Besides, there’s english blood in him, from a long, long way back. So why not?

“Why the fok not?” Kraber shrugs, reaching over for the radio that had so vexed Verity’s hooves.

"People of Britain," a familiar voice spoke from the radio, "my subjects... my friends. I address you via radio and television for the first time in a long time..."

And so, in their way, they kept Christmas well. Even Verity.

And as Dancing Day was heard to observe, “God bless us, every one.”

Author's Notes:

...Uhhh, whoops. I had some edit-y trouble. Had to make sure that there was a good reason the HLF overtook the rig.
Originally this was going to be two chapters, but TB3 and I changed it so it would work more as a christmas story. That, and the next chapter kiiiiiiinda has a boss battle, so it's for the best. Also, note for Jed - adding in cameos of the King's Speech was fun. That story needs a bit more love...
Notes on the music
* Sunset City: I always wanted to use that in a Spectrum fic - it fits so well! Regardless of what you think of Sunset Overdrive, it is cool... and yes, Button Mash _is_ the Brazilian colt that made this an in-universe meme.
* Dandy In Love: ...Well, mostly I just liked the song. It seemed just melancholy enough to use in the story.

My Self-Defense Catastrophe

“We sure liberated the hell out of this place.”
Anonymous U.S serviceman in Vietnam

I fear this and it feeds on me
My self-defense catastrophe
The Light Despondent, Biting Elbows. This lyric comes after a bitchin good guitar solo.

New York City,
December 25, 2022

The Filly, Dancing Day

When the King's Speech concludes, you find yourself... More than a little uplifted. There’s a fairly happy mood all around, and you’re all more than ready to listen.

"Continue, though?" you ask.

"Sure," Kraber says.

"Do you have to do it in here?" Verity asks, rubbing her hooves together as if trying to return feeling to absent hands.

"Officially, yes," Kraber says. "I can walk out, though."

"No you can't!" Nurse Wildfire calls over.

"She didn't break anything major!" Kraber calls back.

"Look, I know you burnt out most of your pain receptors, but just stay put... Kraber."

"Right. So, guess I've got no choice till they decide I move," Kraber said. "Anyway, we’d taken the Sorghum, and Lovikov was giving that godawful speech..."

"Somebody shoot me," Verity groaned.

Kraber looked over at her and raised an eyebrow.

Verity looks over at Kraber, and notices you. And, regardless of the fact that many ponies are referring to her in the grown-up words that they keep saying you must never use, you find yourself… liking her? No. But finding her bearable. As ponifications go, this is bearable, and she’s not a zombie, so there’s that.

She won’t be your friend any time soon, though.

But she can see all of you, that many of the ponies, and even some of the humans that had come over to see Kraber are heavily armed. There’s also a big revolver (What is it with Kraber and revolvers?) with the barrel mounted upside down, beneath the frame, on the table next to Kraber’s bed.

“Why..." she moans.

"As I was saying..." Kraber continues. "So, Lovikov's stupid fokking speech…

...was fokking grating on his ears.

“Mariesa?” Kraber whispered, as Lovikov continued to badger and harangue the entire FM spectrum.

“Yes?”

“What the fok are we doing?”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Just… all this. Where’s the liberation?” Kraber asked.

“Is something wrong, Viktor?” she asked, whispering, desperately trying not to be heard in the background of Lovikov’s speech (as it happened, the microphone was just sensitive enough to pick up their whispers).

“Fine, I’ll fokking do this. I’ll going to make another sweep of the rig,” Kraber said, desperate to be somewhere without Lovikov. And, oddly enough, the blood. The red stuff was becoming a little unnerving somehow, pretty impressive from how much it had splattered, but something - be it his hallucinations, his conscience, what little he had left of a soul - was screaming out at him, get out of this room!, “I get the feeling the enemy could be holed up in a lot of places in here.”

’Who’s the enemy?’

“Just... be careful,” Mariesa said. “Don’t... don’t get hurt, alright?”

“I promise,” Kraber said, heading for the door and switching for a shotgun.

He half-hoped someone might get him as he searched. But… he had a duty. To the HLF. To humanity.

“Do you even believe that?” the newfoal asked.

“Of course I fokking do!” Kraber hissed, all pretense of sanity and normality gone as he argued with the… what was it? A ghost? A representation of his own guilt?

Ah, it didn’t matter. What it was, he decided, was annoying.

“No,” it said, “I’m right. And even so, I’m only annoying because you don’t fokking listen!” it mocked him, using his own voice.

“Tremble as your psyche unwinds, praise her in your madness. As your children so sublime, you will know but gladness!”

“Get… out… of… my… fokking. HEAD!” Kraber yelled.

“Ooh, that’s a bad habit you’re getting into,” the newfoal taunted him.

He strode down the corridors, shotgun held at the hip, ready to fire, searching for more ponies to kill. He kicked open doors, peered inside, prepped to throw grenades. He poked his head out from behind corners, scouring for anything that moved.

And he searched every door, every alcove in the rig’s accommodation block. He’d seen movies where children and others would hide, and soldiers would come to smoke them out. Speaking of soldiers, he’d passed Couldn’t remember the movie’s title-it was in black and white, so it must have been an old one.

He threw open cupboards, taking spare change and finding food. He threw open doors. He opened the doors to closets, kicked open crawlspaces, opened up whatever holes he could find.

The idea came to him to check some of the ancillary levels, or better yet, the honeycombed interiors of the other support columns.

Of course! What a great idea!

Of course! He didn’t have dogs he could use to sniff people out… He’d have to get a fluffy dog. Maybe a samoyed? Ooh, or maybe a wolf pup. He knew a few guys who knew some guys that had smuggled wolves out of Europe in a fit of pique, and were breeding them to eat newfoals...

’I know I saw this in a movie once, but which one was it? Ah, no matter…’

Flipping open a service hatch in the floor, he climbed down into a reeking, steaming vertical space, a series of descending catwalks threaded with creaking staircases, strung with hissing pipes and humming conduits. His MG2019 on his back, he slowly continued to descend down the length of the shaft, thankful he had a gas mask. He held out the LMG...

And then he heard it - down, almost at the bottom, low, just above sea level.

He rushed down the stairs, quiet as he could, and found his shotgun’s barrel…

”Hold on a minute,” Scootaloo asks. “Were you really at Agua Caliente?”

“Is this all that important?” Kraber asks.

“Well, no, but… you were around Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean, blowing up bureaus, you got on TV once, you were at Defiance, and… how does all this happen to you?”

“My ass is everywhere,” Kraber says simply.

“His ass really is everywhere,” Aegis adds. “Well, except Okinawa.”

“My ass always wanted to go to Okinawa,” Kraber says, completely straight-faced. “It heard it was pretty there.” He paused. “Though really, I work for this kinda thing. Anyway, now I had my shotgun…

...pointed at the face of a redheaded child, her hair curly, smeared with unidentifiable muck. She pointed a cheap 9mm back at Kraber. Several other children were present as well, huddled together atop a rust-stained ballast tank: a girl that might have been the first kid’s sister, a youngish teenager in a jacket and ill-fitting kevlar, holding a 10mm.

They were guarding ponies. Mostly colts and fillies, sporting every color of the rainbow beyond the dull tones seen on Earth-born equines.

‘Well Vicky, hear they are. Behold the Enemy...’

Except, these didn’t look like the destroyers of the world, nor they didn’t look like they were anyone’s salvation or what have you. They didn’t look like they were ready to ponify anyone. They didn’t look like they had no regard for human life-well, though little love for him burned in their eyes, and Kraber found he could understood that sentiment. They didn’t…

His finger closed around the trigger and abruptly stopped. His will failed him.

They just looked like scared children that had given up on everything.

Not fillies. Not colts. Not ponies.

Children. Their eyes were full of an innocence betrayed, one that transcended species. Even if… even if they were the same as those kontgesigs that had destroyed his home and murdered billions, he didn’t have it in him.

The little girl with the 9mm shook. Her gun trembled.

Viktor knew that he deserved the bullet. This was his fault.

“D-drop it,” the girl whispered, aiming at his gas mask.

“Go on, fucker,” one teal unicorn said, staring him down, her horn weakly glowing. “Do it... “

This was not what he’d expected at all.

“...I’m not,” Kraber whispered, looking down at the ponies and children hiding in the little alcove. Oh lord, of all the things he could have found, it had been the thing that could make him so broken...

“What’d you say?” the redheaded boy asked.

And it was at that moment that Viktor remembered the name of the movie this reminded him of, the movie where soldiers had been searching through all those alcoves, tracking down elusive human prey...

Schindler’s List

And here he was, cast in the role of… No, he couldn’t be, he was Jewish, he went to synagogue when he could.

Oh God no.

The world dropped out beneath his feet, and one leg simply gave out under him.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” he heard himself say, his voice shaky, betraying his uncertainty. His HLF emblem, cut into his chestplate with a soldering iron, seemed to swim as he looked down at it. Something about it seemed to say ‘filth’ backwards.

“But… you’re HLF,” one colt protested, staring up into the muzzle of his LMG, or at the grenade he held.

“You’re a-”

“I know, I know,” Kraber whispered. “But first things first. You’re not in here. I was never here, and you have to stay down here for the next few hours. Got that?”

He didn’t want to think on what fate he’d brought to their mothers up on deck. To their fathers…

The terrible feeling as countless fathers entered their homes and saw the slaughter, searching in terror through an eerily silent house, falling to their knees as they smelled the psychopathic purple liquid and cried, NO NO NO NO NO for hours as they realized how much they’d been destroyed, the glee on their faces, the utter hate overcoming them as they took the knife to their torturer, hour after hour until morning turned into night and had it been fifteen hours already, they’d ask as they looked down at their victim, disemboweled and painting the room with their own blood, viscera and fluids and oh FOK

oh fok

oh no

no

NO NO NO NO he couldn’t - be he was HLF he was a heroic partisan striking against a corrupt

he was destroying families

no no no he

-killed children and foals dammit

No

he could have just as easily been them he might have been broken but he’d broken so many more

He was the PER. Alright, no. He was just as hateful as them. Still, they were monsters-

But did that justify what he’d done?

It... it didn’t.

Kraber turned away, hoping they wouldn't see him shaking like a leaf, or the tears welling up in his eyes.

He turned away, turned away, turned away. What was there to do?

He walked up the stairs, climbed the ladders, dragged himself out of this fetid hell, and slumped down, hunched over, all but gone in mind. When the PHL got here, they'd kill him. So would Lovikov.

Ah, fok! FOK! FOK! F-

Shit. He’d really beaten any meaning out of that word, hadn’t he?

He slumped down, sliding against the wall. He was idly aware that something had rubbed off on his back, maybe the blood.

What was he to do?!

“Hey? Annoying hallucinatory kontgesigs!” Kraber said. “Where the hell are you when I need you?”

There was no answer.

“We’re just figments of your imagination,” Anka - or rather, an earth pony with what Kraber was acutely aware to be said. “It’s up to you.”

“But…” Kraber sighed, and slumped even further against the wall. “I’ve got kak. I have no idea what the fok I’m doing, I’ve got nowhere to run…”

“We don’t come up with ideas, Daddy. It’s only you.”

“The HLF will…”

“Daddy? What’ve you been asking yourself for the past few hours?”

That the HLF were….

‘The Enemy...’

There was a dead PHL man in the room with Kraber. About his size, a similar enough build to him, dead fingers clutching at a Fostech Origin shotgun.

Suddenly Kraber was thrashing, ripping and clawing at himself as he struggled to tear off his own armour. It pulled away from his body with a clawing suction, as if trying to hold onto him. That emblem still blazed out: ‘Filth. FILTH’

“Filth? I’ll gie the fokking kont filth,” Kraber muttered, struggling to get it off. FOK! Why’d everything he wore get stuck to things? It was like the fokking vest couldn’t come off. It was dangling by one arm, and-

Whipping his arm to one side, the vest sailed down the hallway, bouncing and clanking against the walls.

His own shotgun was hurled into a corner.

Then, moving as if in a trance, Kraber, began to stripped the corpse of its armor and forced it onto himself when he noted the fancy case in the room. UN logo stamped on the side, the dead man’s name on it. Curiosity sparked in his mind as he unlatched the case and open it, staring at the item within.

New armor in digital urban gray camo, nearly pristine and filled with numerous of items for him to use. He stared at the armor in shock before he quickly slogged off the bloody armor he had on and began to fit the newer one onto his lanky frame. There was even a box of grenades nearby, with a note:

-Imbeault:

I don’t understand why you feel like you needed these. You’re guarding a rig, not PHL R&D or Cheerilee’s office, but apparently, the public responds well to us looking like hardy space marines. I was told to make some grenades to look futuristic and barely better than average, but I made a few with some Japanese research just for a laugh. They will work, but they probably aren’t meant to be used in close combat on the rig. Try the black one on a newfoal stampede after filling the air full of shrapnel, it’ll be hilarious.

Sincerely,
Sebastian Irving.

“Fok, this thing is laanie,” Kraber murmured to himself as put on the armor, it felt like a well-tailored suit instead of armor. He just finished putting on the last of it on when he felt it literally warm up to keep out the cold sea air. Give him long enough, and he might not even notice wearing it.

‘Perfect! A Space Marine is you!’

...it included a mask. A Crowe Laboratories Eel-type to be exact, with seven micro-cameras in place of a visor. A good gas mask... uncomfortable as hell, but worth it. Plus, it’d look funny when he stared at people while wearing one. They’d be unnerved, they wouldn’t be sure where to look...

He knew what to do now. Most of all, he had to do it fast - before he could tell himself not to, or realize just how stupid it all was. If this could get him killed, second-guessing absolutely would.

“There’s no bad choices,” Kraber remembered his dad saying back on the beach. “Well, maybe there are. But it’s more important what you do with a choice.”

With the gas mask secured, he put on the helmet on over it, making sure to line up the seals and latches that mated the two together. Then, with the dead man’s Fostech twenty-round in hand, he made his way back down to the kids who had barricaded themselves in the foot of one of the platform’s legs.

He hoped their parents were still alive. That he hadn't slaughtered them… no, there had to be something he could do to make that right, to undo it all!

But no, there wasn’t. All there was now, was the choice of leaving these kids to die, or to try and get them out.

“Come with me if you want to live…” he growled as he scrambled down into their little panic-room. He did not look at them though, could not bring himself to. They probably knew what he was.

Instead, he strode straight across the room and, by dint of sheer physical strength, smashed open the multiple locks on an escape hatch, stomping down on them with his HLF steel-toed boots. They were the one bit of HLF clothing he could bear to keep, with decent amounts of tread, a good ability to break things he turned his toes or soles to, and a nice ability to find a home in something’s skull…

Cool nighttime sea air poured in as he shouldered it open. They were not even six feet above the churning surface of the ocean, and high above, vaulted like an industrial cathedral, was the underside of the Sorghum’s superstructure. Not two hundred feet away bobbed the Arctic Warrior, still moored up where they had left it at the foot of the next column over. He could just make out the silhouettes of Verity Carter and Red Flammel, warding off other watercraft from attempting approach with a pair of mil-spec 40mm grenade launchers…

“Wait, when did Verity get back there?!” you ask. “You can’t just have characters teleport for no reason!”

“I walked back when we’d secured the rig,” Verity sighed, rolling her huge eyes. “The idiot over there just forgot to mention it.”

“Hey, fok you! I was having a fokking mental breakdown!” Kraber yells. “...And probably withdrawal symptoms too. Damn, Lovikov must’ve really been woedend at me. Anyway.”

There was an emergency boat stored in this hidey-hole, an inflatable ‘zodiac’ attached to a cylinder of pressurised gas. He tore it down from its mounting and spun the gas valve, before tossing the bundle of vulcanised fabric out through the hatch, holding onto a trailing line. Seconds later, a perfectly serviceable craft bobbed beneath their feet. It was dark and unobtrusive, the perfect escape...

‘This is desertion, disobedience. This is… this is….’

Ah, fok Lovikov and the rest, Viktor decided. Even if he survived this night, they’d declared him dead already. Probably planned to shove him off the deck of the platform and blame it on a pony or something: a martyr’s death.

What’d have have to lose? Nothing.

But these children, they stood to lose everything. Had he joined the HLF to kill? To murder? To orphan kids?

’Well, ja.’

Yeah, he’d jumped at the chance to do all those things, to leave a trail of dead gluesticks and horsefuckers behind him. Wait, no-

He… he hadn’t done it just to kill, had he?!

“Don’t lie to yourself!” said Victory the Pretty Private. “You’re a terrible person, but you can just let it all float away if you take the poti-”

No.

He wasn’t fokking giving up like that. He wasn’t going to stand in the streets and yell ‘CRUSADE ME!’ for some annoying fokking self-hating hipsters or misandric psychopaths to turn him into a pastel fokking zombie horse. He wasn’t going to go to the PER, so that only left…

The Ponies for Human Life...ah shit.

The notion went against every action he had taken since that fateful birthday, but then, this wasn’t about him anymore, was it?

It was for these kids. For Kate, then. For Peter, for Anka… Even Dietrich and Cousin Richard. For anyone that had been caught in the way of fokking PER, for his chommies back in college, anyone out there.

“That’s the man I married,” the nameless newfoal said approvingly, in Kate’s voice. “Be careful though, the PHL are coming, and right now they’ve got no clue as to your little change of heart.”

Kraber had no fokking clue how the hallucination knew, but… there was no time left to consider. Lovikov was still broadcasting out, and the boats down below were visibly full of trembling men and women. Some were scared, but the others were angry. A lot of them were pointing their guns up at the rig, and Kraber could see their hands shaking in the weak, artificial light. A unicorn aboard one boat was levitating what looked like an HMG…

The larger ships notwithstanding, the gathered fleet didn’t have to fear the Sorghum’s own cannons, which couldn’t depress far enough to fire down into its own footprint. Likewise the HLF had little concern for the effect of small-arms against the shielded underside of the rig.

But it was still a standoff, one that would only devlove into further chaos once the PHL arrived in response to the hijacking.

Holding onto the inflatable’s mooring-line, poised in the open hatch, Kraber realised that as of yet, nopony and nobody had noticed them. Instead their attention was focused up at the platform’s superstructure.

Except for a few who had turned their tails and fled towards the shore, towards the city. Hmmm...

Summer 2020

“I admire that in a man, Viktor,” Kagan had said. “I know you can get through this. We’ll meet up later, I promise. Right now… you have to get to one of the boats.”

“There’s guards everywhere!” Viktor hissed back, staring over the assortment of barrels.

“You can get in there, I know you can,” Kagan said. “You’re a slippery bastard, Viktor.”

Right. All he had to do was get these kids to shore. But no-way in hell was that going to be possible in the dinky inflatable, which lacked even an outboard engine.

And then he directed his attention back towards the inviting shape of the Arctic Warrior...

Oh God, no, he wasn’t going to…the HLF would kill him - they’d probably use him as a meatshield for potion-grenades, drown him, flay him to bits, hang him from trees if he d-

His conversation with Lovikov came back to mind. He’d been offered an ignominious death in the woods, shot by people that were more chommies of convenience than actual friends, or to go out ablaze with glory.

He’d chosen glory, but he’d never said for which side he’d go down fighting for…

“Stay here”, he murmured to the kids. “If anyone tries to capture you guys, put a bullet in their fokking faces… think you can do that?”

“Don’t think I have a choice,” said one filly.

“That’ll work in a pinch, kid,” Kraber said, ruffling her mane. Because even if she was a fokking gluestick, she was still a child. “If somebody has a gun to all of you, shoot the bliksem. The one that reacts first in a firefight wins, and they’ll be shocked to see children. That gives you an edge.”

They looked up at him, caught aback by his ruthless pragmatism.

“Sometimes, you have to do things before you have the chance to question yourself,” he explained.

After bestowing that good advice, he shimmered down into the zodiac inflatable, and lying prone with his hands as paddles, quietly made his way out towards the moored tugboat…

New York…

“What was it you called me, Verity?” Kraber asked lightly. “A treacherous cunt?”

“You still are,” the mare replied drily. “And if you hadn’t snuck up on me and knocked me out with the butt of your gun, I’d have taken you no trouble…”

Kraber snorted and waved her off. “Sure you would have.”

The half-sedated mare held up a challenging hoof. “Want to go another ten rounds in the ring with me, pony-pounder?”

Kraber laughed and settled back in his own bed, and Verity smirked.

“Yeah, I thought so. I was impressed with how you flipped Redd overboard though…”

Luckily, Verity had left the tug’s motor idling. Having incapacitated the two crew left behind (and none too gently tossed Verity onto the mooring platform), Victor had cast off all lines and clumsily brought the Arctic Warrior over to the hatch he had opened.

“Jump aboard! Quick!” he shouted, motioning for the kids to leap or climb down onto the deck. There wasn’t a moment to lose. From above he could hear shouting voices, and a set of navigation lights rapidly approaching in the western sky heralded the approach of several PHL helis.

Fok! They were coming!

“Get aboard, now!” he roared again from the wheelhouse, struggling to hold position as the current swirled about the foot of the column. As more and more passengers climbed aboard, he saw to his surprise that their numbers had swollen: now there was a number of oil workers escaping through the hatch as well.

‘One of the kids must have gone up to look for more survivors… whoever it is, he’s either crazy fokking brave or crazy fokking dumb. Kwaai!’

“That’s the last of us!” came a cry, and without waiting for further confirmation, Viktor spun the helm over and gunned the throttles, just as the approaching helicopters began to trade fire with the platform.

And so, leaving a firefight in its wake, the Arctic Warrior sped off in the direction of Portland, navigation lights dimmed and transponder silent, a cargo of children, foals, and wounded workers onboard…

...plus one half-crazed defector .Well, maybe ‘half’ would be doing him too much credit.

“Who the hell are you?” one man asked. “I haven’t seen you around.”

"Ah'm one of thae new guards," Kraber said, trying for that old Robert Carlyle voice he’d affected… Nine years back?! Had it really been that long since… Ah, fokking hell. It’d work for now. Best not to think about it too hard. He coaxed a modicum more knots out of the tug’s engine. “My name’s Ivan Bliss.”

It was another lie, another spur of the moment name. After all, he wasn’t sure how notorious his actual identity was among these people. Every place had its own boogeyman, after all.

“Viktor, you have to stop running away!” the newfoal pleaded with him. “Tell them-”

A series of flashes in the sky shattered the conversation as the PHL helicopters blossomed into flowers of explosive light and fury. The blazed wrecks ploughed into the black water astern…

...and then the Sorghum’s arsenal of cannons exploded into a fusilade of shots.

But then, that probably wouldn’t do me any favors either.

!!BOOM!!BOOM!!BOOM!”

...And neither would that.

Rounds and shells whistled overhead, tracer-fire painting their trajectory...

“They’re shelling Portland!” someone gasped. “My God, they’re firing on the city! Are they fucking insane?!”

Yeah, there’s no way I’m confessing to have been with the kontgesigs firing on innocents, Kraber ‘thought’ at the new foal angel sitting on his proverbial shouter. Do me a favor, and HOU JOU FOKKING BEK!

And blessedly, it did so.

“Verity,” Kraber sighs, “Why the fok did anyone think that was a good idea?”

“You seriously believe their propaganda?!” Verity yells, and for a moment, you’re glad she’s kept restrained.

“I wouldn’t know,” Kraber says. “I left.”

“You damn traitor,” Verity sighs.

“Look, you’ve both been through this,” you say, trying to mediate it. “Verity… just tell him what happened.”

“Alright,” she says.

Verity

“I wish so much that I could have gotten everyone in the HLF to say that you ran away,” I say. Dammit, why can’t you say anything?! I ask, looking up at the faces of every pony and human that’s listening to Viktor Kraber’s bizarre, outright fucking crazy journey.

“...Fine. I guess there’s more important stuff here. But I swear, we never wanted to bomb Portland,” I say. “I just wanted my daddy back on the Front, fighting alongside us, to protect humanity from bastards like you-“

And everyone is stone-faced. Even Kraber.

“What?” I say, looking up at him and Aegis, that huge earth pony that he likes, is unimpressed.

“You don’t quite count,” Aegis says.

“I’m still me!” I protest. “I’m still-“

“Let’s not go there,” Kraber says. “We haven’t gotten to the part where I set that newfoal on fokkin’ fire, or the thing with the Fillydelphia-“

“No, I need to say this,” Aegis says. “It’s for her own safe-”

“My own-“ I say, and I am so disgusted that I want to beat him to a bloody pulp, never mind that Aegis is literally twice as big as me. “My own fucking safety? I’ve had enough of ponies telling me what’s the best for me, like I have no fucking rights!”

“I wasn’t saying that,” Aegis says. “I was saying that you can’t go back. You try and escape somehow-“ he points to me. “And you will not get a hero’s welcome in the HLF. You stay here, you’re safe. Well, not by much.”

“Oh, you son of a-“

“What?!” says that little unicorn filly with the ballet hoofshoes, looking up at Kraber. It’s the one that he failed to kill back in Defiance. Or so I’m told. I didn’t like Defiance, it was a goddamn shithole. My parents took me outdoors, and that place was just awful in comparison. With so many people displaced by the goddamn geldos, there were lots of places to hide, places better than there. “I remember the Fillydelphia,” that little unicorn filly says, and she shivers. Despite yourself, you can’t blame her. The Fillydelphia was crazy.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for eating that man’s throat in front of you,” Kraber says. “I was under a lot of stress-“

“It’s okay, you did tell me to close my eyes-”

“Again?! Seriously?!” Bly yelled. “Why would you do this?!”

“We’ll go into that later. It wasn’t your fault,” Kraber says. “And I’m sorry. I lost control, and bad kak happens when I do.”

“Holy shit, can we get you back on this?” I say, incredulously. He was never even remotely this calm in the HLF. “It’s like you’re on make-me-see-God-O-Contin.”

“Sorry, other people need it,” Kraber says. “Can’t be dipping into my own keg.”

“Ain’t we got more important things to talk about here?” Rivet asks. “I just want to know. What… did you do. I lost friends that day.” And it’s hard not to see that he’s grown up too fast. That he’s imitating his enormous dad, trying to be grown-up. I know that look too well.

“I promise, we never planned to attack Portland,” I say. “I swear, I just wanted him back, I’ve lost everything, home, friends, loves, my mother. Without him, the HLF could… could…”

“Don’t dig yourself deeper, kid” Aegis says. And I hate him. I hate Kraber, that sonovabitching turncoat that sold us all out twice and was still indispensable, the one that has so much work out for him while I’m expendable. I hate that he lived with ponies, the goddamn sellout. I hate…

I hate that he’s like me. So much like me, and so different. I hate that he made something of himself.

“So we were on the rig, and people from the boats all round had gotten it into their head that they could fight us,” I say. “And we hadn’t gotten all the people on the rig. Most of the actual military had holed up in its armory, and we could see people clambering on. Thankfully, we’d stationed people anywhere important - the drill, the guns.” I blink. “Speaking of, why the hell do you have guns on a rig?”

“In case something goes wrong,” says Vinyl Scratch, that DJ pony the PHL seem to like. I actually liked her music back before the War. “If it gets attacked by a zep, or something. They’re for firing while running away, more than anything.”

“Can’t blame us for being paranoid, can you?” Aegis’ other foal asks. She’s tall and slender, with white fur, green eyes, and a red and purple mane. If I’d gone horsefucker, I might think she’d end up being attractive.

“Fair enough,” I admit. Hard not to be in a world like this. “I heard this secondhand, alright? Kraber had knocked me out. But someone saw you steal the boat and they fired on it.”

“...Why?” Scootaloo asks.

“Well,” I say, “We were scared. Not by the boat - there were plenty of boats out there that helped take that rig back. See, we’d been hoping for an answer, and the one that Lovikov got was not it.”

Lovikov was already a paranoid bastard. He’d been jittering as he was holed up in the room. That AR-15 he liked, the one with the .50 Beowulf rounds and ridiculous drum mag that made it list to one side, was trembling.

He thought the HLF around him couldn’t see him shaking. But there was a smile on his face whenever he looked at the corpses in the room, the ones that nobody dared remove. Even the human ones, or so I’ve been told.

Which… wasn’t right. I’ll admit, yes, we hire psychopaths, violent bastards that shouldn’t live anywhere outside a prison cell-

”Seriously?” Kraber asks.

And then the radio crackled. It wasn’t that other broadcast, the weird one with Gestalt. But… alright, we’ll get to that later. Anyway, Lovikov was a bit too happy admiring his handiwork, pony and human alike. We’re the human liberation front,

And I sweep a glare across all of them, that treacherous cunt Kraber, his horsefucker college roommate, the stupid geldos they seem to love so much, that gluestick DJ

not the murder-everything-in-sight front. I’m telling you, he’d gotten further in the ranks than anyone that enjoyed bloodshed so much ever should. Not until you, Burakgazi, and that Scottish bastard Reid managed to rip out the guts of our ranks...

I honestly wouldn’t mind if he’d gotten killed on the mission, even if you lived through it as a result. He was expendable, a violent Russian thug with delusions of grandeur.

“Ah yes, someone to negotiate!” Lovikov laughed. “Now, PHL high command?” he was giddy with the power. His best action against the PHL, and one of the HLF on the rig told me right then and there that they doubted he’d be willing to let the rig go. “Excellent to have the pleasure of speaking to you,” he said, and he practically crooned it into the mic. Another HLF person, Lauren Estacado, said that he said it into the mic as if talking to a stupid child. “We have seized your mobile rig, the Sorghum, and we have hostages onboard. We will execute them if you do not comply with our demands.”

“I’m listening,” said whoever was on the other end of the line.

“Firstly,” Lovikov started. “We demand the return of Michael Carter to the HLF, and-”

"Enough," someone cut in. His voice was full of the rough tones of a man from deep Appalachia, with a baritone as deep as any valley in there. It was the tone someone uses when they’re angry as hell, too much to even raise their voice.

“Excuse me, but I am-”

“I don’t believe it!” the man interrupted. “You are as stupid as you sound. I said enough.”

"Who the hell is this?!” Lovikov yelled.

"You people just don't know when to quit,” the man said. “Fine. If I have to take care of you personally, then I will. You people," the man said, sneering, “If you can call yourselves that. You never knew what you were fucking with, and I can see that hasn’t changed.”

"Who the fuck do you think you are?!” Lovikov yelled. “Come here and you will be dead before you get a shot off!"

“You have no idea who I am, do you?”

“I couldn’t give a flying shit even if you held a fucking umbrella over my head to stop said shit to care who the fuck you are! I am in charge here, ME! NOT YOU!”

“I will tell you anyways. I am Colonel Marcus Renee of the UN/PHL Taskforce, and you have my attention.”

You could have heard a pin drop. Lovikov was silent, and tried to stammer something.

“Do you think-” Marcus started.

“FUCK YOU, YOU HORSE FUCKER! FUCK YOU TELL HELL AND BACK! YOU GET CLOSE TO THIS RIG AND I BLOW UP ANY DUMBASS COMING! YOU HEAR ME! I WILL FUCKING END YOU AND YOUR STUPID GROUP WILL BURN UNDER OUR STRENGTH OF OUR TRUE HUMANITY!”

“I had you pegged for burning under some big gun from R&D,” Marcus remarked drily. “A laser, maybe. Or that thermite gun.”

“I like that thing!” someone called out in the background.

“THE FUCK YOU SAY! I WILL SKULL FUCK YOUR HEAD WHILE THAT PURPLE BITCH WATCHES ME! I WILL-”

“Lovikov!” a voice hissed over the personal HLF radio, a frantic whisper that could only be achieved by pure terror.

“I WILL RAPE HER OVER YOUR CORPSE! I WILL KEEP HER AS A LIVING FUCKING TROPHY WHILE WE RAM HER OVER AND OVER TO SHOW HER MY MIGHT AS A HUMAN! SHE LIKED THAT WOULDN’T SHE!”

“Lovikov!” The radio barked out again.

“I WILL MAKE YOU THIS PROMISE RIGHT HERE AND NOW! I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU THE MOMENT I SEE YOU!”

“So noted.”

“Lovikov! We have boarders on the rig, they being dropped by pegasus-*BLAM*!”

Lovikov and the entire HLF group in the room froze up as the gunshot blared over both radios, both the rigs and their personal radios.

“That wasn’t Lovikov, was it?” an unknown woman asked, the discarded radio picking up their heavily southern-accented voice. “One of you, promise me you’ll shoot that motherfucker. Just to shut him up.”

“I think its still transmitting.” Marcus’ voice came on next, causing everyone to slowly look at the paling look on Lovikov’s face. “Well then, this just got a lot harder. Lovikov, was it? Yeah, I am here. You have a promise to keep after all.”

“It would be a pleasure,” the same woman said.

Well, that clinched it. Marcus Renee. Marcus goddamn Renee. We’d tried to kill him near constantly, but none of it stuck. The best PHL medical treatments could cure him of any poison, he was always shielded when outside of a base, the man was goddamn indestructible.

And that was when WE were trying to kill him while he wasn’t geared up.

Outside, he was nearly impossible to get a bead on. He had the hardest and baddest of the UN at his fingertips. He had all the cool toys and armor, he had the backing of the entire world with him. He controlled the North America with words and backed up everything with progress. He wasn’t some Brass stuck at some desk in a bunker, he was a Marine who fought in the frontline with everyone else. Insisted on it, if the stories were right.

And he was here… on this rig… surrounded by the sea. A Marine and his group of trained killers were on this rig with only one boat out of here...

We might as well have served ourselves on a gold platter up to Kraber.

”Fok you, that only happened twice!”

“Why?’ Lovikov whispered, and his voice was wavering, as if coming from far away. “Why is he here? Why… Why in God’s name, no… Oh no…”

Wordlessly, one of the hostages, the one whose pony friend we’d killed, pointed up to a whiteboard and my jaw dropped at the words.

“COLONEL RENEE VISITING TODAY, CLEAN RIG UP, LOOK OUR BEST PEOPLE! :) ”

Yes, they actually had the smileyface emoticon.

It was around that time that I decided “Fuck this” and ran. Galt, Lovikov, neither one was paying me enough.

But on my way down, back to the waters (I didn’t have a plan, I just figured I didn’t want to be anywhere near the man that had said that shit to Colonel Renee) I saw Redd Flamel, still guarding the boat. His grenade launcher, a real milspec thing, not a pipebomb launcher, was steadily aimed at the boats all around-

Then someone standing behind him punched him in the chin, kneed him in the balls, and flipped him into the ocean, somehow managing to keep the grenade launcher onboard.

I thought it was PHL, maybe someone thinking they could take the rig back themselves. So I snuck onto the boat, looking for the bastard that did it-

He elbowed me in the face and threw me onto the jetty.

I was unconscious long enough that someone fished me out of the water, and I pretended to be a survivor long enough that I managed to swim to shore. I’m glad I was unconscious, though, because I didn’t see the utter fucking travesty that got them firing those guns on Portland.

Lovikov, being half-crazy with rage, and seeing the boat you stole, Kraber, ordered the HLF to fire on Portland.

“If you’re trying to pin the bombardment all on me,” Kraber says, almost cheerfully, “I will wring your fokkin neck as you choke on the teeth I punched down your throat.”

There is an unpleasant silence.

“...Kay then,” I say.

Well, he said to aim up into the sky, for any pegasi, or any helicopters full of troops. Unfortunately, the HLF weren’t used to having artillery, so they weren’t exactly good shots. And he told them to keep firing.

And that’s how we fucked up. There. Are you happy, dammit?

Kraber again

As they drew closer to the harbor channel they saw the burning coastline, a conflagration consuming the vast shanty-towns that had been built right down to the tide-line and even on the offshore islands in the bay. Refugee housing, colonial mansions, and old tenements built of brick and wood nearly as thin as paper blazed in a sick harmony, as the guns from the immense rig continued to bombard the city, illuminating the sky with a million shimmering embers, ascending and dimming like dying souls.

“Mother of God!” cried out one man. “That last one came down just a block from Mercy Hospital...”

“Fuck me!” added a mustard-yellow earth pony, practically galloping up to the tugboat’s bridge wing to get a better view, placing a pair of binoculars up to her eyes. “They hit my cousin’s house! And that’s… Huh. They hit the ruins of the Convie Bureau. Well, no loss there.”

“Portland had a Bureau?!” Kraber asked incredulously.

“They never finished it, though,” the earth pony explained. “It started construction early during the Three Weeks of Blood, and when the riots broke out, they started to convince PER doctors at Maine Medical to put patients in the Bureau, herd them in like cattle…”

“I remember that,” Kraber said, shivering. “Hope tae Goad I never see it again. Did… did most people make it oot?”

The earth pony turned his head back to Kraber. “Aye. Me and Patrick Saunders, this one hitter for the Portland Seadogs helped get them out. And the city burned the damn place to the ground.” The pony looked melancholy all of a sudden, his snout and ears angled downward. “Don’t know if there’ll be much left after th-”

The boat rocked as something impacted the ocean next to them.

“...They’re firing on us,” whispered one rose-colored unicorn mare. “FUCKING FUCK, THE HLF ARE FIRING ON US!”

It wasn’t intentional, Kraber guessed. Lovikov was just indiscriminately firing on the port facilities. But they could still die from a blind-fired shell as they could from one targeted specifically on them.

“Lovikov, you fokking kontgesig!” Kraber screamed to nobody in particular. “WHAT THE FOK DOES ANYONE HAVE TO GAIN FROM THIS?!”

“Hold on, everyone!” Kraber yelled, remembering everything he could about emergency boat-handling. He had to zigzag-

Another shell impacted the sea next to them, a spray of superheated steam splashing up into the air.

Right. Just. Keep. Fokking. Zigzagging.

I did this, Kraber thought watching the explosions and fire in Portland. Me.

Curiously, there wasn’t a follow-up barrage. It was just those shells, slamming right into Portland.

“We can’t get into the city proper!” he called out, seeing burning wrecks blocking the harbour channel. “We’re going to press on, up into the bay…”

There was an island ahead, a patch of serene dark amid the blazing inferno. It was one of the many small islets on the fringes of the city. Kraber couldn’t remember its name, but he recalled that there used to be a school of some kind on it, connected to the mainland by a causeway.

That didn’t matter though. All that was important was that, even though he knew the island to have been taken over by the PHL, the rig’s fire appeared to be ignoring it. The swarming mushroom-farms and prefab building stacks jammed in between the trees and permanent structures had yet to take a single shell, it seemed.

‘Where’s a jetty?’ he seethed internally, sweeping the tug around the island’s shore. ‘Where’s a fokking dock when you need one?’

There was none. Then, seeing the dark bar of the causeway ahead, he decided to ‘make port’ by another means.

“Hold tight!” he called out, and shoved the throttles to their stops. The tug’s stocky bow lifted itself skyward as they charged straight for the artificial shore, her stern trying to drown itself in the craft’s own wake…

And then they came ashore, ran aground, beached...or in layman’s terms, crashed into North America.

Kraber had expected a sickening smash or a sound like freight train running over a million marbles. Instead, there was just a slithering rush, an upward surge like an express elevator, and a sudden roar like a million beehives as propellers came up out of the water and accelerated to dangerous rpms.

He fisted the ‘emergency stop’ plunger, and the motors died…

Somebody took a breath, a child (or was it a foal?) cheered...

"IDENTIFY YOURSELF!" screamed a voice from ashore. Spotlights swept through the dark, blinding their vision.

What to do what to do what to do...

"We're workers from the Sorghum!" One of the evacuees yelled. “There’s a guard with us! He’s drove the boat aground, and-”

“INCOMING!” someone cried out, and everyone threw themselves to the deck as the whistle of a diving shell crashed down from above, ready to kill…

Nobody.

EISH?!

The projectile (A thaumic bolt? A huge artillery shell? A railgun slug?) had exploded in midair. It had not been shot down by a laser defense system or an autocannon, no. It had simply gone off prematurely, a slick of fire dancing against a shimmering lime-green patch of space that hung in midair.

“A fokking shield…” Kraber whispered, amazed.

“What’s so surprising?” asked a pale unicorn mare, her cutie mark indistinguishable in the gloom. She looked confused. “It’s just an upscaled version of the same protection on your own armour.”

Was that… was that standard? Kraber asked himself, confused. Oh, fokking fokking fok me, so many HLF are going to die when we really piss the PHL o-

Another shell impacted the shield.

Next week. So many HLF are going to die when the PHL comes after us next week. Fok, but that was a sobering thought.

“Ah,” Kraber said, trying to put on an act of ‘silly-me-how’d-I-forget’ but mentally screaming. The average dreamweaver-

“There aren’t that many dreamweaver unicorns on earth,” says one unicorn stallion - Touchdown, that’s what Kraber thinks his name is - with a Hoofball for a cutie mark. He has just walked into the room. He’s the only stallion close to being as large as Aegis, but then, as pony size goes, Aegis is a class of his own.

“Really?” Aegis asks, interested, as Kraber pulls himself up, wincing a little, to look over at Touchdown. Touchdown seems like a solid stallion, anyway, and he’s good at playing Borderlands, Warframe, and Destiny, so in Kraber and Aegis’ respective books, that makes him a true bro. They haven’t seen him much, but Aegis and Kraber have both been impressed with his use of ‘remotes’ - small, mobile, TK-controlled platforms loaded with shield projectors, thaumic ennervators, bombs, and guns. The tactical applications are near-limitless.

“Really,” Touchdown says. “The college I went to had a school dedicated to those disciplines, but it got drafted into the war effort before they could turn flank for the PHL. Only dreamweavers I know are my sister, and this other Zebra named Mojisola…”

“Wait. Zebra dreamweavers?” Vinyl asks, confused.

“Yeah. The school accepted internationals,” Touchdown explains. “I’ll explain later, though. Very interested to hear your story.”

“Thanks for that,” Kraber says, genuinely intrigued. “I’ll ask about it later.”

“I’d like to hear about it too,” Aegis agrees. “Wonder how it works without a horn…”

“Anyway, the average dreamweaver

-mnemosurgeon, or other unicorn with psychomantic disciplines would likely find it to sound like a hardcore R-movie marathon with everything cut out except for the screams and profanities...

Which wouldn’t exactly be out of the ordinary for Kraber, but this time he was panicking.

“Ah…how do I turn that on?” Kraber asked. “Ah, eh…” and here, he tried to act embarrassed. “When the HLF attacked the rig I kinda traded in my older kit for one of the newer suits…”

The mare eyed the ill fit of the armor and shook her head. “You took this stuff off a dead guy, didn’t you?”

“Oh, no, no, no, no…” Kraber said.

“So, why does the namepatch say ‘Imbeault’...”

“Ah...okay, you got me. I flunked the training program for the new suits but decided I was better off in one of these when I had the chance…”

“What idiots are running the training school…” The mare rolled her head again and grabbed hold of his arm. “You’re just lucky you didn’t get caught with your pants down.”

“Ah eywis can get dressed and undressed real quickly,” Kraber said quickly, trying to channel a bit of the old suggestiveness he’d used back in med school in Boston. That was what… Ah, fok, he felt so gross doing this! Like he’d just proposed to have sex with a moose, or, well, a horse. Siff, even if it did talk! But that was what PHL did, right? Fok horses? Had to stay convincing.

“I’ll remember that,” the mare said, a contemplative edge to her voice.

Oh, fokking SIFF!

“Anyway, look here?”

She pointed.

“That’s your shield module. It’s your best friend. Repeat that for me…”

“Ah, the shield module is my best mate...”

“Congratulations, you just passed training…”

“Ah, okay,” Kraber said. “Can it… Can I shoot while it’s on?”

“Yeah, it’s calibrated to let nothing in, but stuff can go out just fine,” the mare explained. “Thankfully, you’ve already got a few PHL guns that’d work with it…”

Oh, thank God, the MG2019 and that Fostech he stole! And Lovikov thought the former would kill him… Showed what that asshole knew!

“Can you ID my pistols so they work with it too?” Kraber asked, holding out his .45 and .50. “I know how it fokking looks, but these are old friends of mine.”

“Another time,” the mare said, as the sound of boots and hooves scrambling onto the canted deck made themselves apparent. “For now just shut up and let me do the talking… and for what its worth, thanks for getting us out of that madhouse. Good job soldier…”

Two figures appeared on the bridge wing, shining in torches. Both wore MG42 assault rifles, though one carried it in his hands and the other had a pair mounted to a saddle.

“Identify yourselves.”

“Combat Engineer Socket Wrench,” said the mare who had helped Kraber. “I’m in charge here…”

Mackworth Island, as it turned out, was a strange place. The Ponies for Human Life had apparently converted the former school into an administrative centre. Now, with the centre of Portland merrily ablaze, it had also become responsible for overseeing all local operations.

Some of the various workers that Kraber had saved (was that the word?) from the rig had relatives here, and there had been a few ecstatic reunions, and most everybody who had come ashore on the tug with him had thanked and congratulated him. For a single, solitary micromoment, Kraber’s spirits rose, as people bumped bellies with him, raised him up (that man was strong!) and thanked him for getting off the rig. He’d even learned that the local name for Socket Wrench was ‘Socks’, had a good bit of rum, gotten hugged by more than a few ponies (which was nice, he had to admit, the gluesticks were like living plushies!) and yet something of their joy put him off. But why shouldn’t they be joyful?! They’d gotten away from those lunatic…

HLF.

And, with that word, with the remembrance that the rig was still firing on the city, Kraber’s spirits sunk.

Get away! He wanted to say. I’m not worth it. This is my fokking fault! I helped everyone out, I shot your friends, I killed… I killed your ponies.

He was grateful for the inscrutable mask he wore, so nobody could see his face. He was also glad that, in the madness, nobody had noticed the cracks in the story or demanded he identify himself by name, rank and serial number...

“Ah appreciate this, ah really dae,” Kraber said at last, breaking away from another grateful group and slumping onto a bench that overlooked the harbor, “But ah’m fokkin beat. Ah need tae sit doon.”

“You don’t seem happy,” said a strange batwinged mare fluttering towards him.

On a normal day, Kraber would have pulled out his revolver and exploded the fokking vampire gluestick coming up to him. But this wasn’t a normal day. Oh, he couldn’t look at her or damn near any pony, any of those foals, without seeing Pinkie Pie turning his family, Kate, Peter, Anka, Cousin Richard, into those fokking zombies. And yet, the ponies had been a hell of a lot more heroic than the HLF were today.

They’d been trying to protect their friends, they’d defended against hostiles… without resorting to shooting everything apart and then blowing up all the boats in the vicinity ‘just to be sure’.

While Kraber had shot foals. Which… sure, they were ponies, but they were still children. Wee yins, he heard himself think in that Robert Carlyle imitation he’d used during that production of Trainspotting in Boston.

He sincerely hoped that he wasn’t going to end up getting a hallucination of Begbie. That would be terrifying. Silly at first, but then, well, it’d just turn into pure torment. More than usual, anyway.

“Those who talk to themselves keep poor company,” Anka said, in that odd accent caught somewhere between Germany, Roxbury in Boston, and Cape Town.

Kraber paused and facepalmed. Fok, she was right, wasn’t she? He briefly debated telling this batwinged pony to go away, to just fokking take his pistol and shoot himself so he didn’t have to feel like this anymore...

But sometimes, a little bit of company does a man a body of good. And honestly, after ‘grand theft tugboat’, killing people on the rig, and waking up early, Kraber was too tired to act on that anger. It was on something of a low burn at the moment.

“I’m not,” he said, watching as another slug impacted the curiously benevolent barrier above the island. “Shield generators?” Kraber asked, intrigued.

“You didn’t know?” the batwinged mare asked, genuinely surprised. “When the zeps-”

Kraber abruptly realized that HLF ‘contingency plans’ for dealing with zeps were utter kak, as were their anti-air

“-and potioneer ships come during Barrierfall, they’ll try to bombard Portland. At the worst possible time, quite likely,” the batwinged pony said. “Because why the hell should we expect anything different?”

“Well, looks like it’s working a treat…” he laughed sardonically, watching the city across the bay go up like a roman candle...

Again, the fear. The knowledge of Barrierfall, millions dying or being ponified on the first day alone, desperate stragglers trying to outrun the barrier-

“Alright, what the hell is with you? I can hear you drawing in breath whenever I say something, and your heart racing,” the batwinged pony said.

“I’m a useless fokking paranoid psychopath,” Kraber said. “Those are just symptoms of the condition.”

The batwinged mare looked up at him, her eyes wide. “Uh… huh. Well, that explains a bit, but you didn’t answer my question…”

“I have a… a close friend in the HLF,” Kraber said.

Lie. Not just a blatant untruth, no, but if the HLF found him, it’d be unlikely he’d have friends in there.

“It’s noat… that abnormal. We all know someone. He just goes oan and oan, getting radger and radger, and Ah cannae take it, but Ah’m worried for him around Barrierfall. Fok, Ah’m worried for all of us…” he sighed. “Ah’m from Scotland. Fokking Leith, actually. Ah saw one barrierfall, and eish, that was a fokkin nightmare. I saw a woman with broken legs, halfway ponified, headboatin’ a knife, bringin’ oat brains an blood each stab, cause her arms were burnt to a crisp. I cannae blame her - naebody wants tae be potioned.”

Actually, Kraber had seen that over in Africa. Fokking terrifying, it was, and he’d shot her as a mercy, then killed a whole fokking lot of royal guard and newfoals as well. Not… quite… to avenge her. He would have done that anyway.

“It’ll be a fokking nightmare again when it touches down,” Kraber finished. “An’ soon eftir, we’re fokked. Ah’m scared, ah really am… Nae man nor pony should see a second Barrierfall in their life.”

Never mind that he wouldn’t - by the time Equestria’s Barrier had gotten somewhere that people could flee to, he’d probably be dead, or one of the enthusiastic little mindless zombie-dolls trying to potion everyone.

Victory…

“I can understand that,” the bizarre batwinged pegasus said. “I remember seeing the Barrier during the first days of the expansion… we were terrified when Geneva was swallowed.”

“Actually, that’s nae what Ah’m afraid of,” Kraber said.

“You’re not afraid of the Barrier?” the pegasus asked.

“Well, mostly… it’s what we’ll dae,” Kraber said. “We’ve hud years in America fae old hatreds tae come up and simmer. And the PER will jist come oot the woodwork, and fok us all up. My friend would say the HLF would help us, but…” he shrugged. “Ah didnae believe it then, ah dinnae believe it now.”

Which reminded him once more. About the elephant in the room. Except elephants, for whatever reason, weren’t sentient in Equestria.

“What do you think they’ll do?” the pegasus asked, curious.

“I cannae quite guess,” Kraber said, half-lying to even himself.

“Well, they’re not exactly full of warm and fuzzy horseback riders,” the batwinged pegasus mare said.

“Ha! Nice!” Vinyl interrupts.

“Aye,” Kraber agrees, a smile on his face. “Ah think that was when-” he pauses, coughs, clears his throat, and switches from the affected Leith brogue back into the much less affected South African accent more familiar to all of you. “I think that’s when I thought Nebula - that’s the batpony - was alright. I mean, she had a sense of humor about humans… having…” he glances at you. “A kind and loving relationship with ponies,” he says quickly.

“Bit late for you to try and be responsible in front of colts and fillies,” says one PHL man. You’ve seen him around - he’s one of Kraber and Johnny C’s friends. Cept he’s an old roommate of Kraber’s from back in college, somebody named Bly Doyle. Though Bly’s quick to point out that Kraber never tried to eat him.

“Kraber tried to eat his old roommate?” Scootaloo asks.

“Well, yeah,” Kraber says.

“I thought you were joking!”

While Bly’s been trained with firearms, like pretty much everyone else (A short Kalashnikov hangs over one shoulder even now) he’s working at PHL medical, off the front lines. He’s been busy lately with some consultants over in Tribeca. Something about totem-proles, you think? You never liked those.

His family - who often let Kraber and Aegis stay over - are quite nice.

“Eh, a man’s gotta try,” Kraber says, shrugging. “Had to agree with Nebula on that because fok it,

yeah, that’s exactly it!” Kraber laughed, the epithet being far too silly for him not to laugh. It was like that time he’d been depressed back in college, and Erika had told him how to get shits and giggles - by making pot brownies with laxative. “Ah, fok, I gotta remember that one…”

Nebula looked at him a little insistently.

“Eish, well, Ah…” he paused, musing on the usual HLF M.O. “They’d kill all the ponies trying to escape,” he said with utter certainty. “And probably people trying to help them…” his voice trailed off into another tangent, seemingly independent of his brain. “So emergency workers, government soldiers… PHL relief workers… hospitals with pony doctors and nurses…”

Oh fok no

“And they’ll probably be desperate,” he realized, “So they’ll have to get medical supplies. And, if they do any evac, they’ll…” His face went white, though Nebula couldn’t see it. She could fokking well sense something about him, though.... “So many fokking people are going to die. Or… or get ponified, because some… some fokkin radges are going tae be more concerned with the HLF way than the safe way.”

And, at the end of that sentence, he hears a cacophony of voices, of his own, Victory’s the nameless newfoal, of Anka, Peter, Kate, Cousin Richard, Emil, countless others: “And it will be your fault.”

“The scary thing is how unsurprising that is,” the mare said. “I knew they’d be bad. But… I never heard it voiced so plainly. You know that feel?”

“I fokkin well know that feel,” Kraber agreed. “But… It just eats at me now,” he said, taking a drink. “I have HLF connections, even now. They don’t know I’m here. I could very well be like them-”

“Aren’t you already?” Victory asked.

“Yeah, and it scares me. The thought that in the future I could be - could have been - one of those bastards,” he said.

“Ah, there’s no reason to be guilty about what you might do,” Nebula said. “You gotta focus on now, and worry about that when you have time.”

They paused, Kraber thinking on that sentence.

“Mind if I ask a question? …What the fok are ye?” Kraber asked, looking over the batwinged, fanged (fanged?!) pony.

“Seriously?” the mare asked.

“Well, Ah’ve bare ever seen yuir like,” Kraber explained.

“We have a lot of names,” the strange indigo pony with the blue-black mane said. “Nightkin, the Nocturne, Thestrals… batponies…”

“Oh yeah, Ah haird o’ that,” Kraber said. “Thought it was just a story people told back at the refugee camp.”

The pony sighed. “Not surprised. There aren’t exactly many of us on Earth.”

In retrospect, Kraber shouldn’t have been surprised by her appearance. There’d been a lot of odd species of Equus that had come to earth in the chaos around the Three Weeks of Blood, even zebras (he’d never met one, though) and there were some HLF from down south that swore they’d seen a pony made of crystals, but he’d never been all that clear on it.

But the war hadn’t yet consumed America, so he hadn’t yet learned - he’d almost forgotten - to expect anything of the war, that making sense was a fool's dream. But

“What happened?”

“Lots of things,” the bizarre-looking pony said simply. “They helped Princess Luna escape, a long while back…

“Here’s the bit of the story I remember,” Kraber says, and clears his throat. “Back from when I met her awhile later.”

“What happened to her?” you ask. “Nebula?”

“Oh, she’s fine. Still over in Portland, still watching for Imperials or some ship that manages to make its way across the ocean.” Aegis says. “Wonderful mare. Bit irritable nowadays, but who isn’t?”

“Good point,” Vinyl agrees. “It gets hard sometimes.”

“Which is why I’m happy for the friends I still have. Like all of you,” Kraber says. “She’s not…” And Kraber looks downcast here, his shoulders slumping. He looks wizened, tired. “…another friend I’ve lost.” He takes a drink of the bourbon hidden under his chair. “I’ve lost more fokkin’ chommies than some of you kids’ve yet made…” he sighs.

Aegis, putting himself up on a large chair, puts a hoof behind Kraber’s head, over his shoulder.

“Ah, thanks for that,” Kraber says, and he smiles over at Aegis. “You’re a real china, Aegis.”

“You too, Viktor,” Aegis agrees.

“Ah, fok it. All of you - except maybe Verity, because you’re not going to be a paragon of sanity till we find a cure-”

“Nope.”

“Are great friends. Fok what Equestria says, this is real friendship. Helping each other, visiting them in the hospital… and listening to punk rock.”

“Damn right it is!” Vinyl agrees.

“Anyway,” Kraber says, looking quite comfortable against Aegis’ foreleg, “Here’s what Nebula-

Nebula’s Tail

“Yes, her name’s Nebula. Just go with it. Here’s what she told me…”

We were revered by a lot of ponies back in the day. Feared too, for obvious reasons that we’re kinda intimidating to look at. There were some ponies that came up with stories as to where we came from; that we were created through magic as Nightmare Moon’s loyal soldiers, or were the victims of curses….

The truth is though that some of us are just created through enchantments by Princess Luna…though I guess all the stories have some truth in them. You can be born a thestral, yes, but Luna favors the use of enchantments to temporarily transform us to look the part, since her first permanent corps of guards were naturally-born Nightkin. We’re a rare breed, after all. For example, my brother - well, sister, oddly enough - wasn’t born a thestral like me, so she doesn’t have the omnivorous digestive structure. Huh? Well, bro asked Luna to make his thestral disguise look like a mare. Always seemed happier on duty that way… or when flying the Night Guard’s colors when on civilian leave, and I get to have a sister and a brother, which is pretty cool. You might like Princess Luna, Mr. Bliss.

Ah, okay. I understand, Mr. Bliss. The Princess is… was… well she loved her illusions and theatrics. She did things with pomp and splendor, loved making an entrance, and her voice could blow you back. Ponies quickly grew to adore her, but then, well… HLF bastards always act like all ponies threw their weight behind the sun bitch.

But we didn’t. For all her anger, Princess Luna was never all that intent on the orders to exterminate the Changelings. Yes, Mr. Bliss - genocide. Queen Celestia had us exterminate all Changeling hives in Equestria, and it had been scary how easy she’d whipped everypony into a frenzy. As I remember, that was when we first heard about the mare they call ‘Celestia’s Sword’...

“Who’s she?” Kraber asked.

“We… don’t know. A mare that obeys the queen bitch without question, wears a flesh-colored mask like half a human face… and the nightmare of many a Changeling. And mine. I saw her in action, and she was surgical in the field. Like a scalpel to someone’s throat...

Luna, well, she’d wanted to capture Queen Chrysalis, punish her, impose sanctions, but not…. not kill her. Eventually, Celestia managed to convince her…. and we did so. I know we didn’t burn the majority of them, anyway, but the things we did during that campaign… We caught a lot of flak, so you humans say, for lagging behind on the campaign to protect the home and hearth of Equestria… once, it was more literal, though we could never prove that the fireworks launched by the Celestian Guards weren’t an accident.

From there, well, it went downhill. After the Great Equestrian exploded on Declaration Day - and that’s a long story, please ask somepony else, I’m trying to make a point - Luna begged her sister not to ‘spread harmony’, to do what she planned, based on what she’d witness on that ship. For a year or two, Luna sat by, afraid to act against Celestia again, desperately hoping that something could be salvaged from the war. Why? Well, she’d been Nightmare Moon - ancient enemy of the ponies, mad alicorn with great and terrible power, gone mad with jealousy for Celestia - earlier. Try and ask about it later, it’d take too long to explain. She’d only just recently been reintegrated into Equestria, and she was.... well, afraid. She would tell us she had confidence issues, and feared that even the slightest inkling of arguing with her sister meant that she could be on the way to becoming Nightmare Moon again. And I can’t prove anything, but I know in my heart of hearts, like up is up and bullets come from guns, that Celestia played on those fears-”

“She did what.” Kraber said, angered beyond inflecting even a question mark in his voice.

“You heard me,” Nebula said.

“It’s just… Look. I have three siblings,” Kraber explained. “Maybe we hit each other a bit, but that shit is too fokking far!” he paused. “She disnae care. She disnae care, so I don’t know if she can be hurt. Not that it really compares to what Celestia’s done in the past three years, but… her sister, man.”

“Yeah. She played on it to keep Luna from acting. Oh, she assuaged Luna’s fears by various reassurances, but there was always the veiled threat at the back of those words - “are you feeling quite yourself, Luna?” - “do you wish to speak to a doctor about these outbursts, ‘dear sister’?”...urgh! Heard them before. The words were like rancid honey. Before long, we had ponies saying Nightmare Moon had never really been ‘purified’ or what have you, that Luna was just biding her time… whispers and rumors among the Canterlot nobility, the practical dissolution of the Night Court for ‘reasons of national security’. Because Luna just… kept… asking…. questions.

There was only so long it could work, though. Luna was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, but she knew something was wrong. She knew it in her bones. When her mane began losing its luster, fading back to the colour it had been at her birth, she became convinced something was rotten in Equestria. And do you know what the greatest, saddest honor was? It was she confided her fears in us, dammit. Not to her sister, nor her so-called friends, but in us...her guards, her forsworn defenders.

...most of those guys are dead now, I think. I’ve lost a lot of good friends. What? My bro? He... well, she’s over in New York right now. Spends as much time as possible a mare, until maintaining the transformation burns her out. If you’re ever there and you see her, tell her that Nebula says hello. And I think there are some of the old Nightguards back in the home country, leading resistance cells-

“Wait, resistance cells? In Equestria?” Kraber interrupted.

“Yeah,” Nebula said, surprised. “Course there’s an Equestrian resisty. Why wouldn’t there be? Even if you don’t like humans-”

“Gee, I wonder why…” the nameless newfoal muttered.

“Then you probably don’t like all the things Celestia’s done,” Nebula explained. “Ever hear of totem-proles?”

“Vaguely. Not until about last August, on the 17th,” Kraber said. What a great day that had been...

“That’s oddly specific. Anyway, they’re surveillance devices, and they’re up on every block. Say anything that Queen Celestia doesn’t like, and you get disappeared, or…. reintegrated.” The shivers that Nebula had when she said the word ‘reintegrated’ said more than any descriptor ever could. “And the war hasn’t done anything good for the economy, either.”

“Wait…” Kraber said. “Population boom… wartime economy… near medieval infrastructure, couple billion joining…” he winced. “Sounds downright fokking hellish.”

“Yeah,” Nebula sighed, “If anything, the war’s done more harm to Equestria than you ever could even with the Barrier up there.”

And, now, Kraber had to think. A resistance movement in Equestria… ponies that were truer to the partisan spirit that he once thought the HLF embodied… “Sorry,” he said. “Continue.”

“Anyway, all the other nightguards, I’m-”

”-not sure what happened to them. I can’t rightly say. I didn’t make many friends getting here, trying to save what they see as a doomed world. So many died just helping Princess Luna and Cadenza, the crystal princess, escape…”

“Wait?” asks Scootaloo. “Our Cadance? She’s a princess!?”

“Yeah...didn’t you know?” says Kraber. “She’s ‘rightful heir to the Crystal throne’ or something…”

“Awesome…” Scootaloo says, starry-eyed. “We have a princess on our side!”

“Yeah, I guess it is. But for Nebula, well, the night that Luna and Cadenza fled was a black one for the thestrals. Most of the few survivors had to part ways, smuggle themselves across the borders on their own initiative. But remember kids… if any ponies can be called heroes, the damn Thestrals are certain. Every single one of them had Luna’s back, foals and all - they were the only armed force not bound by that mindfok spell Celestia put on her own soldiers, thanks to Luna having her own charter, and they all used that freedom and made the choice to defy the Empire squatting without invite in their home. Loads still do. That’s why the Thestrals are heroes to the PHL, to any pony that looks up the sun and tells it to go fok itself.”

“Hey Kraber!” calls out a Night Guard mare walking by. “Heard you got beat up by our… what’s a word…”

“Not ‘new recruit’,” Kraber says thoughtfully. “Hmmm…”

“Go buck yourselves…” snarks Verity, before abruptly covering her mouth with her hooves and repeating the word ‘fuck’ repeatedly as if it was a warding spell.

You stifle a grin. It’s a weird and terrifying life you lead, but some things are just too funny not to laugh at.

“Unwilling charge?” Aegis suggests.

“Sounds good,” Kraber agrees. “Ah, don’t worry about it, Lunar Phase, I’m fine. Just telling these folks here a story.”

“Looks like all those writing classes you take on leave are paying off,” Aegis says.

“What’s the story about what?” ‘Lunar Phase’ asks, gracefully flicking a full mane of gunmetal-silver locks behind one ear. Despite the sleek muscle visible beneath her gleaming coat and the tempered steel in her eyes, she’s almost the perfect definition of pony femininity.

“Oh, just how I got into the PHL,” Kraber explains. “Just mentioned your sister.”

“Really!” Lunar Phase says. “I miss her so much…”

“So do you see?” Nebula asked. “See what the war means to me, and my clan? See what we’re fighting, and why?”

Kraber had never met Queen Celestia. Never had a sense of… of her, really. Absurd as it sounded. He’d just project some generic concept of her or Pinkie Pie upon every pony he met. True Quill, a PHL journalist, will later refer to HLF members as thinking of ponies as ‘one gestalt mass’. And hearing that, Kraber’ll agree. It won’t be far off the mark.

But from what he’d just heard, it was impossible not to hate her. What fokking kontgesig would… would do that to her sister? Whip the press into a frenzy, convince them an innocent mare was evil, consolidate power for herself… kill her guard… commit genocide… Though, granted, he’s seen the tapes of the two sisters final encounter at Reykjavik. They’re public to anyone, viewed billions of times on Youtube.

He can say it definitely though. This mare beside him now, Nebula, was a good pony. Irritable and blunt? Maybe a little, judging by how many details she’d skipped over in her story, but then, she was trying to get to the point. She was refreshingly honest, easily able to listen to him, and, most importantly, not Celestia or Pinkie. It was a shock just after the thought crossed his mind, that there could be good ponies. But… their foals could suffer just like him, just like his own children. Just like him. And, most importantly, the war had cost her a prominent position too. She’d gone from a royal guard to a watchmare on an island in Portland, and she couldn’t go home again.

Yeah, for a gluestick, Nebula seemed alright. Not as if she’d be a friend of his, but more like they could be civil.

It was a welcome discovery, Kraber reflected, looking up into the stars. Nebula, a mare who looked quite graceful, came across as far more human than his comrades in the Front.

He could have relaxed, maybe, just maybe finding peace for a second, if not for that glaring problem that, oh ja, Portland was on fokking fire.

Kraber’s blood ran cold. “Nebula?” he asked. “Why the fok doesn’t the rest of Portland have a shield like this island?”

“We’d gotten a response from a radiowoman over in Portland, near the business district,” Nebula explained. “She said… somebody sabotaged the shield generator.”

“Who?” Kraber asked, his blood running cold.

“PER, she hopes,” Nebula said. “But… There’s another possibility. That the HLF did it. Wouldn’t surprise m-”

Kraber ran, practically bolted for it.

“Where are you going?!” Nebula yelled.

“First, I’m getting these pistols encoded to work with my shield. Second, going out into the city!” Kraber yelled, dashing back to the boat. “I’m going to see what I can do to help!”

“You could die!”

“A hell of a lot more could if I don’t get out!”

Mackworth Island did, it seemed, actually have a dock, but it was a tiny thing only suited for small launches and yachts. The motor-pool however was more than enough to make up for it, and in his stolen armour and MG2019 in hand, Kraber looked more than official enough to requisition a vehicle.

V8 snarling, the battered old Ford Explorer he’d taken off of Socket Wrench’s hooves fishtailed down the steep road from the island’s summit and then accelerated out across the causeway. As soon as he hit the mainland, two left-hand turns put him onto the highway into the city-center. So… this was it, just a city full of scared bastards, and himself, trying to fix his mistake.

...plus his crazy of course. The newfoal was currently watching him from the back seats, a shadowy and indistinct reflection in the rear-view mirror.

Ah, fok it. He had to do something. Fok the hallucinations, especially that kontgesig Victory. That ridiculous bitch with the pullstring. If there was anyone hurt by the Sorghum’s shells, anyone out there… he’d do what he could.

Even if it killed hi-

A shell hit a stalled car right in front of him, sending a plume of smoke and shrapnel into the air, leaving him swerving to avoid it, the Ford squealing for one desperate moment as Kraber pleaded to God that his car didn’t flip over.

Well, that might not be very long.

“You could have stopped the shells!” the older new foal pleaded from the passenger seat, only visible in the flickering light cast by a passing streetlights, disappearing whenever their orange light segued into shadow. “This won’t-”

“If you’re my guilt, I expect you to make fokking sense,” Kraber said. “I’m not facing down that many people with guns. I’d get filled with more lead than Bly's plumbing.”

As he wondered what happened to people like his old roommate Bly, his college chommies - ‘Polo’ Polmont, Gray, Howie, Terry, Strychnine Jones, Helen, Zo, Stretcher Burt, Corinne, Frank, Eva, Heather, Zanna, Miranda (actually some friend of Bly's friend Johnny C in art school) all that crew that he’d trusted the year he spent in America as a lark-

“Who are they?” you ask.

“Ah, they’re old chinas from back in med school,” Kraber explains. “Specially Bly. He was the roommate I didn’t try to eat, by the way.”

“Why did you…” Scootaloo starts.

“It was in that flashback with Kraber meeting Kate,” Aegis says.

“Not sure you’ve got good judgment when it comes to friends,” Verity says.

Aegis glares at her.

“No, no, she’s got a point,” Kraber points out, “In that I considered the HLF to be chommies. Still though…. Crazy bastards, but these were good friends. Helped me out a lot when Kate was bout to give birth. Even gave me money! Would’ve starved without that….”

“Think I’d like to hear about that sometime,” you say.

“Nah. It’s not all that important, and I feel like you have enough stories to keep track of,” Aegis says.

“Ja,” agrees Kraber. “Anyway, right when I was thinking about them,

“Look, I am doing this!” Kraber roared, pounding a fist on the steering wheel and pushing the rev-counter into the red. The 4X4 transmission snarled as he forced the car up and over an abandoned barricade, using other vehicles as berms and ramps. “And you’re not going to tell me to do something fokking stupid. I’m doing the right thing, FOR ONCE IN THE PAST FOUR FOKKING YEARS!”

There was no reply. The newfoal had vanished.

Okay, that was… that felt invigorating. Making a decision, for himself. With that thought - that suddenly, he was the master of his mind, and king of the road as he powered into Downtown. Not because he wanted to - a fleeting desire to come back to the HLF, to drive the Warrior back out to the rig and… okay, fok it, that wouldn’t work. No. Fok that noise. He knew what he was getting into when he did this stupid fokking thing.

So, armed with the knowledge that he was suddenly back in control, that he’d met a good mare, and now had a lot of gun that’d work with a shield, Kraber screeched the Explorer to a halt at the lip of a crater blasted in the roadway, kicked open the drivers-side door, and strode into a city gone mad.

Dancing Day, Dancing Day...

You’ve heard of it, of course. When the Sorghum started firing on Portland, everything went nuts. HLF and PER came out of the woodwork, seeing it as an opportunity to assert themselves, along with all the poor looters who had just wanted something to eat.

The PHL, National Guard and local authorities had been responding to the situation as best it could, but a lot of the best troops were being diverted to consolidate strongholds and eventually take back the rig, Luna only knows how HLF members like Verity escaped…

“You gonna enlighten us on that?” you ask Verity. “When they retook the rig, how did you escape?”

“Come to think of it, I was wondering how you did that,” Kraber says. “I knocked you out-”

“Barely.”

“-And threw you overboard while the boat was still going!”

“You threw me onto the jetty, not into the water. This is your storytime, not mine, at least keep the facts straight!”

“Fair enough…so that’s another story. The troops that were actually left were mostly green volunteers or fresh recruits outta training, panicky and nervous.

It was a recipe for hell.

“The city was a mess,” Kraber continues. “HLF graffiti was sprayed everywhere, fires and looting were going on all over the place. The newbie troops were trying to contain things, but they were not putting much effort into distinguishing insurgents from looters. Lotta blood was shed pointlessly that night, a lotta lives ruined.”

He pauses to describe one pony nailed to a wall with a railroad spike, a grotesque visual that brings and unnerving smile to Verity’s face, one that makes you feel more than a little dirty when you see it. You trot back from her, unnerved.

“Don’t worry, Little Day, it’s fine,” Aegis reassures you.

“Trust me,” Kraber says with a glare aimed at Verity, “It’s fine. Shoulda realized it’d be too much to ask Verity to like this… or any pony here. Or zebra. Or people here in general, actually.”

Verity glares back at him.

“Oh, don’t jou fokking deny it,” Kraber practically snarls.

She looks as if she is about to argue, then practically ‘deflates’. That’s how Vinyl put it, whispering in your ear that it seems like what Pinkie Pie’s mane used to do when she got depressed. Though Kraber reassures her that Vinyl’s fine - even if he’s pissed as fok when Pinkie Pie’s name comes up, he’s not gonna hurt his friends unless Pinkie Pie’s in the room.

“The fokkin moer in? Ja!” Kraber says. “But not a threat to you. I’ve grown past that.”

And that, well, that puts a happy look in Aegis and Vinyl’s eyes, along with Amber Maple and Rivet, and they all smile… even Elena, that ex-HLF woman who’s been sitting around awkwardly, unsure of what to say, looks happy. So does Bly.

“I’m proud of you, old friend,” Bly says.

“You and me both,” Aegis agrees. “How about the three of us get a drink sometime?”

“Sure.”

“Ah, what the hell, why not, I’d like to go too,” Vinyl says. “It’s been another one of those days. Say, you should ask Lunar Phase about it.”

“She is a good friend,” Kraber says. “Sure. Why not?”

“I’d like it,” Lunar Phase says.

And so, their conversation trails off into people they’d like to invite, such as mommy, who’s doing a few last-minute touches on something important, Kraber’s few friends, including what few subordinates he has, Aegis’ various pony friends… It’s honestly a bit tiresome to listen to, and you find yourself lulling off a bit, using an ipad...

And once more, Verity breaks the ice.

“Look at you,” Verity says, and you’re not sure if she’s angry or just confused. “How the fuck did you… How the fuck are you so accepting?”

“Right, you weren’t in the room most of the story…” Kraber realizes. “…Eish. Well, I hit my limit.”

“No. No no no no. You do not grow a conscience overnight-”

“I’d been killing, murdering, and otherwise making mayhem three years,” Kraber says. “I just… One day, I just couldn’t take it.”

“You practically lived for that!”

“No, I didn’t have any other fokking thing to live for!” Kraber yells. “It’s really hard to have faith in the HLF when they’ve promised to kill you, then you see HLF members take advantage of the chaos to rop a fokking shoe store!”

“What?” you ask.

“I never told anyone about this?” Kraber asks, genuinely surprised.

“Well, you told us…” Rivet points out. “Then again, you were in disguise at the time, so I’m not sure how true it was.”

“I was telling the truth, though,” Kraber explains.

“Rivet, Kraber had a German porn star’s mustache-” Aegis starts.

Kraber raises an eyebrow at that, reminding them all that officially, he is a German citizen, whatever that means nowadays, right before Bly interrupts and says: “Hey. Kraber and I needed money back then! Honestly, it felt more like a prank than anything.”

“Ah, memories,” Kraber says, smiling.

Everyone turns to look at them both.

“...Let’s not go into that,” Vinyl says.

“Agreed,” you say, more than a little disturbed.

“Bly, this has nothing to do with that! I was just saying how he used a mustache and a Robert Carlyle imitation,” Aegis continues. “That was not a disguise.”

“Sorry about lying, by the way,” Kraber says, downcast. “I… I thought you’d kill me if I told the truth.”

“That… is probably a good point,” Aegis admits.

“Still. I’m gonna do my damnedest to make up for th-”

“Don’t,” Aegis says. “You already have. So - that thing about the shoe store was true?”

“It was,” Kraber says. “But, for those who didn’t hear this before, well, it’s really hard to have faith in the HLF when two-

-women, youngish bakvissies in ragged clothes and kevlar, along with HLF jackets covered in patches - are smashing open a window of a shoe store.

Practically giggling, one of them grabbed what few shoes she could, even holding a pair of high heels in her teeth. A dazed, fearful sky-blue unicorn pony with a slicked-back gray mane and blue aviator sunglasses ran by, and pulling out a cheap nine-mil, one of the bakvissies shot it in the legs. Twice, crippling it on one side.

Before Kraber’s eyes, they rushed at the pony, stopping only briefly to pick up their loot, and kicked him in the gut. Cheering.

Some part of him wanted to say the damn gluestick was in the wrong here. That he and his kind had brought nothing but suffering to earth. But that was kak and Kraber knew it. Who was the one that had helped fire on a city? Who had taken advantage of a crisis, something that should have been the defense of earth itself (oh, what a filthy fokking lie that was) to loot a goddamn shoe-store?! Who was beating the defenseless?!

HLF were.

So, tempting as it was to let that pony die - Kraber had no ability to guess if he was one of the good merry-go-round-toys like Nebula - Kraber couldn’t do it.

“This isn’t being a fokking partisan. Fok. This!” he roared, and punched the first girl across the face. The second got a wild shot off, and it splashed harmlessly across his armor before he landed another blow on her too, the sole of his boot in her face. The crunch of impact might have been her nose breaking, or her neck snapping.

He didn’t care.

Maybe they were good people, maybe not.

He didn’t care.

They were acting the same way he had until today…

He didn’t… he didn’t give a fok, but he knew what he had to do for the gluestick. He didn’t like it, but it was what had to be done.

“Hold on!” Kraber said as he knelt beside the wounded stallion, momentarily deepening his voice. People looked for a person, not a persona. Kagan had always said that. “I’m gonna help you out, boykie.”

“Please… no…” the pony whispered.

“Don’t worry! I’m a doctor. Vasbyt china, this kak will be over soon.”

“What?” the pony asked.

“Never mind that!” Kraber said. “Anyway… Where’s somewhere I can-”

He heard the sound of sporadic fire in the distance, and then-

There was the sound of something shattering. An unmistakable smell. A-

“It’s the fucking PER!” someone screamed off in the distance.

Well. Shit just got a whole lot more complicated. He could go for the PER. He could.

“Go to them, Viktor! They’ll welcome a new convert!” Victory suggested. “They’ll-”

“Save this pony!” the newfoal yelled. “Find him help-

Wait, Kraber thought. Won’t I save more lives if I kill those PER?

“EK BEHEER ME!” Kraber yelled.

“...Oh Luna, I’m being rescued by a madhuman,” the unicorn gasped fearfully.

“...No, no. That’s ah, that’s me psyching myself up. Means ‘I control me’ back where I’m from,” Kraber said. “Don’t worry,” he said, surprised to find that he meant it, “I’ll get you somewhere quiet that we can treat you.”

A quick check established no spinal or lumbar damage, so at least he could safely move the pony, so long as he didn’t handle or move the area around the gunshot wounds.

‘I need… I need antiseptic, and a pair of tweezers, bandages, thread… I need my fokking head examined!’

He didn’t like it. He… he couldn’t stand ponies, he admitted it. But this was a patient in pain, shot and kicked by two greedy bitches. Even if he was from a race of imperialistic, mass-murdering and mass-zombifying xenophobes, it was hard to say humanity was in the right here.

“Don’t worry, I can heal myself,” the unicorn said, his horn flickering. “It’ll… It’ll sting like a bitch in the morning but…” he wheezed. “Ah, sonova... it hurts!”

Suddenly, as if out of nowhere, a group of ragged men and women… appeared. That was the only word for it.

“PHL!” one man yelled, pointing at Kraber. “And one of the damn gluesticks… let’s show that geldo and the newfoal-in-training what we do to people that come into our city!”

Oh, fok. At this point, he’d probably worn out any possible meaning, but… if the HLF found him, and he’d shot them, he’d be screwed.

He couldn’t run away either. He’d get filled with bullets and… the unicorn would die? Hm. He supposed that’d be bad.

Think, damn you, Viktor! Kagan always called you a slippery bastard! I managed to survive the HLF this long, keep my gun from getting stolen! I can think my fokking way out of this! Okay. I could sell this pony out, and join the H-

A shell from the Sorghum impacted a building about a mile down, a plume of fire shooting up into the air.

-ell no.

That would… that’d be betraying humanity. Betraying himself. Today, he’d had the first inklings of a conscience towards ponies, the first in close to three years. Now, he had in his custody a helpless pony that had been wounded by two HLF bakvissie bitches. Unless something was done, that pony would die, and so would a lot of other people in this city.

And Kraber realized, to his horror, this wasn’t a situation he could shoot his way out of.

There are some characters that have a tongue smooth as velvet, and voices like warm chocolate. People that could convince armed men to put their guns down through sheer intimidation. Kraber could manage the latter on a good day, even though his tongue was essentially covered in enough barbs that it came as a shock to others - especially Galt when he was deep into a discussion on the meaning of objectivism, and Kraber had refuted several of his points - that he could read the average China Mieville novel without a dictionary and knew the meaning of the word ‘Inveigle’.

This was not one of those good days. Especially as Kraber would realize within twelve hours that he’d essentially hit rock bottom...

“And that’s the first time I hit rock bottom,” Kraber says.

“Wait, are you considering what happened the day after this as rock bottom?” Aegis asks.

“Well, yes,” Kraber says. “I didn’t have friends, family, or money. All I had was my word and my balls.” He pauses. “And my guns… and a stuffed animal or three-“

“Which reminds me,” Verity says. “I actually talked to Lovikov. How did you manage to get away with carrying a stuffed horse around while in the HLF?”

“Wait,” Lunar Phase asks, looking over at Kraber. “You have a stuffed horse?!”

“Her name is Joanna,” Kraber says, holding up a stuffed mare proportioned like an earth horse with a strangely long face, because it would be weird if it looked like a pony native to Equus. It has been lying next to his heavily bandaged head. You can see that there’s a little bit of blood on it as well…

“It was my daughter’s,” Kraber explains, and Lunar Phase draws in a little gasp, a little ‘oh’.

“Whose blood is that?” you ask.

“Mine,” Kraber says. “Mostly. Anyway, I threatened to shoot off their balls and rearrange their organs when doing surgery. I… I don’t fokking know, I was gesuip when I told them what I’d do. And none of them bothered me afterwards, though even women kept putting their hands over their crotches when I came by...”

There’s an uncomfortable pause.

“Look, sometimes, violence really is the answer,” Kraber explains.

Aegis looks up at Kraber, then to his foals, to you, to Scootaloo, then to Babs Seed and Featherweight.

“I’m not sure to be conflicted about the fact that you’re right, or wonder whether or not that’s a good thing to say in front of foals,” Aegis says.

“Ah, don’t worry, I have some restraint,” Kraber says. “Who the fok do you think I am, Francis Begbie? It’s not like my idea of kind paternal advice is to say ‘beat the fok out of your brother with a baseball… bat…’”

His voice trails off as he remembers that he has, in fact, told foals how to beat up Newfoals with baseball bats. And, of course, that he had once played Begbie in a production of Trainspotting.

“I’m a terrible fokking person,” he groans, and his shoulders slump.

“Wow, he finally gets it…” murmurs Verity.

“The fok’s that make you?!” Kraber asks.

“Consistent.”

“Hey, fok you, haven’t you ever heard of character development?!”

“Look,” Amber Maple says, ignoring her. “It’s fine. It’s not like Imperial forces are in a talking mood.”

“Good point,” Kraber says.

Dodge, Viktor, the newfoal whispered in Kate’s voice. They’ll fire anyway. You can’t convince th-

And a split second before even one person’s finger could tighten on their trigger, Kraber was halfway across the street, half-dragging, half-carrying the unicorn pony behind a car.

He was dimly aware of something hitting his shoulder as he slid-fell into cover behind an old, battered van, breathing heavily. Dammit. He’d been shot. Wincing more in anticipation of what he’d feel on his armor, he placed a hand over his left shoulder to find a lump of…

A bullet or three…

….they had deformed against the shoulder of the PHL tac-vest. It stung like a woman with teeth in her beef portal, but he was alive and not bleeding everywhere! Damn, PHL stuff was awesome! Maybe there was something to being a horsefucker...

So. Good news! Behind a van with a unicorn, not dead.

Bad news: Yeah, that wouldn’t last long.

Kraber bent down, one ear to the ground, and caught a glimpse of the HLF mob between the undercarriage and the asphalt. Yep. Definitely advancing.

Maybe he could parlay or something. Maybe he could-

They’re not going to let me live, Kraber realized. The only thing they hate more than ponies is people that like them… they’ll go for me, fill me with bullets, and rip me apart.

Maybe they were his HLF ‘brothers and sisters’... maybe not. But right now, he wasn’t their china. They would torture him slow enough, use him as a banner and thrust him up on a pike… then go after the pony.

He poked his head out the other side, activating the shield like Socket Wrench had shown him, and squeezed off a quick burst.

Most of the HLF hadn’t been wearing body armor, so the .338 rounds punched through them, sometimes up to 7 at once. But…

And then Kraber realized. Proper soldiers - not HLF -wouldn’t be grouped that close together. Wasn’t like these people actually wanted to help during Barrierfall. They were just angry kontgesigs.

“Any suggestions for where I can take you?!” Kraber yelled over the roar of the bullets.

“Maine Medical might work!” the pony said. “But you’ll have to go by the Bureau!”

“What’s wrong with that?” Kraber asked. “Isn’t it unfinished?”

“I don’t know how, but… some sonovabitch managed to access one of the basement-level storerooms and located some potion stocks,” the pony said. “The PER have been dragging people in since. I was trying to warn everyone, but then those two assholes shot me…” He sucked in a breath between clenched teeth. “If I die, tell Sylvia Bray at Maine Medical that I love her.”

“Sure,” Kraber said.

“Get them before they ponify us!” one HLF woman screamed.

Well, that settled it...

“Oh. FOK!” Kraber yelled. “Excuse me.” Sliding out from cover, almost smoothly, he line up the sights his LMG, shield activated, and let loose on full auto. A rare pleasure for him.

Several quick spreads were enough to break the crowd, and that was enough of an opening for him to make a quick break down a side-street, the unicorn carried in his arms. He switched to the shotgun, the MG2019’s drum mag nearly dry.

And around him, Portland burned. Shells from the Sorghum were still shredding structures and streets, their screams overhead and the streaks of tracer lending everything a blitz aesthetic. People were panicking, civilians and combatants alike caught up in the hellstrom of carnage, violence and desperation.

Then, amidst the fire and fume, he saw the bureau, a blasted shell of a building, windows smashed and dimmed.

It wasn’t as bad as he remembered from Innsbruck.

It was worse.

There were people, armed PER guards armed with magic shields, rifles and smgs, the motley weapons of the average insurgent nowadays, herding people into the ruins of the Bureau. They grabbed random passers-by and shoved them towards the doors, forcing them down an access ramp into the basement loading bay.

This was Sheol, and there were the damned, descending.

And emerging, coming out the other way, faces full of smiles...

He paused.

“Newfoals.”

It was quite likely the first time a lot of these people had reason to be worried about newfoal attacks here in America. And if there were newfoals, and the HLF was fucking around, going for the PHL, then… Up to him, then. Fok.

But down below, he could see what looked like other ponies being herded into the ruins. If anything, they looked to be treated harsher than the humans being herded in, beaten by the new foals for no reason at all, if any. Some of them looked to be near fokking dead. Bleeding, even.

Half dead. One newfoal - a reddish-yellow one, was slamming a gray mare that looked like a mother into the pavement, something dark and wet crusted around his hoof. And at the same time, he was cooing to her colt. Kraber couldn’t hear the words, but the colt was covered in his mother’s blood, and he looked like he was too dry to burst into tears.

Ah, fok it. He had to do something.

So, sighting in the MG2019, finding just the right window that he could hit as many of the goddamn gluesticks as possible, Kraber sighted it in and fired the MG2019, punching through the legs of one new foal pegasus and splattering that bastard new foal’s face all over the colt.

Well, there’s a colt that’ll grow up with severe mental trauma… Kraber thought, before breaking from cover, his unicorn charge slung over one shoulder. ’But at least he will grow up’.

He fired again and again, MG2019 blazing, shredding through newfoals, through anyone that he’d decided he didn’t like.

Seemingly following his lead, or him following their lead, sporadic fire broke out all around, people and ponies with guns surrounding the PER.

It was essentially point-blank range, and the PER didn’t stand a chance.

“Get to Maine Medical!” he yelled, providing cover with long, sustained saturating bursts from his MG2019, as men, women, and unicorns with stolen guns also fired into the PER and newfoals chasing them.

Where the fok did this sudden counter-strike come from?! he thought for a second, before seeing the other attackers break their stand and pull back, creating an open channel down the center of the street…

A pathway to the main entrance of the Bureau.

And, barreling down that corridor was a delivery-truck that had been remade in the end of the world with a sharp bumper made for ramming, pushing on with manic determination, regardless of anything that got in its way, human or pony.

He hadn’t inspired a stand at all: he had blundered into somebody else’s attack.

To Kraber’s horror, he could see a youngish teenager with a white gas mask behind the truck’s wheel, screaming something unintelligible.

And then - not even a hundred feet from the mass of newfoals, she dropped and rolled out of the door, landing in a tumbling roll.

“I’m okay!” he heard her call out.

The Bureau - or rather its ruins - were not. The speeding van, momentum barely sapped from where it tore through the newfoals, reached the end of the street, jumped the curve, ploughed through the human wall of PER and captive civilians, and then threw itself down the Bureau’s loading ramp, colliding with the doorframe of the basement dock.

“Get down!” Kraber roared, throwing himself to the floor, just as a flash of light twinkled…

!!SS-CHOOM!”

The unfinished, ruined Bureau erupted into a massive glowing mushroom cloud lit from within by hundreds of shades of purple, and the sound of the conflagration sounded uncannily like a scream…

No, it was a scream. Dozens of screams, hundreds even.

And they were human. It was the death-cries of the unconverted within the bureau’s walls, burning alive as the potion stores cooked off.

Rainbow-colored lightning arced through the ascending mushroom-cloud. Viktor, aghast, could not reconcile his relief at the structure’s destruction, and his horror at the casual eradication of innocent bystanders.

“Everything I touch turns to kak, doesn’t it?” he sighed.

“I’m-” the teenager called out again, but as she stepped into the pool of light under a street lamp, the words died in her throat and Kraber’s as well…

...as she brought up an arm to wipe her brow, and found a hoof attached to her wrist.

Now she screamed too. She was transforming - somehow, either from landing in a puddle of the potion, or having been struck by contaminated debris when her truck-bomb blew the Bureau up.

“No...NO! MUMMY! MUMMY!”

Purplish-pink fur sprouted out her skin in irregular clumps, and her face looked as pliable as clay, practically bubbling in the orange light.

”Help me! Somepony help meeeeeheheeee!!!

She screamed again, left eye forced closed by her cheek and brow swelling to the point that they were almost as big as a basketball, leaving her listing to one side. And, as suddenly as the massive potion-induced thaumic tumors had appeared, they receded, leaving the left eye to open, and-

”Help them! Haha! I’ll help all of them, Majesty!”

No. That was not a human’s eye! It was dull and glassy, like a doll’s eye. One side, the potion-imbued left half, moved forward, one arm with its fingers fusing into a hoof stretched out towards Kraber. The right half, one with a desperate, pleading human eye, stubbornly stayed back.

“MAJESTY!”

Kraber shot her in the face with his revolver, realizing, too tired for even simple horror or revulsion, that he had never known her name. She’d been brave enough to try and destroy the Bureau, but… the price she’d paid.

Nobody deserved that.

“Here! I hotwired a truck!” cried a man with a baseball cap. “JUMP IN AND SHOOT THE FUCKING ZOMBIES!”

In the space of a second, Kraber rushed over to the truck and placed his unicorn charge into the bed, then following them, finding himself behind a heavy red-orange pegasus mare with two LMGs reminiscent of shorter MG42s (Vaguely reminiscent of a PPsH) mounted on her sides, with something that looked like a chewable cylinder with buttons hanging below her chin, wired up to the triggers of the LMGs.

“Look after this unicorn,” Kraber said, sighting in the MMG and opening up full-auto, slicing through the newfoals ahead like a buzzsaw.

“Shit, it’s Rime Ice!” the mare gasped.

So that was the unicorn’s name. There were a lot of things Kraber might have wanted to say to this earth pony - okay, maybe not - but it was lost in the roar of their rifles as they emptied them into the charging newfoal horde behind them.

“JOU FOKKIN KONTGESIGS!” Kraber screamed, letting loose a pipe-bomb, the pointy end embedding itself in a pegasus newfoal’s head, making her look like some strange alicorn...

Right up until it exploded, anyway, shrapnel shredding through the newfoals right next to her. But… he paused. Wait. They weren’t getting new numbers. THERE WOULDN’T BE ANY MORE NEWFOALS IF HE SLAUGHTERED THIS FOKKIN BATCH OF VARKNAAIERS!

That happy thought in mind, that for once he was overwhelming the newfoals, rather than the other way around, he forced a grim smile onto his face under the Eel-type mask, reloaded the MG2019, pipe-bomb and all, and let loose. “BLIKSEMS!” he screamed, the MG2019 ripping them apart like a buzzsaw. “I'm gonna kill you all, I'm gonna kill your chommies and your family, I'm gonna track down your grandparents and turn them inside-out, nobody can stop the blood train that will turn your loved ones into a red splatter across the tracks of humanity!”

So far, he was making good on that promise.

“Who the hell are you?!” the mare asked.

“Ivan Bliss, PHL,” Kraber said, quicker than the mare could react. “Ah’m a doaktir. Ah’m tryin tae git tae Maine Medical. That unicorn - Rime Ice - was hurt bad. But unfortunately, Ah went intae PER territory…”

“Glad we rescued you then,” the mare said.

“That wasnae a rescue, that wis backup,” Kraber said.

The mare paused, even as she kept firing. “What?!”

“Ye think Ah’d pass up the chance tae chib PER?” Kraber asked, as if the mere idea of leaving a PER member alive, with anything intact - be it arms, legs, brains, genitals, or dignity - was completely foreign to him.

“It really is, you know,” Aegis says.

You have to admit, it’s really not all that much of a surprise.

“Why thank you!” Kraber says, a smile on his face. “Not as much as

...Aaaaaaand neither is that.

“You’re welcome,” Aegis agrees, without missing a beat.

“...While we’re glad for the assist, that’s… that’s kinda fucked up,” the mare said.

“The kontgesigs killed my family,” Kraber explained. “It’s just a little-” his LMG jamming, right at the moment a pegasus newfoal landed on the back of the car, Kraber shoved a pipe-bomb into the newfoal’s throat. With a grunt, he rammed his fist into the newfoal, knocking them back into the mob of newfoals… where the newfoal exploded.

“Okay, a LOT AY FOKKING INTEREST!” Kraber called back.

The mare might have remained silent for the rest of the trip up to Maine Medical, if Kraber, of course, had not managed to characteristically fok everything over in less than five minutes, thanks to a very ill-worded expression of gratitude...

“...my kind?” she repeated back to him, voice numb, before her wings flared and she screamed. “MY FUCKING KIND?!”

Kraber simply stared at the red-orange pegasus for a moment. “I-”

“You’re PHL, I thought you’d understand it!” the pegasus said. “Don’t tell me - you’re some conscript, an HLF asshole that just joined for a bigger gun?!”

Well, that was better than the truth - that Kraber was one of said HLF assholes. And, at this point, he had to admit it - he was probably one of the biggest kontgesigs on the HLF. “Something like that, yes,” Kraber said, vague as he could make it.

“Well, let me give you a fucking reminder,” the pegasus hissed - practically growled, and Kraber never would have guessed a herbivore would be able to make such a predatory sound. “Here’s what my fucking kind have been through. Our precious ‘Elements of Harmony’ fucking failed, and because of that we had our first war in over a thousand years. I lost family there, dammit! There were goddamned crystal golems in the streets, and we had so many earth ponies refugees crowding into Cloudsdale because everypony thought they’d be safe in the sky. But no, Sombra’s battlecasters… they disrupted the cloudwalking magic, leaving HUNDREDS of ponies to fall to their deaths.”

The concept of war between pastel-colored ponies in a land that seemed like it was the archetypical sugar bowl before the war was a downright weird image, but Kraber decided he would just go with it.

“And after that, it just got worse and worse,” the mare said. “I don’t mean the war - that was bad enough! But when it was over, it was like… it was like we’d gotten drunk on national fervor or something! There were parades everywhere, it was turning into a fascist hellhole wherever we went, and then I lost two friends from Baltimare when the Great Equestrian, exploded thanks to that bitch-Queen Celestia.”

“...Ah heard ay that earlier from a china,” Kraber said.

“Oh, let me tell you about it,” the pegasus mare sneered. “Queen Celestia decided she didn’t like a statue about ‘harmony’-” (you could hear the air quotes in her voice) “-so she blew it the fuck up and killed some good friends of mine. She left the ship about to fall to the ground, and fucking ignored us for the victory celebrations of finding this world to spread more of that fucking desolation she called harmony, and we weren’t rescued for a day. She doesn’t want harmony, she just wants control. You think having fucking newfoals in Equestria benefits us? No! IT DOESN’T! Equestria has homeless bastards everywhere, workers killing themselves because they can’t think enough to take breaks, we are watched by fucking spy-systems just about everywhere we go, can be reported to the royal guard for damn near no reason, and are damn lucky to come back after arrest! You know what’s the worst?! IT’S THE NEWFOALS that report us in! Like they’re better ponies than us because they have no free will and work themselves to death if asked! Like they’re trying to replace us, or Celestia’s trying to replace us with them cause she’s decided she doesn’t like having free thinkers! Those fucking zombie abominations…”

It was the first time Kraber had heard a pony so disgusted with newfoals, with Equestria itself. Nebula’s rage had been reserved for Celestia, for the System. But this mare’s vitriol was pouring out across the entire nation.

And then, without warning, the mare punched Kraber in the knee. “That’s why we’re here, in spite of assholes like YOU! Or the HLF! Because even being around you apes is better than even a second in the sty my home’s turned into!”

“My… fokking leg…” Kraber hissed. “I’ll fokking ki-”

No. He wouldn’t.

“llllisssten. Just listen, okay? Ah’m sorry,” Kraber said.

“I…what?” the mare said, surprised, her eyes (Why were pony eyes so huge?) wide.

“What do you mean ‘what’? Never seen a human apologize before?” Kraber asked.

“Well, course I have. It just… you don’t seem like the type who ever admits they’re wrong,” the mare said. “HLF, ex or whatever…”

“Yeah, well, Ah’ve bin having one ay those days,” Kraber said quickly. “What’s the situation between here a Maine Medical?”

“We’ve got ponies that need treatment,” the mare said. “But… there’s PER in the middle of the hospital, screwing up any evac in the helicopters. Or so I’ve been told over the radio.”

“Wait. PER? People Ah can kill withoot concern fir thae nature ay the morality of man and nietzschean inner conflict?” Kraber asked, a smile on his face.

“...you’re a sick fucker, you know that?” the pegasus mare asked, smiling as the truck came to rest in front of the hospital. Patients - pony and human alike, even a few zebras and a pony that looked made of glass or crystal - were being shepherded out, into huge trucks, ambulances, whatever vehicle would take them. A lot of them looked to have been modified like the vehicles out of Mad Max - metal shielding over the windshields, spikes on the wheels, rams, gun turrets.

“What, you need me to turn you off your leash?” she asked.

Kraber vaulted out of the truck, and headed into the hospital.

“Ah understand ya have PER and newfoals infesting this building?” Kraber asked one PHL man guarding the entrance, holding a huge shotgun with a drum magazine.

“Well, yes, but-”

“Excuse me. Ah have some anger tae work oof,” Kraber said, pushing away anyone trying to stop him, a huge smile on his face under his mask as he headed for the hospital. “When the screaming stops, you’ll ken I’m done.”

Finally, some clarity!

Fine, then. Maybe ponies weren’t all bad. Maybe - okay, definitely - the HLF wasn’t a force for good and the protection of humanity. And if tonight was any judge, maybe the ponies had to be protected. Tomorrow, he could decide on all this shit.

But he didn’t need to make any decisions when killing PER. That was a public fokkin service.

“Done with what?” the red-orange pegasus called over.

“...Ah’m going tae go practice medicine,” Kraber said, sure that he had a ghoulish smile on his face. “Someone’s oan a burst mooth…”

Kraber knew they were looking at him in fear.

That was it. Finally - a good kind of fear for Kraber to enjoy. Let the PER fokking come, he’d paint the walls with them!

Author's Notes:

The next chapter will come in the next three days or so. Depending on whether I can get anyone to help with the quotes...
NOTE - this was going to be half of a larger chapter, but then.. well... the boss battle in the next chapter got out of hand, everything was on fire, then there was a grenade, and Caduceus got a character arc... long story short, a lot of stuff happens in the next chapter.

Philistine / Don't Fear The Reaper

Chapter 10: PHILISTINE / Don’t Fear The Reaper

Co-authors:

TB3 (Thank you so much! ….especially cause this is the minor hiatus. Go have fun writing Last Train!)
Jed R (Special thanks for… okay, fok it, what you did goes beyond cameo. Awesomeness ensued)

Editors:
Redskin122004
VoxAdam

Pre-readers:
Kizuna-Tallis

One man goes into the waters of baptism. A different man comes out, born again. But who is that man who lies submerged? Perhaps that swimmer is both sinner and saint, until he is revealed unto the eyes of man.
Zachary Hale Comstock, Bioshock Infinite

"Get going, Simon. Just don't be distracted by the what-ifs, should-haves, and if-onlys. The one thing you choose yourself - that is the truth of your universe."
Kamina, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

“Who the hell are ya?” he demanded, revolver pointed at a human and pony who had tried to get the jump on him in a ground-floor corridor.

The hospital foyer had been deserted, but his attempts to explore further than the reception had ended when they had ambushed him from inside an examination room…

“I’m Caduceus! Please don’t kill me!” the mare yelled.

“Sylvia Bray,” said the good-looking woman with the assault rifle, this one something that looked like a black M16 (or one of innumerable derivatives) with a desert-beige 40mm grenade launcher mounted underneath, but with more inscrutable PHL tech mounted on it.

“Ivan Bliss. PHL,” Kraber said.

“We were holding down the fort, but the Newfoals were looking for more converts… What the hell can we do?!”

“Shoot the kontgesigs?” Kraber suggested. “Quick - are there any patients in here at risk?”

“At least two dozen who can walk. The evacuation order prioritised the bedridden and incapacitated. We got the last of the unconverted wheelchair-users to safety about thirty minutes ago.”

“What do you mean, ‘unconverted’?”

“The ponies took control of one of the outpatient wings, we were using it as a waiting area for the evacuation. Now, now they’re all…”

Something clattered to the ground in the near distance, and Kraber crept to a corridor intersection. As the sound of distant giggling became audible, he peeked around the corner.

“Ah, fok...”

The newfoals were coming, wobbling up the corridor as if gesuip with delight.

“We’re cured now!” one said… no, chirped. It looked like it should be an adult, judging by its height and facial stubble, but it sounded almost like a young foal. Or a child’s windup toy…

“Don’t worry,” Kraber whispered. “Ah goat this. Ah’m going tae communicate with them the only way Ah know works.”

“...Have me talk them down?” Caduceus suggested.

“Actually, I was going tae fill them with moor lead than ma college roommate’s plumbin,” Kraber said.

“That works too,” Caduceus admitted.

And so, as Kraber slipped around the corner, he opened fire with the MG2019, and cut them apart. “EAT THIS JOU FOKKING BLIKSEMS, IT’LL ONLY MAKE YA PRETTIER!” he cackled.

“Hey, what the hell…”

Kraber whipped around, seeing a man in a jacket (on which the letters ‘PER’ had been crudely stitched) step out from another examination room. As the two of them made eyecontact, the newcomer whipped a potion vial out of his bandoleer and prepared to toss it-

Kraber acted on instinct, bringing the MG2019 up for a second and firing. Time seemed to slow down, the bullet almost crawling towards the PER man, Kraber distractedly tracking it… then watching as the .338 Norma Magnum round punched through the man’s hand, shattering his fingers, the vial exploding into shards and lacerating his body, one fragment cutting a runnel across his face, another landing dead center in his eye.

“YOU BAS-”

Pausing to riddle the sheep-like newfoals with their weight in bullets, Kraber strode forward, unholstered the revolver, and nailed the man in the balls, even as potion from the shattered phial sank into his flesh and fur began to erupt from from the gashes the flying shards of glass had left….

The mutating mass of meat screamed, a high, piercingly absurd falsetto, and even as he clasped his ruined genitals with one hoof and something that still resembled a hand, Kraber had covered the distance between them.

“BLIKSEM!” he yelled, and kicked out, his boot smashing into the man’s nose, knocking him back into the room.

The man screamed again, and Kraber grabbed his skull, even as he steadily morphed into something equine, and rammed him facefirst through a window.

“MULLINS!” a pegasus screamed, shooting up and out her respective window like a bullet, her wings flying fast enough it looked like she could do a sonic rainboom-

-and then Kraber threw the steadily ponifying PER man, evidently named Mullins, at her. She caught him out of reflex and, suddenly burdened with his weight, tumbled backwards through the open doors of an empty elevator shaft.

He heard the two of them plummet, screaming, down to the bottom of the sub-basement. There was a sound like ripe watermelons splattering, and their screams were cut off forever.

Good.

“They got Shetland, and Mullins!” cried out a woman who game running down the stairs, a rifle banging against her shoulder. “They got-”

Kraber fired the revolver right through her sternum. Staring down at the bleeding hole, she collapsed, while Kraber kept walking forward.

Unfortunately (for themselves), very few of the PER were trained soldiers - under calm circumstances, they might have very well realized that confined stairwells and narrow hallways qualified as a fatal funnel.

These were not calm circumstances, and they surged into the choke-points like blood into a coronary.

Kraber fired the revolver twice to trip up the forward line, then whipped out his shotgun and began shredding into the tangle of human and equine tissue.

“You bucking! Useless! HUMANS!” someone - almost certainly a pony - yelled. “Do I have to do everything myself?!”

Unfussed, Kraber slid into cover, back into a consultancy room (he tried not to notice the purplish stains on the bedding) and peered around the corner.

Fok! A unicorn, and horn all-a-glowy!

Okay - unicorn magic was a nightmare at close range, unless you were trying to get yourself killed. They could do anything to you, even if it was something as simple as suspending you in their TK, helpless and defenceless.

First rule of fighting ponies: take out the horn-heads. Ideally, give your point-men the kind of ammo that macerated tissue and caused massive blood loss - ha! Just try concentrating on you bloody abracadabras when you’re bleeding out through a rupture the size of your own head!

Kraber had that kind of ammo, but he was alone, without backup or support save for a woman who was unfamiliar with her rifle, and another unicorn that didn’t seem combat-ready. And in a man-on-mule showdown, he preferred not to see who was quickest on the draw...

So that led his thoughts to the second rule of fighting ponies: cheat.

“Here!” he yelled from behind cover, tossing one of the pipe-bombs he’d scavenged at the unicorn. “CATCH THIS!”

“Stupid trick, human!” the unicorn yelled, grabbing the pipebomb in his TK, ready to throw it back. Grinning, Kraber stepped out of cover and fanned the trigger of his 1911, dumping four rounds into the distracted stallion…

… who caught all of them in his telekinetic field, all while rotating the pipebomb’s muzzle back at Viktor himse... oh, come on! That wasn’t fair!

“Don’t worry!” the unicorn cried out, smile ragged. “You’ll stop your wailing soon enough…”

“FOK!”

As the pipebomb whistled for him, Kraber dove through a side-door and clapped his hands over his ears, right before the blast and shockwave of detonation punched him in the everything.

“EISH! A LITTLE FOKKIN HELP HERE!” Kraber called over towards the two deadweights he had encountered.

“What the hell do we do?!” Caduceus yelled back.

“I don’t know, something that keeps me from getting fokking ponified!” Kraber called back.

“Found… you…” the unicorn hissed, walking into the open door.

“Ah, fokking hell,” Kraber muttered, .50 revolver in his right hand, .45 in his left.

“Something about you seems familiar,” the unicorn said, a shotgun of his own hovering beside him. Kraber glanced at his illuminated flank. Natural-born, then. Meaning he’d probably ponified a few on the side, lied to people, probably managed to pass himself off as PHL to pull off this raid....

Regular gluesticks were bad enough, but ones that lied like that? Ones that pretended to help out, and just fokked everyone over?

He’s going to fokking burn!

Kraber flicked on his armor’s shield, and smiled. “There’s something oan yuir face,” he said.

The unicorn smiled back, “no there isn’t…”

There was a hollow boom from out in the corridor, and a pink flash reverberated through the room.

The unicorn shuddered, blinking in dazed shock, and then before Viktor’s eyes, his horn flickered, and his own weapon fell to the ground...

“IT WAS PAIN!” Kraber yelled, dropping his .45 and holding the .50 in both hands, firing one round into the unicorn’s face.

...kaboom...

Blood, brains, and fragments of skull exploded out from back of the unicorn’s head, splattering the doorframe and even the ceiling. Rainbow-colored threads of alicornal tissue sizzled in the viscera splattered against the wall, and blue smoke wafted up from the neck-stump.

“What the fok did ya hit em with?” Kraber asked, as Sylvia walked over to him, starring in what could have been either sadness or pity at the unicorn on the floor.

“Crowe Disruptor Grenade,” she answered. “The PHL already have them in hand-grenade form, but they’re hoping to mate them to rockets or old-style RPGs. They’re modified frag-12s, combining the shredded wire with magically-charged crystal shards.”

She rolled on, the technicalities pouring off her like water on a duck’s back, but Kraber wasn’t listening.

All he could process was this simple bit of wisdom: the PHL had reverse-engineered shields from pony magic… and then crowned that by devising a grenade that could crack the enemy’s own barriers...

The PHL, had shield disruptor grenades-

“...so we’re planning to make them smaller, add them as standard enchantments on PHL bullets.”

‘Captain, the Borg have adapted...’

Fokking shield disruption bullets were coming soon. While it took the HLF tons of pipebombs and a lot of bullets to break down magic shields. Oh God, next year was going to suck…

...or, depending on which side he remained, it could prove unutterably ball-fokkingly awesome.

“You can miniaturise them?” Kraber asked, picking up and holstering his .45. while rummaging around in his backpack. He for a pouch of spare, speedloader-less .50 rounds that he kept in case he didn’t feel like wasting a perfectly good couple rounds.

“Sure. It’s not machinery we’re trying to shrink, just a binding medium for the enchantment,” Caduceus explained.

“Wait. Could I make that work with HEIAP ammo? I have two belts of the stuff in my backpack,” Kraber said.

“What’s that?” Caduceus asked.

“Long story shuirt, thaire’s a tungsten penetrator inside the boolit, if it hits armor, the main bullet explodes and sends fire everywhere, but also pushes thaee penetrator down intae the target,” Kraber said. “It’s like a russian doll: bullet innae’ bullet. Works great against royal guard armor, potioneer ships, or zeps.”

“Maybe,” Caduceus said, eyes narrowed. “That’s hardly standard practice though. Only the HLF still use those kind of-”

“Ah boat it oaf ay Swedish trader awhile back, and it fits in my rifle just fine,” Kraber interrupted, trying to forestall her thoughts. “Nae idea how she goat it, but it seemed fun and useful enoof. Nae need tae get all antsy about it.”

“Oh,” she sniffed. “Anyway… for the record, I can’t do anything to your bullets. I’m a nurse, not a weaponsmith.”

She’d sure not sounded like a nurse a few seconds ago.

“Awwww…” Kraber groaned, visibly disappointed. He decided to work it off through his usual method of self-medication. “So - there any more PER aroond that Ah can bliksem?”

Caduceus looked confused at this, and a little disturbed by Kraber’s apparent need to kill PER.

“Up the stairs, probably,” Sylvia said.

“I’ll try and cast a cloaking spell on us,” Caduceus said. “If there’s anything I’ve learned about guns and stairways…”

“One makes easy fokking targets fir thae other,” Kraber finished for her.

“Exactly.”

The nurse, Sylvia, took point, using her own knowledge of the hospital to guide them. Her smaller size and lighter step were useful too, once maintaining the cloaking spell became too much for Caduceus. The comparative silence of Sylvia’s rubber-soled shoes to the pony’s sharp hoofsteps or Kraber’s jangling, equipment-laden tread made her ideal for nipping along an apparently empty corridor (under cover provided from Kraber), checking around the next corner, and waving them on to join her.

In this manner, leapfrogging through wards and halls, they cleared floor after floor. Caduceus, despite her medical training, proved more than competant with her grenades and a rifle she’d picked off a dead PER man. It was strange, Kraber had to admit, seeing PER or unicorns carrying guns - but then, potion made for poor self-defense against body armor, and guns were effective. It concerned him, the discontinuity between her apparent profession and the coolness with which she messily gunned down three human opponents who’d tried to stage an ambush.

He didn’t trust her. Sylvia was just another weakling who’d gone over to the PHL from the beginning, no-doubt, but this mare? No, he didn’t like her one bit. It was too convenient, her presence here, and she was too calm and collected a killer. Was she a spy for the Empire, a double-agent...

Then again, Imperial ponies didn’t seem to like firearms. What’s her game? Kraber wondered.

It was then that he got an apparent answer…

“Is that it?” he asked softly, indicating down a corridor towards a sign that said ‘cafeteria’. They were out of the patient spaces now, and working their way through the backstage, the ‘staff-only’ facilities.

“Yes,” the unicorn mare nodded, “the staff cafeteria on this floor is set up as a panic room. We ordered them to seal themselves in, while we went for help…”

“And you goat me?” he responded, struggling to hide his suspicion.

“Yes…” she answered back cooly. “What a bargain.”

“Guys,” pleaded Sylvia. “Let’s not fight between ourselves. We’re meant to be helping each other, right? At least two of us are doc-”

“Three,” Kraber interrupted.

“You? Really?” Sylvia asked.

“Well, this war…” Kraber said. “Changes people.” Idly, he remembered something from one book, something from Brandon Sanderson. If one day, he walked through a door and found himself with his old college chommies in some Irish pub in Boston, or in Faneuil Hall eating chowder, there’d be no way his past self would recognize him, maybe even vice versa. He’d grown a little, his face was lined with worry even today, he’d racked up an impressive tally of scars, he…

Hell, he probably wouldn't even think he was the same species. Which one would think that? Past or future? Yes. Obviously.

He remembered that silly polaroid that Erika had taken, the one with him holding Kate, lifting her off her feet, smiles on both their faces. He remembered the two of them meeting at Anime Boston, both having snuck out of class, and… heh. He did remember Verity. She’d looked so happy back then.

And it turned out that Zo and Erika had been there, and captured him hugging Kate, with her looking very pregnant. Kate had been happy to see him, and kissed him right on the lips. “You came!” she’d said. “I didn’t know if you’d be able to use those passes I bought.”

And, when the con had winded down, Kraber had treated her to dinner with the money from that… well, adult movie… that he’d worked on with all his chommies.

Fok it, he missed college. He missed all the food, getting to eat meat at a moment’s notice. Sure, there’d been a lot of small worries, but dammit, at least you could have fun. He missed Polo, he missed Bly, Erika… so many friends.

The last contact he’d had with a lot of them had been back when he watched the sermon-turned-riot that lead to the death of the old HTF - Polo had thrown a bottle at Reverend James Thomas’ head, Bly had been screaming into Kraber’s ear over the phone that “No, this wasn’t right!” Miranda had gone off to something in PHL Medical, and…

So many friends, so many things had been lost since those days. Whether drowned in the potion, or erased by the barrier, and then, inevitably, if anyone had gotten ponified, the memories would be locked up, the newfoals convinced there was nothing happy to be found in them.

“Nae - we go together,” he growled. “But Ah knoak. Whit’s thae password for them tae open the doors?”

“Shave-and-a-haircut…” she answered, knocking out the familiar beat on the floor.

“Okay…let’s go…”

With Caduceus leading the way, Kraber on point (and keeping his gun pointing at the unicorn’s back), and Sylvia trembling like a leaf behind them, the three quickly advanced to the door. Pushing the mare to one side with his booted foot, Kraber reached up to rap on the door…

...and felt it swing back on the hinges as his fist made contact. Unbarred, unlocked, sealed…

“Is thaire anyone?” he called out, dreading what he would find. “We’re here tae save you!”

The door swung wide open.

Unbarred…

Unlocked…

Unsealed...

‘Undead...’

“Oh, shite…”

At least two dozen shapes stood in silence within, barely lit by dim emergency lighting. Shell-casings littered the floor from submachineguns, shotguns, and rifles made of bits of pipe. The white, once-sterile floor was bright crimson, traced with the prints of boots. The sickly-sweet lavender scent of potion was on them, and they were swathed like mummies in the torn fragments of hospital gowns and uniforms.

“Yoh, fok nae,” Kraber said, realizing what was coming next. “GET BACK!”

The nearest of them looked up at Kraber as the door swung open, drew back its lips, and giggled.

“You’re too late!” said the newfoal. “We’ve already been saved.”

!!BANG!!

Later on, Kraber did not remember pulling the trigger, or yanking the pins on three of the frag-grenades, or slamming the door shut as he tossed them in.

No, all he would recall was the newfoal’s head exploding, and the red-Red-RED that filled his vision…

...and the distant THUMP of the explosion shredding everything within the ‘panic room’...

...and the crunch of his booted foot connecting with Caduceus’s body, hurling the unicorn nurse to the floor.

‘Traitor...killer-MURDERer, FOKKING MURDER!’

“YOU PONY BITCH!” he screamed, unholstering the .50 revolver and placing it to the unicorn mare’s eye. “I’m going to…”

A house in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Kraber walking into it, finding it empty. The ceiling fan lazily drifting, the smell of chocolate cake.

No…

Potion spread across the floor.

NO….

“..you killed them…” said a quiet voice. “You just… killed them…”

He turned, slowly, and saw Sylvia had picked up his dropped .45, and was pointing it into his face, her rifle hanging over one shoulder.

“You were meant to HELP RESCUE THEM!” she whispered. “They weren’t like the others, they weren’t violent, or attacking. They were pure, new-born…white as snow. And you KILLED THEM…”

Kraber saw the light of madness dancing in her eyes, as she pointed to one side with a quick flick of the gun, indicating for him to step away from the unicorn.

“Get away from my friend. She might be Fallen, but she’s still a pony. She has more right to live than any of us…”

“...You?” Caduceus asked, aghast and prostrate on the floor. “What did you do…”

“Three flasks of potion, wired up to the cafeteria’s sprinklers…” Sylvia stammered. “And a smoke grenade on a timer…”

“What the fuck?! Do you… Do you honestly think I’d be proud of you for this?! Or Rime Ice?! He loves you, he loves Earth, he loves the coast, and you do this?!”

“I know neither of you would understand… you’re Fallen, both you and Ice… but you’re still ponies… and when this is over, She’ll make you well again, make you both pure again…”

“Oh, shut up,” Caduceus snapped. “Look at you! Rime and I were raised in Equestria, both of us! We came over on the same plane to the same airport after the Barrier ate up Britain, we ate the same italian dinner, we share the apartment… Dammit, we saw Equestria’s downfall. We know what it really is. Who do you think you are, talking like you know us?!”

“I take no pleasure in what I’m doing,” Sylvia said. “I can’t stand this world anymore. The HLF could have joined up with the PHL, but no, they made all the most terrible decisions. We’ve committed far too much evil in our lives to-“

-her grip relaxed for a second, and with a swing of his arm, Kraber struck the .45 out of her hands. She tried to reach for the rifle, even as Kraber drew his own gun and…

-killyoukillyoukillyoukillyou-

...brought the larger-chambered revolver to bear and fired one round into her knee.

She screamed.

It’s worth pointing out that in a fight, you can’t let the pain overcome you - giving into the pain that means you’ve already lost. It’s also worth pointing out that while movies might have you believe fighting is choreographed, it isn’t - Kraber’d learned to throw punches on the streets of Cape Town and Boston, not in some fancy dojo, so the inevitable violence was going to be ugly and awkward. Both case in point, what Kraber was about to do to Sylvia.

As the nurse fell to her knee, clutching it and hissing through her teeth shitshitshitshit!, Kraber drew back his foot and drove it up into her face. There was a wet, splintering crack, a spray of red, something giving under the sole of his steel-toed boot, and she flopped back, smearing her blood and tears over the floor, screeching. Struggling, she reached into her jacket, pulled a potion vial out into view, and - he stamped on her abdomen. WHOOMP! She vomited blood and bile all over Kraber’s feet, only for him to grab her with both hands and hurl her against a wall, pinning her upright. Bones cracked like twigs. The vial she’d been holding spiraled out of her hand, out of sight.

She was dying. Already dead, but her brain had not caught up with her body yet. Kraber headbutted her, then half-punched, half-grabbed her, ramming her into the floor, eliciting a splutter that was too full of fluid to be a scream anymore.

A pistol fell out of her jacket, a small 10mm Steiner-Bisley. He saw her weakly fumble for it, and dragged her away, spinning her in a half-circle, legs flopping behind her. Then, holding her left arm, he stepped on her shoulder.

Gripping her left shoulder with both hands, he pushed forward against her back with his free leg and pulled…

There was a pop, and Sylvia screamed. He let her drop onto the floor and she writhed in agony, her shattered arm and leg flailing as she tried to crawl away. Kraber stood and looked down in contempt on her, seeing her dilated eyes, her weakly flexing fingers trying to get traction on a floor slick with her own fluids. He kicked her in the face yet again. Blood, sputum, and vomit pooled out of the shattered ruin of her mouth.

He left her to bleed out on her own.

“That...” Caduceus gasped, sobbed. “That was…”

“Brutal...disgusting...ovirboard?” Kraber said idly, wiping bits of Sylvia off of his legs.

“By the Golden Lyre, what the fuck is wrong with you!?”

“Ah don’t fight tae win,” Kraber said, rummaging in her belt, sticking the pistol in his backpack (you never knew when you needed another gun nowadays) and placing her supply of potion vials on top of the nearest vending machine. “Me auld Dad always told me - Ivan, dinnae fight tae win, fight so you don’t have tae again.”

“She was like a third your weight and no threat once disarmed!” Caduceus yelled. “IT’D COME OFF BETTER IF YOU SHOT HER IN THE FACE AND WERE DONE WITH IT! Admit it, you enjoyed that you depraved shit!”

“Course I fokking did!” Kraber said, on the edge of a laugh.

“You’re… horrible,” Caduceus said.

“Horrible?!” Kraber yelled. “HORRIBLE?! MORE HORRIBLE DISGUSTING THAN THE FOKKIN KONTGESIGS’RE PONIFYIN’ FOKKIN KIDS?! TURNIN’ THEM INTO FOKKING ZOMBIES THAT’RE USED TO CLOG GUNS WITH BODIES?! FOK THAT FOKKIN’ KAK IN THE POES, YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY THE FOK I’M LIKE THIS?! ”

Rhetorical question - Kraber was going to say so anyway.

“PINKIE PIE, THE GODDAMN FOKKIN VARKPOES, PONIFIED! MY! FAMILY!” Kraber yelled. “SHE CAME THERE, WITH FOKKIN’ PER, AND RAPED MY FOKKIN CHILDREN’S MINDS SO THERE’S NOT A FOKKIN THING LEFT OF THEM, AND MY WIFE’S PROBABLY SOME PONY’S FOKTOY, THE BARRACKS BIKE, OR A FOKKIN MEATSHIELD I’LL HAVE TO FILL WITH BULLETS! AND THEN SHE’LL HAVE TO TELL ME I COULD’VE BEEN SO MUCH HAPPIER AS A FOKKIN ZOMBIE, AND CALL ME A BLIKSEM! ”

Caduceus quivered under this tirade, but managed to not cower.

“SO, YOU FOKKIN GLUESTICK, YES! I’M HORRIBLE! BUT I SINCERELY HOPE YOU’RE NOT FOKKIN SAYING I’M BAD AS THEM!” Kraber yelled.

“No,” she replied simply, picking up Sylvia’s rifle. “You’re just living nicely up to the standard Celestia holds the whole of your race in.”

Fuming, he turned away, landing a furious blow on an innocent coffee-dispenser. Something cracked, and the machine began to drip fluid onto the floor...

“You know,” he sighed, “Bout five years ago, Ah’d never dream ay this sortae thing. A good pub-fight, kicking some skinhead’s face in, but never… that.”

There was silence between the two of them.

“Ah cannae gie mercy tae PER. Ah dinnae mean some moral thing, Ah mean Ah actually physically fokking cannae. There’s a human movie, Schindler’s list. Ever watched it?”

“Yes,” Caduceus admitted.

“The moral’s that war reveals the truth in people,” Kraber said. “So… we had war. And it toorns out this is what Ah am. A mass-murderin, terroristic, serial-killin, child-murderin kontgesig thit likes what he does. Sure, Ah’m proud ay some ay the death ah’ve caused, ay killing PER like her. But… turns out, this is who I am. This is what I dae. Twenty-eight fokking years of people calling me a sociopath, even in fokking grade school, of people telling me I had no empathy, of people accusing me of rape that one time.” He paused. “Course, I’m not a rapist - Ah didn’t know she was underage - but it still hurt. Cause I really did love her and our children. I… I wanted to be a doctor, so I could help people. I loved those children, I really did. I thought I was a correct ou, but I… turns out I’m… this. There’s some days when I like the bloodshed, and some days when I hate myself for it. I wish…”

He was silent.

“I wish someone would turn me off and just… fix me.”

“I’m so… Dammit, I don’t know what to say,” Caduceus said.

“Yeah,” Kraber said. “It’s probably fir the best that they all got ponified. I’d be a horrible father and worse husband anyway,” he muttered. “I’m half-tempted to drink that potion over there anyway.”

“But you won’t,” Caduceus said. It wasn’t a question. “I saw the first newfoals, you know,” she said. “Some poor convie named New Bloom…”

“The name sounds familiar,” Kraber said. “Think I heard of that too.”

“New Bloom was nothing like the person that drank it,” Caduceus said. “And neither were my friends. A lot of them went to the PER, and eventually, they took the drink. But now, they’re not my friends.”

“Cause they left for the PER, or they’re newfoals?” Kraber asked.

“Both,” Caduceus said. “I might not like you, but I’ll shoot you if you drink it. Nobody deserves.... that.”

“No,” Kraber said. “I might deserve it…. but I don’t think anybody else does. I’ll go clear out the rest of the PER,” Kraber said. “Make my way tae the roof. You try and evacuate any survivors. Don’t come after me.”

“Alright,” Caduceus said. “You probably won’t come back, you know that?”

“Yeah, I won’t,” Kraber shrugged, hearing somebody come around the corner. “But at the same time… it’s all Ah’m good fir anymore. And when you get down tae it-”

A PER woman saw Kraber, ready to shout a warning, and got a bullet to the face.

“It’s still pretty fokking good to kill off kontgesigs like them.”

“Jesus, Kraber-” Verity starts.

“No, that’s…. that’s.. my cousin over... in Brazil,” Kraber says, stammering a little. “It’s actually pronounced with an H, but.... when we visited, back before the war... heh, we’d always say ‘Hey, soos!’, so we just call him Soos now. Wonder where he is now… and Cousin Isaac...”

“Are.. are you crying?” you ask.

“No, no…” Kraber says, then looks over at all of you. “Yes.”

He looks the same way he did back that one night in August, the one where he’d let you live. He is drained, you realize. There is… There is barely anything left in him. Whatever’s left of him, from before the war, there’s barely anything.

“My God,” Bly says. “I… what were you doing out there in the HLF?”

“You don’t want to fokking know,” Kraber says immediately. His eyes are welling up with tears, even, and this man - this proud, brash, newfoal-and-PER-killing machinegunner - is a shadow of his usual self. “Ever.” And, from somewhere under his pillow, he produces a bottle of bourbon, drinking it down.

And so, looking almost unsure of what to do, a little confused, Aegis rises up, hooves outstretched, and hugs his friend.

Kraber looks at his bottle, then up into the white-furred snout of his friend. “Ah, the fok with it,” he says, and puts it on the table to the side of him. “Vinyl, if anyone comes in, tell em that’s medicinal.”

And, with one of those ever-so-rare smiles on his face, he hugs Aegis back. And even Vinyl joins in, and so does Bly.

“You’re better friends than an old fokking sociopath like me deserves,” Kraber mutters, but he doesn’t believe it. You can tell, and he… he looks almost happy, for once.

“Actually,” says Lunar Phase. “You’re not a sociopath.”

“I’m not?”

“No… Aren’t you a doctor?”

“Not that kinda doctor! Besides, all the psychology I did was bullshitting on the internet,” Kraber admits. “I don’t know shit about it.”

“You’re not antisocial - you’re doing this, after all,” Lunar Phase says. “And you said you wanted to get a stiff drink with me, and a bunch of other ponies - and you feel bad for what you’ve done. I mean, hell, why are you even in this hospital room? Didn’t you care about your children?”

“Because I felt bad for…” Kraber starts, looking over at Verity, and a smile spreads over his face. “Well, fok. How about that.”

“You’re probably a good person, then,” Aegis says. “I mean, think about it. About why you joined the HLF… then the PHL.”

And in response to that, Kraber hugs Aegis even harder.

“Can’t… breathe…” Aegis chokes, half-jokingly.

“This is so damn cheesy,” Verity mutters.

“Yeah, but it’s some of the best news I’ve got in awhile,” Kraber says. “Me. A good person!”

He’s beaming like a child who’s been told he can eat all the cake in a bakery. It’s like a weight’s been taken off of him, and he leans back against a pillow.

“How about that…”

It’s right about then that you and Aegis’ foals dogpile him.

“HUG ATTACK!” Amber Maple screeches.

“No! My only weakness! HUGS!” Kraber yells, struggling not to laugh, and nobody can stop themselves from cracking a smile. “How did you know?!”

“But Aegis was hugging you earlier,” you say, confused.

“Yes, well, my continuity is terrible!” Kraber laughs.

Finally - after what felt like an eternity - Kraber had made it to the roof.

It was strewn with dead PER - dead ponies and humans alike. He stood among the corpses and blood, panting heavily.

“Hello!” someone - or rather, somepony - chirped.

“Another fokkin newfoal,” he said, turning to meet the voice, his MG2019 at the ready. “Well? Do you think you have a fokkin chance against me?!”

The newfoal stood above him, on the lip of the hospital helipad. She was a charcoal grey unicorn mare, her horn upraised like a sword poised to drop. Had amber-red eyes appeared to glow in the dark, and her mane was a shock of bone-yellow-white hair that extended all the way down her back before re-erupting into a frothing tail.

Rather absurdly, she looked to be clad in an old-timey nurse’s outfit with high socks. Both the uniform and the leggings were as shockingly white as her mane, except for the blood-red trim and patterni…

...oh, the red wasn’t part of the design.

“Now, now... don’t you recognize me, Viktor?” she chirped.

“How the fok did you-”

“Oh, it was perfectly obvious,” she said. “I’m rather disappointed in Cady for not noticing. Your Scottish accent is terrible! I’ll ask you again: Do. You. Recognize me?”

“No,” Kraber said. “Far as I’m concerned… you’re just another fokking obstacle.”

“Another pony to kill?” she asked. “To shoot in the knee, kick in the face, break the collarbone, and leave to die, without the mercy of even a wee sip of potion?”

“..Sylvia,” Kraber breathed. “FOK! You just can't kill people like you used to..."

“You missed the vial,” she said sweetly. “It landed on the coffee-machine. You cracked it with your fist, but not enough was leaking… me, the filthy ape me, had to crawl my way over with the arm that worked, and drag the machine off its stand and onto my head…”

She tipped her head back and screamed, a boiling screech like a saw-toothed steam whistle. It was a rusty, tortured sound, that told of scalding water and shattered glass and savage, primal triumph.

“No, no, no...not triumph, Victory…” corrected an unwanted voice, and he saw the damn newfoal that called itself by that name standing beside the raving mare...

“...it burned, broiled me to the bone, so deliciously deep that even Her Mercy couldn’t heal the scars...”

“Look at her, Kraber”, ‘Victory’ giggled. “She’s so much like me… a war-born newfoal, a prototype of the Pretty Privates yet to come… oh, the great Nepenthe would love to have a magnificent mare such as this in her sisterhood…and you too…”

“...look at me, Viktor. I’m so broken that I can’t even connect to my brothers and sisters… cast out on my own, running on Auto-law, my brain too smashed to share in their screams, from all that you did! Behold the face of your daughter-mare!”

“Great. Another love-child. I’ll have to use protection next time...”

The newfoal’s horn flashed, and the still night air whipped up into a breeze that swept back her mane, exposing the fur around her horn…. which was lacerated and slashed, glowing from within with the same crimson light that burned in the pits of her eyes, as if something just under her skin or her horn was trying to make its way out...

“Are you proud of the destruction you’ve wrought?” she said in a voice like rancid honey. “Are you proud of the suffering that you-“

“Actually, YES! I’m apparently so badass that not even the fokking potion can take away the scars I leave!” Kraber laughed. “This is gonna be kwaai…”

The newfoal blinked for a moment, and then leered, more bloody light spilling out from her torn face. Disgusting, and yet, it almost appealing, like a tribal brand...

“Well - that’s disturbing. Now, I’ll give you one chance…” she chirped, “Join me, and you’ll be happy all the time! I’ll have a new playmate too…after I’ve roughed your brain up a...oh wait, no - you scrambled your own basket of eggs long ago. This, Viktor, this is going to be kwaai…”

“Go fok yourself,” Kraber snarled.

“But you’re so sad!” the newfoal protested. “You’re crying all the time, lashing out at everything! If you take the potion, that’ll all just float away! You’ll be superior! You’ll live on forever, with madness myself at your side...”

“First - that’s at the expense of every fokking thing that’s me,” Kraber said. “Second, you’re not superior, you’re a fokking golem someone dredged up from muck of someone’s soul. Thirdly… you’ll never be happy.”

“Don’t be silly, I’m-“

“If you’re happy without sadness to balance it out,” Kraber interrupted, “The happiness just dulls you. You can never truly enjoy anything… cause what the fok’s enjoyment if you enjoy everything? You’ll just be an automaton in a year or three, unable to feel anything, mentally screaming because you can't believe that feeling so dead inside is anything but being happy… even as you shoot little children in the street, turn them into more like you, thinking that the best thing you can do is make more of yourself.”

The newfoal shook slightly.

“Constant happiness like that is a lie,” Kraber finished. “What’s laughter without tears…”

“It. Is. PERFECTION! she hissed, before shuddering with lustful abandon. “Oh, you…. motherbucker…I know my name now… I am Reaper,” she hissed, levitating two of the PER’s combat shotguns away from the scattered corpses. Then, with a telekinetic tug, she bent the bayonets clipped under the barrels into wicked, sickle-shape arcs. “I will harvest new foals from the dirt of humanity, I will-OW!”

Kraber had opened fire with his MG2019.

“You ponies. Talk. TOO. FOKKING. MUCH!”

‘Get out of her way!’ ‘his’ newfoal whispered in Anka’s voice, and Kraber, before the crazed mare fired whatever neurons in her horn controlled her TK, moved.

Her bullets ripped through the air immediately behind him, missing him by the breadth of one of Kagan’s hairs, Kraber panting heavily as he brought the MG2019 to bear again, blasting in her general direction before hurling himself into a roll, avoiding a second medley of buckshot.

Coming up in a crouch he moved to aim, but found himself staring in horror. The mare, ‘Reaper’, had produced two purple flasks.

‘Potion...’

Waving cheerily with one hoof, she teleketically smashed one phial against the bayonets, slathering them in purple slop...

“Oh, fok…”

...the second, she hurled at him. Staggering he tripped onto his back, barely avoiding the lethal projectile, and immediately found the mare advancing on him, swinging her two shotguns like scythes.

“You get hit enough with these, you’re bucked!” the new foal screeched in a lunatic giggle. “Now, sit back and TAKE YOUR MEDICINE!”

Dodge, Vikt-

Kraber forced himself into another roll, and Reaper’s swinging bayonets smashed into the spot where he had been.

Viktor, for his part, had already ducked into cover behind an elevator housing, and found he was not alone...

“Gotcha now,” one surviving, heavily bleeding PER man hissed, holding up a vial to Kraber, trying to unzip his armor, and-

Kraber whipped out a knife and jammed it into the man’s armpit. That was an artery - the man was sure to die soon. The man staggered back, only to get caught in another shotgun blast from Reaper.

“That’s fokking hilarious!” Kraber laughed.

“No, this is!” shrilled Reaper, and before Kraber’s eyes the screaming man began to shrink within his clothes… and his howls of pain became neighs.

Wait, what the fok?!

The newfoal - this fokking abomination - just ponified a man with a shotgun blast. What the…

‘Potion - he had a potion flask in his hand, and the blast not only shattered him - it smashed the flask as well, and doused him in its contents...and you too...’

He looked down and saw the purple fluid smeared all across his armor.

‘Fok, all it would take is one good puncture and...bye-bye bipedalism… and hands… and saturday nights.... and sentience. I guess that’s bad too.’

His mind whirled, even as he continued to backpedal across the roof, keeping up a steady repeating salvo of shotgun shells, which Reaper either swatted from the sky or dodged, forever smiling in her crazed, infuriatingly smug manner.

As he kept the two of them in motion, he calculated: the PHL armor had proven pretty damn durable, and they had more ponypower behind their enchantments than the PER…

But he didn't know if he could take a direct hit.

As he was trying to keep out of Reaper’s range, he tripped over something else: the freshly turned newfoal stallion.

“Oh, she saved meHEEEEHEHEHEE!” the bluish newfoal giggled as he made his way in Kraber’s direction. “I-“

“HOU JOU FOKKIN BEK!” Kraber yelled, and kicked the newfoal in the face. It screamed, not in agony but in rage, as it flew off the roof, tumbling madly to the street below.

Oh, fok.

Ignoring the sound of the screaming newfoal, Kraber switched to his MG2019.

“Reaper reaper that’s the queen calls me,” the unicorn mare sang. “Because they all, DIE! When I sing I ponify! You act as though payback makes you a nobleman is that a fact? Well you’re a goddamn philistine!”

And suddenly, she’d teleported - right in front of Kraber, holding those two shotguns with the curved bayonets.

“Requiem aeternam, bullet right through the sternum
Lullaby to hell, babe
Reaper’s got your name!

“EAT THIS!” Kraber replied MG2019 aimed at her, spraying long bursts into her general direction… come on come on, the MG2019 usually broke shields quicker than this...

She fired point-blank into Kraber’s stomach.

Something above his armor flickered, and Kraber staggered back…. It held.

Thankyou magic-shielded armor.

“Reaper cannot let you in, it’s just not fair
I’m a pure mare-”

“I’M NOT FOKKING YOU, JOU BLIKSEM!” Kraber yelled over, firing his MG2019 in her general direction, idly noting a growing sound like the roar of turbines…

Floodlights swept across the roof, and he realised that what he could hear approaching were helicopters. A quick glance confirmed two of the whirlybirds, both headed inbound towards the hospital.

Excellent, medevacs, he was probably going to be good…

“-colts cannot crack this oyster shell
So go on, whip around that gun
like you're the best, it's just no fun
Another hero? Oh, please!”

In retrospect, Kraber really should have known better.

Especially when the two choppers - Russian Hinds - opened fire on him, and pegasi with potion bandoliers swarmed out of the side-hatches, along with human PER hanging on the end of zip-lines.

“OH, COME ON!” Kraber yelled, rushing out of the way, panting, just barely dodging two more shotgun blasts from Reaper.

“Reaper cannot let you in, it’s just not fair-

For once, Kraber agreed. This was getting to be a horrible, horrible day.

I’m a pure mare
colts cannot crack this oyster shell
So go on, whip around that gun
like you're the best, it's just no fun
Another hero? Oh, please!”

Please let my shield tank this… Kraber prayed, firing into Reaper’s shield as a burst of shotgun shells raced in his general direction.

IT HELD! He pulled the pin on another PHL grenade and tossed at the mare. Then, he swung around the other side of his cover, hoping to catch her from behind once the blast disrupted her shield...

“Requiem aeternam
Reaper has come, sinner!”

CRACK!

“Yes!” he roared, seeing her horn smoulder in the wake of the pink, magical flash. The MG in his hands roared fire, and by the time she had gotten her shield back in place, he’d landed at least a couple of rounds in her flank.

And yet she still kept on coming. FOK! Why was she so fokking durable?!

“Thigh-high socks are my absolute territory
Go on and drool -
the otaku cannot resist
You think the fire in your eyes
makes you a tiger in disguise?
Dream on, you goddamn pussy!!”

The helicopters were overhead now, unable to fire, but dropping their human cargo onto the roof. The men and women falling from the sky were lightly armored, wearing what looked like metal breastplates under their clothes, glowing purple….

“KILL HIM!” one pegasus shrieked, pointing in the general direction of Kraber. “KILL THE BASTARD THAT WITHHOLDS CELESTIA’S LIGHT!”

Requiem aeternam
Reaper has come, sinner!

“I’D LIKE TO SEE YA FOKKIN TRY!” Kraber yelled, opening fire with the MG2019 at the pegasi plunging onto him, clipping their wings and turning dives into death-spins.

The sound of them smashing into glass and concrete was musical…but he couldn’t afford flashy kills. Couldn’t afford to make them suffer. He had to remember what Caduceus told him...

Wait! Those helicopters up there were Hinds, Mi-24s… renowned as flying tanks, but what was that line from ‘Snow Crash’?

‘Fucking Soviet piece of shit, they made that windshield out of...’

“It’s just one human!” somebody yelled, opening fire from the door gun. “PONIFY HIM! OR KILL HIM, I DON’T CARE!”

The chopper’s gatling ripped through the area immediately behind him, a bullet smashing against his shield, but it held - thank god, it held, and…

FOK! A bullet rammed into his stomach, the shield and PHL armor dampening most of the force… but not all of it…

...the surplus Newtons were enough to throw him back into a solid wall. Again, his shield flashed, and he bounced away from the impact, sprawling onto the rooftop.

“Is tha - ISTHAT ALL YOU HAVE, KONTGESIGS?!” he yelled, slipping behind cover desperately trying to ignore the (fokfokfokfokfok it HURT) pain.

“Thigh-high socks are my absolute territory
Go on and drool -
the otaku cannot resist
You think the fire in your eyes
makes you a tiger in disguise?
Dream on, you goddamn pussy!”

He’d been shot before, yes… but never with something so fokking big! Damn, if he ever joined the PHL, he wanted a better shield over his armor.

He tried to breathe in, breathe out. His hands probed his abdomen, finding no entry-wound, no point of contamination for the potion, but he could still feel a stick witness inside the armor, against his skin…and blinding pain when he tried to breathe.

A rib, he realised… the force had been enough to compound fracture one of his ribs...and now he was bleeding out inside his own armor.

Okay… no fokking regenerating health. Had to… Had to kill them before he… died of blood loss… FOKKING OW! What had he been hit with, a fokking antivehicle round?!

“Turns out, it was an antivehicle round,” Kraber says, still wincing a little. “It was a civilian Hind, and they’d managed to find a homebrewed HMG… stung like a bakvissie with teeth in her beef portal…”

Everyone winces, and you’re not sure whether it’s from Kraber’s description or imagining the sensation of getting hit with one.

“Can your armor seriously tank antivehicle rounds?!” Verity yells. “I’m calling bullshit.”

“Nah,” Vinyl says. “You can survive getting hit with one if the shield’s down… assuming it’s not in the heart or something. The shields can tank it, but not many. There was just enough of the shield left that it blunted the force. It would have gone through his armor with no trouble, though.”

“That, that sounds painful…” Scootaloo says.

“It could have been worse. The later marks had a twin autocannon in place of the Gatling, and that was chambered for 30mm sounds nearly seven inches long...getting hit by one of those would have meant...

Kraber pate, served al-dente. Definitely not Kosher.

Damn, he really had broken a rib. He could feel the damn think rasping against the inside of his damn chest...another hit like that might break it the other way and puncture a lung…

‘Getting potioned almost sounds better than drowning in my own fokking blood. Almost...’

Reaper reaper that’s the queen calls me!
Because they all, DIE!
When I sing I ponify!
You act as though payback makes you a nobleman
is that a fact?
Well you’re a goddamn philistine!”

Adjusting the grenade launcher sight he’d added onto his scavenged pipebomb launcher, he ducked behind one of the numerous buildings on Maine Medical’s roof, ran onto a recent (well, recently when the war started) upward expansion, sighted his target and fired.

The pipebomb, propelled by nothing more than a highly compressed spring, flew upwards along the flat trajectory he’d hoped for, reaching the apex of its arc just as it impacted…

...face-first into the windshield of the nearest hovering chopper.

The rest was physics. The pipe-bomb’s detonator initiated, and the force of impact plus the tiny jet of superheated plasma on the tip of the blast was enough to shatter the ill-maintained glass, filling the cockpit with scintillating crystalline shards and good-ol-fashioned (just like Ma’ used to make back on the farm) shrapnel.

The explosion itself was comparatively small. The result were not. For a moment, just a moment, Kraber saw a severed arm, and a pegasus wing, fly out of the wreckage, chopped apart by the helicopter rotor. Then, unguided, with all controls shot, the chopper slewed sideways onto its beams and fell out of the sky, dropping into the street. As it sank in flames past the roof, the tail-rotor struck the tip of the building, and flew off its mount. Trailing sparks, it spun across the roof like a demented firework, bisecting an unfortunate PER man on its merry way. The upper half of the unlucky bastard’s torso, diagonally cut through, jumped up about two feet in the air, blood spraying out both halves of his body…

All this chaos and viscera left only one small problem. There was still one helicopter, and Kraber found himself now fresh out of pipe-bombs..

Please God, if you’re listening, make this shield work, he prayed, and poked his way out of cover, sending a wild burst up in the direction of the second Hind, ducking back as something hit him in the shoulder, leaving a splatter of something purple.

FOK! More ponification potion! Was that… Were they using ponification pellets in paintball guns?! There was a sick logic to it all - even if he won the fight he still stood a chance of getting the stuff on himself changing out of his armor. It would be a pyrrhic victory, but still another newfoal to the cause…

‘Is that how I’ll be born?’ giggled Victory. ‘Oh please yes, please fall over and be reborn just when you think you’ve won!’

Another rifle round, this one a bog-standard .223, punched against the PHL armor… then another one, a heavy .308 from one of the battle rifles that most militaries had gone crazy for in the earlier days of the War. Okay… Another round, this one in his shoulder…

His shield flashed again and again, so that instead of ripping through bone and tendon, the impacts felt only like being hit with a mallet. Already clutching at his burning chest, Kraber struggled to ignore the fresh pain, instead gritting his teeth and reloading. He tossed out another grenade stolen from the PHL, this one a flashbang. Good for riot control. He threw it out in what he assumed was the general direction of the PER varknaaiers standing on the roof, shielded his eyes from the blast, and then rushed out through the disorientated mess, MG2019 aimed up at the helicopter. His lungs hoarse and his every breath full of broken bits of glass he fired up at the Hind, emptying every round in the mag into the chopper.

But, as he fired that last manic spray, roaring in defiance and agony, another round smashed into his thigh, whipping that leg out from under him.

“Go for the opening!” screamed a pegasus, who rushed rushed towards him, a knife in his mouth.

Kraber swung the now-useless rifle like a club and knocked the newfoal off his feet, before grounding him permanently with a .50 dose of lead to the face.

Ah fok fok fok fok it hurt, and he could feel his blood dripping down through into the legs of the armor - heh, no way this was going to be an open-casket funeral, not looking the way he did right now-

- NO. No fokking time for that! The second helicopter was still overhead, trying to swing around and paint him with its own MG... he couldn’t take any more rounds. No matter how many the PHL armor could take, there wouldn’t be many before it punched all the way through him.

He felt for his armor’s chest, and found two more grenades, one of them a flashbang, the other with Japanese characters on it. He vaguely remembered them, though he had no idea what they meant…. Fujin? The purplish-pink stripe on the rim told him it was another anti-magic weapon, but it still had an explosive charge like any other frag-grenade…

He weighed it in his hand, and tried to remember an old episode of Mythbusters: shooting live grenades out of the air…

What he’d taken away from that episode (incidentally: myth confirmed, kinda), was that a sufficient blow might be enough to trigger a grenade’s explosion. Like say a sniper round… or a rotor spinning at over 300rpm.

Well, here went nothing.

“HOLD THIS!” he yelled, and tossed it up in the general direction of the helicopter.

He would have liked to have seen what followed next in slow-motion, seen which rotor-blade struck the grenade, and flicked it away with enough force to trigger the reaction.

‘Huh… Adam, Jamie - did you know that if you strike magical crystals really, really hard, they kinda… implode...’

The grenade had not exploded, per se. A giant purple-pink-black sphere had formed in midair, right where the helicopter’s midsection fuselage had been, sucking up everything and everypony save for Reaper, who stayed stubbornly attached to the ground, her hooves looking almost rooted to the concrete. Kraber, for his part, was apparently heavy enough to remain ‘on deck’, weighted down by the sheer mass of his gear, holding onto a railing...

The PER grunts however, in their lightweight armor, followed their pony compatriots and were drawn, screaming, up towards the pocket-singularity. A few overshot it and flew into the helicopter’s whirling rotor, twirling around the singularity in an unstable arc, which had sheared off its driveshaft and was now suspended above the vortex, held in place between its own lift and the suction of the void. The sky filled with a matrix of blood as it sliced and diced anyone unfortunate enough to strike it, limbs and droplets swirling back into the singularity in what looked almost like small rivers.

The bisected halves of the helicopter spiraled around the sphere as if rooted to the ball of energy, the tail end slicing through the hospital roof and another newfoal.

“Kwaai…” Kraber whispered.

And then, as if unable to sustain itself, the glowing singularity wound down, and like a sun going supernova, violently rejected everything it had swallowed. Comets of ultra-compacted metal spewed out and embedded themselves in surrounding buildings, while a noxious cocktail of blood, oil, aviation fuel and coolant gushed out as if from a cracked egg, baptising Kraber and washing away the potion on his armor.

What remained the helicopter’s nose crashed into the roof, bounced, and dropped to the street below. The tail section, still airborne thanks to the spinning tail rotor, tumbled away, cutting through a pegasus, and tried to mate with a nearby house.

Fragments of Hind and hide rained down from the sky. A forearm with a wristwatch still attached landed on Kraber’s chest, and he hugged it in silent shock as if it were one of the stuffed animals in his pack.

The few PER who had fallen back to safety before being consumed got shakily to their feet, laughed weakly…

...right as the helicopter’s main rotor, still intact and spinning, dropped down out of the sky like a razor-edged flower head caught on the breeze…

Blood, metal, and shrapnel flew everywhere, pollinating the roof. Kraber, still lying prostrate on his back, saw blades spinning inches from his face, before the bloodstained rotor came to a creaking halt.

“And that,” Kraber says to all of you, “Was the nastiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Which, you realize, is saying a lot.

Actually, it’ll be the second, but that’s not important.

“Life’s good to me sometimes,” he whispered, and weakly climbed to his feet. “Oh, you have got to be tuning me kak…”

Reaper, a little worse for wear, stood not thirty feet from him, smilingly splashing one hoof in a puddle of...something. Fragments of superheated metal lay around her, from where the rotor had evidently struck her magical shield, and come off the worst for it…

“Want some?” she asked, holding up a hoof. “It’s the kind of stuff you like…”

Kraber caught the reek of petrochemical loveliness, and staggered backwards out of the pool of blood and fuel.

“...the kind that BURNS!”

She kicked a small wave of the stuff onto the fizzing metal, and with a sound like a elephant splatting against concrete from thirty-thousand feet, the…

“...the entire fokking roof was on fire!”

Yup. Destroying the helicopter had neatly doused most of the surrounding rooftop with quality avgas, and the damn newfoal had just set it on fire.

She didn’t seem to care, strolling through the flames with her shield up, the rising air wafting her mane almost angelically around her face. The orange-blue flames were actually a very complimentary colour to her searing red eyes and the seething ruptures in her face.

And she was still humming that insufferable tune.

Wheezing, exhausted beyond belief, Kraber reloaded the MG2019, and squeezed down the trigger.

“...stop the fokking song!” he rasped, unable to get his voice above a pained whisper.

But Sylvia, or Reaper, did not listen, continuing the inane, prattling lyrics, closing the space between him even as his bullets dimmed her shield with each fresh blast.

“Requiem aeternam
Bullet right through the sternum
Lullaby to hell, babe
Reaper's got your name!”

”COME AT ME, YOU NZAMBI KONTGESIG!” Kraber wanted to roar, wishing to lose himself in sound and fury. But it wouldn’t come, his burning chest wouldn’t obey, leaving him trapped in the silence of his rage and the crackle of the flames...

Driving him back towards the edge of the roof, she whipped one shotgun up, the bayonet slicing through his armor - Wait, fok, wasn’t there supposed to be a shield?! - and cutting a run through it…

It wedged, jamming between two plates.

“Well, that’s annoying…” she shrugged, and fired.

The pellets smashed against his stomach.

Reaper looked up to him, annoyed, and levitated a huge rifle at him. It looked like a sniper rifle.

At point-blank range, the muzzle was inside what remained of his shield, and the bullet tore straight through his abdomen - damn that hurt.

Even as she kept on singing the song, Kraber could see her aiming the shotguns into the hole.

So Kraber did the only thing he could. He reached forward, grabbed hold of Reaper’s horn, and let his weight fall forward, twisting as he did to force her under him, grappling hand-to-hoof on the roof as the pool of flame expanded and swallowed them.

Kraber was wounded, but the armour was evidently fireproof. Reaper did not have to deal with injury and blood-loss, but was unable to shield herself when pushed face-first into burning liquid.

But she didn’t scream, even as Kraber felt her body spasm and smelled her flesh burn. Instead, she bucked him with her hind-legs and reversed their positions, so that she was now on top of him.

At least she’d finally stopped singing, though.

“Hi there…” she squealed, mashing her scorched face into Kraber’s and planting her hooves on his chest… “I’m Reaper, the Pret…”

“I’ve fokkin’ heard that already,” Kraber wheezed, and headbutted her, wishing that he’d kept the spiked HLF helmet. She staggered back, whatever spell she’d been about to try disrupted, and Kraber took the opportunity to knee her in the stomach. With her thrown off, he rushed up to her, kicked her face, and pressed the revolver’s muzzle into the soft pocket of tissue between her neck and barrel.

“In the godswood, the First Men come to pray!” she tittered. “Pray before the smiling face of the heart tree!”

Something CRACKED in his chest, and his own blood filled his words. The revolver’s cylinder snapped open, more blood pouring from the open breach, and smiling back at her, he twisted the speedloader into place, closed the cylinder, and summoned all his strength to pull back the trigger.

“Jou like that… jou fokking kontgesig…” he spluttered.

Her grin grew even wider, even lying there impaled on the revolver.

“This won’t end it…”

“Yes it will…”

He fired, again and again and again, his prone posture bracing him as all six rounds punched her barrel apart, blood dripping in great gouts from her wounds, splattering against him.

She looked to be regenerating, even as Kraber’s bullets ripped through her, but finally, the last round seemed to silence her song, and he laughed in triumph.

She went limp, and Kraber pushed himself up, dropping her to the side - then, with an afterthought, lifting her up and throwing her into the flames.

“Fokking kontgesig...pony kontgesig...!” he wheezed, turned away and clutching at his side.

And then he heard a whisper.

“Reaper, reaper-”

Oh, fok.

A shotgun shell rammed into his arm, forcing it back, only for a hoof to smash into his left shoulder.

“YOU THINK A KNIGHT OF HER SUN IS SO EASILY EXTINGUISHED!” the mare screamed, throwing herself onto his back. “THAT HER FIRE IS SO SIMPLE TO PUT OUT!”

He spun, stumbling, and jabbed back with his elbow, knocking her free.

“FOK!” he hissed, clutching his arm - the poesgesig had broken his collarbone! - and grabbed back at the revolver, slinging the MG2019 on its strap over his shoulder. Okay, okay…. FOK! Down to just one-handed guns… against a psycho super newfoal.

Yeah, he was fokked.

He kicked Reaper in the face yet again, and rolled to the side, wincing as he landed on his bad arm, brought up his .45, and fired off more useless rounds.

Yeah, useless. The .45 ACP rounds didn’t do shit.

Thankfully, the semi-automatic pistol had been optimized for a truly one-handed reload, and he remembered this as he placed it in his left hand, trigger finger closed over the trigger guard, which pulled back the slide as he inserted a new mag.

“RISE!” Reaper cried, standing within the flames, and as she screamed, the flames turned black as night, and the pink-purple of sunset…

“Fokking metal…” Kraber winced, before he heard a shuffling sound that froze his blood. “Oh you’re tuning me kak…”

The corpses, any corpse by the black flames, were standing up. Like puppets on strings humans, newfoals and ponies all shambled to their feet and hooves, flickers of onyx light crackling on their limbs, in their eyes, on the shrapnel and glass that pierced their flesh.

Even worse, the few dying men and women on the roof, those scant survivors that were little more than brains, spinal cords, and failing organs were ponifying as Reaper cut them with her scythe-like bayonets...

“I AM THE REAPER!” she screamed in ecstasy. “LIFE AND DEATH BOW AT MY WHIM!”

She was a freak… a walking nightmare. A prototype of something to come...

‘I have to kill this thing before it get standard-issue somehow,’ Kraber thought. ‘Can’t mass-produce something if the test-type doesn’t come back to debrief...’

But killing this kontgesig was sure gonna suck. Kraber fired his .45 once more, aiming for the skulls of the newfoals. First he had to reduce these inhuman shields.

“Come on, come on….” Kraber whispered, fanning the trigger, desperately wishing he’d sprung for that laser sight. “COME ON, COME ON! THIS ALL JOU HAVE?!” Kraber yelled. “I’VE PICKED THINGS OUT OF MY ASS-CRACK THAT WERE MORE THREATENING THAN JOU PIELKOPS!”

BANG - another newfoal’s head exploded. Okay, okay…. He thought he hit nine?!

He ducked back behind an AC unit on the roof, wincing as his arm flopped uselessly against his torso. Fok, but it hurt!

The that last flashbang grenade was hurled in the general direction of all the newfoals, and he seized the momentary chance, stumbling and limping for the stairs down into the hospital....

“He’s getting away!” Kraber heard one newfoal scream, and his eyes flicked up to see a stallion, pointing.

“This way, he’s here!” the creature cried again, in Reaper’s voice. “Come on, Bliss, or Kraber, whatever your name is! I heard you talking to Cady!”

Shuddering with revulsion he pushed through the door, and rushed (as best he could) down the stairs, reloading the .45 as he went, before shouldering open a door and switching back to his revolver.

“You wanted to die, didn’t you? Come on… we have something better!”

He stumbled down the stairs. Heh… maybe. Maybe he did want to. But no matter what… no fokking matter what…

He had to be brave. Had. To keep! Fokking! Moving!

The hospital was eerily silent as he seized hold of an abandoned gurney and pushed it ahead of him, using it to bear some of his weight. Except for the squeak of the wheels and the rasp of his breaths, there wasn’t a sound to be heard… save for something groaning, practically screaming in agony.

Probably one of the pegasi he’d shot down.

Fokfokfok it hurt

Another staircase forced him to abandon the gurney, but he hoped to find a wheelchair or something to replace it.

But no, there was nothing to hand. Instead, bracing himself against the wall he pressed on, ignoring the minor, distant sensations in his leg, his chest, and collarbone. He was fokked… had to get away, had to get away...

He kept moving. Somehow, he felt like he should stop, but that’d make him a fokking moegoe.

He could, stop, and just give up... everything. Be with his family once more - but he'd never be Viktor Marius Kraber again.

"Would that be so bad?" Victory asked. "You'd be happy! Vicky's a sad, crying man with nothing to live for!"

At what fokking cost? His eyes darted from door to door as he skulked through the hospital's hallways, avoiding shadows and desperately wishing he had a silencer for his .45. If he drank of that stuff they called Mercy… would he know what he once was? Would he remember himself, would he truly be happy with his family, or would he-

“Come on, you deserve the potion! A fresh start equals-”

“Maybe I do,” Kraber said, cutting Victory off. “But other people - other people in this hospital - fokking well don’t.”

He didn't fokking well want to know anyway.

So, he limped forward, gasping and wheezing, desperately trying not to think of where the blood everywhere had come from. In this hallway, the lights were flickering, there were IVs strewn everywhere, and-

Oh, fok.

ANKA!

It was her body, in front of him, a .500 Magnum-sized hole in her skull.

And standing over her, he could see himself. Wearing his HLF armor, now rusty and pitted, covered in… oh God, oh fok, bones. There was an equine skull on one shoulder, a human one on the other...

And then he winked at Kraber, held up a glass in toast, and drank deep of it. Purple liquid dribbled over his chin, and he smacked his lips.

“Tastes like...freedom…”

If I get out of this, Kraber told himself, I am going to get so fokking high. Or gesuip. I’m going to find the vilest, nastiest, liver-punching rotgut I can find, and drink the whole bottle with time for seconds.

All of a sudden, the vision of himself, mouth wet with potion shuddered, and appeared to shrink inside his armor, limbs shortening, sleeves flailing, like there was nothing inside...

Oh God no.

Kraber whispered the shema, knowing what was going to happen next. It didn’t disappoint - within seconds, like a butterfly from a cocoon, Victory the Pretty Private had crawled out.

“Hey, Vicky,” she said, smiling up at him, “Look behind you.”

He ignored her.

“I said… Look behind you.”

“You’re not fokking real…” Kraber hissed. “I’m bosbefok. I’m crazy, and by God, I’m getting out of here and saving everyone from those fokking PER without you fokking me over.”

“Oh, such a disappointment,” Victory said. “I just wanted to warn you about the terrible, horrible pony behind you…”

“Don’t listen to her!” Kate yelled. “She just wants you to get ponified! She’s not even real!”

“Oh, but I am, unlike you,” Victory purred. “I’m as real as his nightmares. As real as his fears, as real as he makes me out to-”

“SHUT THE FOK UP, BOTH OF YOU!” Kraber roared, and fired the revolver, leaving a massive bloody stump where Victory’s head had been, blue smoke wafting up from it. “YOU DON’T CONTROL ME! EK BEHEER ME!”

Victory collapsed, blood spraying out from her neck-stump against the wall.

None of this makes any sense! Kraber screamed internally. She’s not real! Why the fok did I just shoot her?! How the fok could I shoot her. What the fok’s going on?!

“Honestly, I’m as confused as you,” said Anka, lying on the floor, blood oozing forth from that hole in her skull, welling up in the puddle behind her brain. “Partly because I am you, but, well, semantics.”

“Oh, Celestia, that hurt!” somebody else yelled. “The bucking ape shot me!”

The lights flickered on, and Kraber could see another pony there, this one a red pegasus. He’d punched through both of her wings, grounding her. Kwaai!

“Wha… I didn’t… Where’d all this blood come from?!” the pegasus screamed, staring up at Kraber. “I… whose blood is that?!” she pointed in the direction of where Anka and Victory had been, only for Kraber to realize that their corpses weren’t there.

And yet the blood remained. Kraber could even see strange hoofprints and even an imprint in there, with no trail.... as if a strange pony had just been standing in the blood and fallen over, their body disappearing...

He abruptly decided it was better not to question that, and shot the pegasus in the head, splattering her brains against the wall. More blood…

“Blood for the blood god, skulls for his throne…” cried a voice from off in the dark.

“Victory?” He spun and fired blindly into the dark. “Anka?”

There was a wet thudding sound, and someone screaming “MY SPLEEN!” He’d certainly hit something...

“He’s over here!” another voice screamed, and Kraber limped away, desperately hoping that the newfoals wouldn’t find him. Neither the real ones, or the ones that stalked his thoughts...

The stairs. Had to get to the stairs! Fok! If only he had some claymore mines, something! Anything! FOK!

Shema yisrael Adonai eloheinu, adonai echad

Ah, fokking hell, his leg hurt as he descended. It was all he could do not to scream, hissing out between his teeth, spittle moistening against his gas-mask.

He had to ignore it. Pain was just chemicals, like any other drug.

‘Just a dull buzz’, he just barely failed to convince himself.

He just… of course he walked this way. That was only natural. There was no pain, he just needed to get out…

He looked up. This was where Sylvia had died. If only he could find her gun, the one Caduceus had taken, the one with the....

The shield-disruptor grenades. He smiled, and found the treacherous nurse’s clothes, torn through. He desperately tried not to look at the bloodstains near the coffee machine, and the skin that looked stuck to the floor, melted on, even. It was caught between equine and human, with tan fur growing out and random points in the viscera.

Oh, God.

That was an eye on the floor. Somewhere between Equestrian and human, not quite the glassy unnatural amber-red of the pony, not quite the brownish eye he remembered Sylvia having. It resembled a double-yolked egg, two irises bulging from a single orb.

He stepped on it, crushing human and pony alike… no, no - crushing the monsters in between, neither one nor the other… newfoals squashed beneath his boots.

“I’m insane… crazy… bosbefok...”

He slung the rifle over his shoulder, and reached into her backpack. He pulled out a wallet stuffed with photos where once there had been money and credit cards. He snatched one out at random - Sylvia standing between two other women (one smiling sadly, the other laughing, with a grin aimed at the sad one. He knew that one - the smile of somebody telling you to lighten up and enjoy yourself), while in the background several ponies played blackjack. A mare, her mane a vibrant purple, was holding onto the laughing human women, pegasus wings hugging on tight. Caduceus was there too, photo-bombing the picture, an empty shotglass hanging on her horn...

‘Mercy and Jackie, Cady and Sylvie. And Rio - poor Rio. Vegas. August, 2018. Friends forever...’ said a scribble on the back. He turned it over again, peering back into the past, gazing back before the war. Humans and ponies enjoying each other’s company, smiling and laughing…

You kontgesig, he told himself. He snarled and grabbed the picture, wanting to rip it… but he couldn’t bring himself to do it, to shred a preserved scrap of innocence. There was precious little of it left, nowadays...

Instead he stuffed it back into the wallet, beside the other treasured photos, zipped that into an empty pouch on his armor, and continued to loot through the tattered remnants of a life. A few rations, some medical supplies… spare magazines for that 10mm, which he stuffed into his own backpack. And even a belt with more disruptor grenades…

The disconnect between those artifacts of the world before the war and the weaponry in there was almost heartbreaking. He’d known people like Sylvia at college back in Boston - not that he personally knew her, that would have been silly - and he’d seen them get broken. All of them, in that picture… he doubted they’d ever expected war. To have to hold a gun. He fokking well hadn’t.

There were pairs of socks and clean underwear, a sheaf of Imperial tracts. Risky - possessing these in some places counted as probable cause for getting shot. Comics, even. There were also books that looked to have been made in other countries, and he stuffed those in his backpack as well. Artifacts of Barrier-Eaten countries sold like hotcakes in various markets.

He’d have a decent sum of money after all this…

If he lived through this day at all. Slinging a belt of grenades over his torso, he limped forward. Why the fok was he limping, anyway? He just had to… keep… going. It was only his fokking sanity and free will at stake, anyway.

Another set of stairs. He could hear voices.

“Oh, thank God you got to us,” somebody said. They sounded wheezy, as if they were having trouble breathing.

Okay, okay, good. He just had to keep moving. Newfoals didn’t call upon the name of “God”, little-g or big-G. It had to be humans, then. Survivors that she’d found somewhere.

“How’d you kill all the newfoals, anyway?” asked the new voice.

“There was a man,” came the reply. “Ex-HLF, or ex-sanity, or something... Luna-damned sadist, he was.”

Yeah, well fok you too. Still, it was hard to argue…

“...but still, he just seemed so broken.”

Kraber stumbled down the stairs, falling against a wall…. right against his bad shoulder.

“FOK!” he hissed.

“What the hell was that?!” he heard a human woman yell.

“Don’t make so much noise!” someone said. “They’ll find us!”

“Oh, don’t worry, they’re already coming!” Caduceus yelled. “Fire on my mark!”

Kraber struggled for the stairs, stumbling. He just had to get to them, to safety. To strength in numbers. To people that could cover for him, unless…

A thought struck him. Unicorn medics were usually able to heal newfoals in battle, so… could he? Wait. Nah, fok that. Magic gave you cancer, filled you with tumors. Everyone knew that.

...it had also shielded him, and when packaged into hand-held form had already saved his life twice tonight...

Did it even matter? Would he really have a chance, even if he found safety in numbers? Functionally speaking, he was a fokking cripple. Most of his arm didn’t work, and he’d probably permanently damaged his bad leg.

He heard a thumping, cracking sound in his left leg. He had to keep going, though! HAD! TO KEEP! FOKKING MOVING!

YOU ARE NOT FOKKING FINISHED, VIKTOR! YOU’RE NOT GIVING UP NOW, JOU FOKKIN MOEGOE! He remembered the instructions in the Bundeswehr, from ages back. The ex-military drill-sergeant that had trained him in the HLF when he finally found a proper unit.

Not… fokking… finished…

His breathing was ragged.

He knocked on the door below him.

“Hey! Fok! It’s me!” he hissed.

“Is it… is it a newfoal?”

“No, you idiot! Newfoals don’t use human swearwords!”

“That makes no sense at all. Doesn’t their culture not have those words?”

“Actually-” Caduceus started. “Whoever you are, open the door!”

Kraber opened it, and collapsed on the floor, gasping. Two ponies loomed over him, a familiar mare and an unknown stallion.

“Oh sweet Luna, you! Why’d it have to be you?!” Caduceus groaned.

“You know him?” one stallion asked.

“Will-o-Wisp, this is the human that cleared away all the newfoals,” Caduceus said.

“Really?” the stallion asked. “Thanks!”

“No. Just… just don’t. Why are you here, though?” Caduceus asked. “I thought you were dead! Or… or worse.”

“Yeah, I’ve always been kak at trying to kill myself,” Kraber said. “I, ah… Anyone have some morphine?”

“What?” Caduceus asked.

“I can barely, fokking breathe,” Kraber said, trying to lift himself up on his right arm, and slipping, falling back.. on the hip with the huge bullet in it. “FOK! They bliksemed me good - broken rib, smashed my collarbone...”

Caduceus looked down at him, concerned. “What… what did you get yourself into?”

“Eh, you know, got shot… twice, had a pony break my arm, got in a fight with a…”

He paused and looked her in the eye…

“Sylvia,” he said, with no small effort. “I fought Sylvia. She took her potion, and now she’s some kind of psycho-super-newfoal. She calls herself Reaper now, and she fokkin raised the dead...”

Her eyes widened, and he struggled to visualise the mare who had gone running around a Vegas casino wearing a shotglass for a hat. But no, he couldn’t see her.

“Can, can you, ah…” he coughed, blood dripping out his mouth. “I need you to cast a healing spell on me!”

“That could kill you!”

“I’m sure that’ll be a big fokkin’ concern to me when I’m getting ponified,” Kraber said. “Except Reaper’s coming with her damn zombie bliksems, my collarbone’s broken so I can’t use the two fokking weapons that would be any use against her, I’m limping, and I’m probably gonna die of blood loss or a hemorrhage.”

“But.. you saw what magic…” Caduceus started.

“Don’t worry,” he said, utterly resigned to his fate. “There’s nobody that’d miss me if I die from cancer, and my parents would probably actively fokking celebrate their racist kontgesig shitstain of a son dying. I’ve nothing to lose if you just fix my body. Especially because I probably gave myself permanent damage on the way here.”

“I’ll try, then,” Caduceus said, shaking. “Just… I hope you know what I-”

“Fokking do it!” Kraber yelled. “I’ve got a smashed rib thanks to taking a fokking antivehicle round in the waist, my collarbone broke, and there’s something wrong with my fokking knee. A lot of people are dead if I keep going like this!”

“They’re over here!” one newfoal screamed.

“If it makes you feel better, nobody will miss me,” Kraber said. “Also, can… is there a way tae decontaminate this armor? I don’t want to take part of it off and then find there’s still potion in the weave...”

“Alright,” Caduceus said, her horn glowing.

Kraber braced himself, feeling a strangely calming warmth as Caduceus’ burgundy-colored magic washed over him. It tickled, her aura, and rose goosebumps all down his back and legs, as if he was sitting, comfortable cool and damp beside a running bath or swimming pool.

But pain came soon enough, a strange sense of coldness in his arm, in everywhere that had been hurting, like he had plunged scalded flesh into ice water…

I can’t scream, Kraber reminded himself. No matter what…

His left arm shook, and it was like being stabbed in the hip again… it popped and crackled, shaking, and every muscle in his left arm, every muscle was burning. It was like being flayed with a white-hot knife, like he’d done to one PHL pony back in Africa, but he couldn’t scream-

“...You exposed yourself to that much magic?” Verity asks. “You’re crazier than I thought.”

But you, Dancing Day, can tell she’s admiring that level of bravery, and consider it a small victory for Kraber to have won even that small a concession.

“Damn that’s gotta hurt,” Aegis says. “I once had to get my leg speed-healed in the field… hurt a lot, but it worked.”

“Did the pain come from the magic hurting you?” Bly asks.

“Well, yes and no,” Kraber says. “Sure as fok wasn’t giving me cancer - I checked with the PHL. It’s just that healing is meant to happen over time, at the body’s natural pace, and artificially accelerating that process really fokking hurts.”

“You’re sure?” Bly asks.

“My broken collarbone, and a damn rib, were both healed in a couple seconds! Reset and respliced, nerves threaded together, splinters and marrow stuffed back where they had come. Of course that’s going to hurt. It was the second or third worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life.”

“Second?” you asks.

“...You really, really don’t want to know,” Aegis says.

“Interesting…” Bly says, writing something down on a notepad. “You’re a tough bastard, aren’t you…”

“Mr. Bly? What’re you doing?” you ask.

“Just taking note of his story. We’ve been writing out the reactions of PHL personnel to magic to see if some of R&D’s concepts-”

He shivers a little. Which is understandable, as PHL R&D - which routinely employs Mr. Kraber and Mr. Aegis for weapons testing - is insane. Effective and smart, but insane.

“-are feasible without liquefying people.”

“How’s it going, anyway?” Aegis asks. “I been wanting a new big gun that won’t hurt my friends… Maybe a Resistance P225. The ones that Boundless Creation works on.”

“I remember using a Boundless Creation minigun…” Kraber says, smiling. “That was awesome.”

“You’re not gonna tell us?” Scootaloo asks.

“Eh, uncle Viktor and and daddy will mention it later,” Rivet shrugs.

“Well, here’s the thing. They actually seem healthier,” Bly explains.

“Does this mean I can finally get that bass cannon brigade I wanted?!” Vinyl gasps.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAARGK!” Kraber bellowed as he came roaring out of the shadows, catching a cluster of undead newfoals by surprise.

They responded with potion flasks, which shattered against his shield, their contents burning off in a cloud of purple steam, as ineffectual as ice against the sun.

“Gentlestallions?” Kraber asked. “You’re just in time to watch me… practice medicine. COME AT ME, JOU KONT SE KIND!”

He roared again, firing the revolver into a newfoal unicorn’s horn. A lump of alicornal tissue and bone flew into the air, leaving a few rainbow-colored strands of something poking out from the middle of the unicorn’s forehead, and obliterating everything above it, leaving a messy stew of blood and brains splattering the walls.

“THIS WHAT JOU HAVE, BOYKIES?! REMEMBER THIS, KONTGESIGS!”

His next shot went straight through a pegasus mare’s potion bandolier, shattering the glass and punching a massive hole through her abdomen… only for the newfoal to refuse to die. Instead, the shrieking revenant flew at Kraber, only for him to reverse his grip and pistol whip her with the revolver’s heavy rubber grip.

There was an audible crack.

“THIS IS WHAT YOU ARE WITHOUT THE FOKKING BARRIER!” Kraber laughed, and kicked the newfoal in the face, brains and blood spattering over his boots. “WHY THE FOK WERE WE EVER AFRAID OF YOU!?”

“Because we’ll win…” they all replied in unison, eyes glowing and voices in resonance. “It is commanded that we win…”

He fired again, ripping through the nose of an earth pony that looked to be carrying a mouthful of potion in his cheeks in place of a flask, sending an absurd spray of red, purple, and gray everywhere.

“You cannot defeat us…”

A pegasus newfoal rushed through the window, a chain of potion bottles in her mouth, and Kraber fired the revolver again, pulping her intestines, leaving one wing flying off into the distance in a wildly improbable, gravity-defying arc.

The pegasus, however, spiraled into the window, ramming facefirst into the wall, oozing blood and perforated with broken glass.

“You mock the barrier, but cannot answer it…” she gurgled, in sync with a pair of unicorn newfoals who appeared at Kraber’s flank.

“You defy the sun, but cannot challenge it…”

Their horns roiled with sickly shadows, spells charging, and Kraber fired his revolver again, aiming for the horn of the one closest to the windows.

“You have no recourse, no answer, no future…”

The mare’s head exploded, the unused energy from the spell going wild and shattering the window inwards, pulling a spray of glass shards into the other unicorn’s body. Kraber crossed the distance in seconds, and rammed his boot up into his face.

“You have nothing…”

KICK!

“Nothing but death…”

KICK!

“Nothing but Our embrace…”

He stamped on its neck. The newfoal didn’t get up.

“ALRIGHT, WHO THE FOK’S NEXT?!” Kraber roared, reloading. “Caduceus - I might need your help.”

Before any answer came he threw the door to the stairwell open, only to find…

A pegasus newfoal mare staring back at him (a ‘normal’ one, not one of Reaper’s corpses) with an absurd, surprised look on her face, flittering in midair, a potion vial in her mouth.

Kraber lowered his revolver and drove his left hand into her mouth, feeling teeth shatter before his fist.

“I thought Sweet Apple broke-!” another ‘natural’ newfoal yelled. More were coming up the stairs, even as Reaper’s hordes descended from on high…

“Can’t break what’s already broken,” Kraber said, and slid Sylvia’s rifle and his Fostech into his hands. “LET’S DANCE, JOU BLIKSEMS!”

Despite what movies might have you believe, dual-wielding is stupid. It’s hard to aim, hard to maintain sight lines, blah blah blah sciencey stuff.

Of course, at point-blank range, that didn’t matter for kak, as Kraber simply waded into the mass of newfoals, the shotgun pellets and 5.56mm bullets cutting through up to five newfoals at once, sending blood and limbs flying everywhere. A steady stream of viscera flowed down the stairs and splashed against his armor, so much that he could barely see the original forest-green color.

He fired in short bursts that could have been anywhere from 2-5 rounds, keeping the blood pouring.

“IT’S JUST A FLESH WOUND!” Kraber yelled, as the Fostech utterly destroyed a newfoal’s skull.

Then both guns ran dry.

With barely a thought, Kraber whipped out a knife and his .45, and kept ascending the stairs, stabbing and firing.

“REAPER!” he bellowed, climbing over corpses and steel and concrete. He’d climb into Heaven itself if need be. “Where are you? I’m coming for you!”

He kicked open the door, strode onto the roof and reloaded Sylvia’s rifle, placing a fresh disruptor grenade in the breech of the launcher. He held the Fostech in his other hand, loaded with a fresh drum.

“I’m already here,” giggled Reaper’s voice, and he whirled around to find his target perched atop the staircase hut. “And lookit that, you got yourself patched up…”

“Yeah...FOR ROUND FOKKING TWO!”

He fired, and she easily sidestepped the furious shot. As more of her undead puppets rushed to dogpile Kraber, she watched on with laughter in her eyes, and that accursed song on her lips.

“You… you killed all of them…” the first newfoal to reach him whispered in Reaper’s voice, even as Reaper herself kept singing.

Kraber said nothing and shot the newfoal in the face with the Fostech. Another thirty seconds had dropped everything but Reaper herself, and slathered him in blood.

“Why won’t you take the potion?!” Reaper screamed in glee, as Kraber’s bullets smashed against her shield.

Kraber briefly considered saying something witty, but fok it, it was a newfoal. Nothing any man or woman could say to them that’d make them listen.

He held his ground, even as Reaper’s shotguns smashed against his shield. Need… more… fokking… time…

It was as if everything was in slow motion. Her shotgun shells crawled through the air, bouncing off, purple smoke hissing off the places where it impacted him.

But they were coming closer and closer with each volley, whereas his thundering responses only seemed to crawl towards the newfoal beast by millimeters...

Had her shield gotten fokking tougher or something?! Even with the grenades from Sylvia’s rifle, it was still going down at an almost fokking glacial rate.

“Because it’s not a fucking solution!” Caduceus yelled, and suddenly, everything was tinted green - a stream of energy from her horn was feeding into Kraber’s shield, strengthening it… and Reaper’s bullets burst further-and-further away.

“Caduceus!” Reaper yelled in recognition. “Why are you helping this human?! He’ll kill us both!”

“No, just you,” Caduceus said. “But you were never alive to begin with…”

“But… we’re both ponies…!” Reaper screamed, her forever-grin strained for the first time.

“No. I’ve lived my whole life in Equestria, you’re just a fucking zombie golem that thinks being a pony is doing whatever Celestia tells you!” Caduceus yelled, before turning to face the man she knew by the name ‘Ivan Bliss’.

“BLISS! Pass me that rifle Sylvia had!”

The shield crackled around them.

“Why?”

“I’M GONNA DO SOMETHING TO THE BULLETS INSIDE!”

“I thought you said you couldn’t do that!”

“I lied!”

Caduceus caught the tossed rifle, and squeezed her eyes in concentration Reaper’s shield was ablaze with green fire, small baseball-sized explosions radiating out from where Kraber’s .338 rounds hit. And then Caduceus was at his side, Sylvia’s rifle held in her TK, shaking and shuddering as the same magical energies contained within the disruptor-grenades bound to the bullets.

The result was a magical firestorm as thaum fought thaum. And then, before their eyes, Reapers shield flickered, cracked, and finally shattered like a glass bubble.

She seemed frozen in shock as Kraber lined up for the kill, last of his ammo clips loaded. He squeezed the trigger, felt the gun lurch once in his arms, and jam.

“Fok!”

Instead of a stream of .338 rounds, only a single bullet struck Reaper, glancing off her horn. Her head snapped back…

“FOK!”

And when the mare’s gaze tipped back forward, her grin had been replaced by a snarl.

“FOK-FOK-FOK!”

And with that, disaster struck.

“I CAN’T END IT LIKE THIS, BETRAYER!” Reaper screamed, as Kraber cleared the rifle’s jam and hauled back on the bolt. He fingered the trigger, saw the tracer fly true… but instead of trying to catch the last of his rifle rounds in her TK, Reaper instead disappeared in a burst of shadow…

...teleporting back into view behind Caduceus, before reeling back and bucking her in the neck with both hindlegs. Something cracked, and Caduceus dropped to the floor, visibly struggling to breathe.

Reaper held up her agglomeration of stolen weapons, ready to empty them into Caduceus. “For Sylvia’s sake, I’m sor-”

“DIE!” Kraber yelled, whipping out his revolver. His rifle might be out, but her shield was done and he could still fight. Sinking easily into a two-hand grip, Kraber flowed through the action of aiming like flowing silk, and firing all six rounds in what felt like the space of half a second. The resulting sound was not a single bang, but more akin to a peal of thunder.

The .50 rounds punched through Reaper’s horn and her neck, and she fell, coughing blood.

He reloaded, snapped the cylinder shut, and fired them all off once more, repeating until he swore he could see a ridge of bone just above her eye. One final lucky shot managed to sever her horn, and finally, blessedly, she fell.

He moved forward, cautious. He’d seen this creature stand up from so much already, he had to be sure…

“Cold…” he heard her whisper, before she made a broken, whimpering noise.

“It’s so cold….” Reaper repeated, blood leaking down from her horn’s stump. “Cold… everywhere…”

Kraber reloaded, and stared down at her, stone-faced, about to pull the trigger.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I wanted this...and didn’t… It’s all my fault. I can’t… she was in my head, Twilight Spa… called itself a Daemon. It was a monster and I invited it in... tore at me, made me want… things…love things.”

She shuddered, vomiting black blood, and was then looking back up at him with vivid purple eyes.

“Wasn’t she magnificent…” the lich giggled. “So many little whims and errors and accidents rolled up into an amazing, powerful creature…”

“There won’t be any more of them…” Kraber responded, unsure of who or what he was talking to but convinced it was somehow responsible for Reaper’s existence. “None of those abominations…”

“Oh, there will. Someday, sometime, another me, another fragment of the Mistress will make the same mistake or do the right step at the wrong time, bottle the same champagne… create another supersoldier, and multiply them by the dozen. And then... then you’ll all scream…”

“The fok’s happening here?” Kraber asked Caduceus.

“I don’t know!”

“I’m not a PHL doctor!” Kraber protested. “I’ve never seen anything like this!”

“Well, neither have I!” Caduceus yelled back.

“You know so bucking little!” giggled the thing that was neither Sylvia nor Reaper. “You didn’t even know I was here, that I and my sisters are here and will forever be inside every newfoal… and we whisper and talk and plan… this thing, this glorious Reaper, is the potential inside every soul blessed by potion... and when another sister stumbles on it, we’ll have… Victory.”

Kraber shuddered, absolutely sure that she was staring at him. No, into him.

“That’s right,” she said. “I know. Your family misses you, and they think you’d be much happier with them, Vi-”

BANG!

He shot Reaper in the eye, and the light that radiated out from around her horn dimmed.

The body stirred, and then it was a human eye, desperate and pleading, looking up at her. Sylvia’s eye.

“I… I thought… It’s such an easy thing to say you hate something… so easy to hate… what a piece of shit I am, I ca… can’t believe I went the easy way… I thought I knew… I wish I knew something…. anything. Shoot me, end all of this!” she begged.

“Okay,” Kraber said, raising his revolver up.

“Any moment,” she said. “It’s… my soul is dying. I want to die with… with most of it… Just promise me.“

“What?”

“Don’t lose your way.”

“I won’t,” Kraber said.

“How… sublime…” she whispered, blood burbling up from between her lips.

“Goodbye, Sylvia.”

He switched to his shotgun and fired, for the last time.

He didn’t go back to the island, to the base. He couldn’t maintain the pretence any longer. Instead, Caduceus had led him back to a studio-apartment that she claimed as her home. He suspected the true owner was dead.

The walls were covered in pictures. Cheap prints of digital pictures, and glossy photos. All of them showed people, and ponies. Laughing, smiling, holding one another. Sylvia was in many of the pictures, as was Caduceus, and their friends.

But as he moved along the wall, he saw the friends depart. The woman with the smile that challenged and invited - ‘Jackie’ from the scribbled notes on the reverse side - disappeared first, to be briefly replaced with a white newfoal mare with a black and red mane, who then vanished back into Equestria or into the PER underground of America. The last sighting of ‘Rio’ was in a missing person’s report from a Montana newspaper, which shared the same date as a wanted poster for ‘Merciful Light, Imperial Spy’...

That left just Caduceus, and Sylvia. And now… now there was no-one left but Caduceus herself.

Alone.

No-one left but himself, and he doubted she’d call him a friend.

Alone.

This room… this apartment… it was a temple. To absent and dead friends, to happier times. He wasn’t sure whether to cry or smile as he looked over at it. He’d forgotten that sort of thing, himself. He still possessed some relics of the old world, yes, his stuffed animals, some of Anka’s drawings, some old ballet slippers he’d left in his pack, odds and ends, but…

A tide of memories broke over him, and he knew he couldn’t stay.

Off in the distance, the sun was rising - he could see the beginnings of the day to come. It was early morning, and Kraber was all too conscious of how tired he was.

Much as it could have been fun to stay, he couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t relax, he couldn’t do anything.

In another room, he could hear Caduceus lightly snoring, more peaceful than she had any right to sound.

He checked a clock in one window - 4:45 AM. He yawned, his eyes close to giving up on him. But he couldn’t stay here. He had to leave before someone found him, before anyone else did.

He stripped off the armor and shoved it into a huge duffel bag, the same one as his LMG, and threw on a battered, bullethole-filled coat that looked to have been partly burned, and appeared to have a flower growing from it thanks to wild magic. With the beard he wore, he looked like the average bergie to be found anywhere in America nowadays. Especially on the coast.

He scrawled out a quick note, walked over to Caduceus’ bed - such a comfy, cozy-looking room, and yet so cold. So empty.

Caduceus, the note read.

This is for the best. Don’t look for me - you’ll know who I am in a few day’s time. I wasn’t that good at covering my tracks…. or my accent, for that matter. I don’t know if you actually believed for a second that I was from Scotland. Still, we were both lying to each other - I know you’re more than you say you were, and I don’t think I was good at keeping myself covered.

I don’t know where I’m going, but I can’t stay in the city. You’d want me dead if I told you why, and at this point, I wouldn’t blame you. I kind of want me dead. I know this won’t be any absolution with you, but… thanks. For fixing me up, keeping me alive, saving me from Reaper, everything. I wish I had something, anything to give, but-

He crossed that out, and passed her the photos he’d taken from Sylvia’s wallet.

I think that if Sylvia’d been around a bit longer, she’d have wanted you to have these. Maybe, when I’m not such a fokking kontgesig, I’ll be back some other time.

Goodbye.

Ivan Bliss.

P.S: If a Night Guard mare named Nebula comes by, tell her I miss her. I’ve left a few cans of good rotgut for the two of you to share.. I think you’d really get along well.

P.S.S: Sorry about taking the money from Sylvia’s wallet. I’m kind of homeless and impoverished.

He folded it, placed it on her nightstand with the promised two cans from his pack as paperweights and, careful not to wake her, he slipped out into early-morning Portland.

Sirens moaned in every direction. Speakers mounting on passing army trucks announced that the Sorghum had been recaptured in the night (strange - at some point the gunfire had stopped and he had not noticed), and that the immediate crisis was past…

“-the HLF criminals are now in custody, though a disturbing number of his accomplices have fled…”

Kraber slowly turned, feeling his eyes adjust to the pallid light.

“...but rest assured, justice will be done on them. Rumors persist of Thenardier Guard involvement, but only Menschabwehrfraktion members have been found so far...”

‘They did plan to use us as fokking meatshields,’ Kraber thought bitterly. ‘Fok.’

“Hey, Verity? What was that you said about backstabbing?” Kraber asks, raising an accusatory eyebrow.

“I didn’t sell out my-”

“Who do I like look like?”

“What?”

“WHO THE FOK DO I LOOK LIKE?!”

“Sharlto Copley,” Verity answers.

“Do. I. Look. Like. A. Teef.”

“Wh-”

“DO I LOOK… LIKE A FOKKEN TEEF?!”

“No…”

“Then why’d you try to fok me like one?” Kraber asks.

Verity facehoofs. “Oh God dammit. You… you seriously made me do that bit?”

“Yeah, I did,” Kraber says with a shit-eating grin “See… I’m fairly sure you planned to betray me from the beginning. I wasn’t coming back from there anyway. Why else would the Thenardiers ask the Menschabwehrfraktion for this kind of job? It’s not like we’d get out without consequence.”

“You destroyed the HLF!” Verity accuses him.

“No he didn’t,” you say.

“...Wha…” Verity starts.

“Your father’s still part of it,” you point out. “They’re still terrible.”

“Look.. little filly… did you see what he did? When he left us to die?!”

“It doesn’t seem all that bad,” you say. “Verity. Even if he betrayed you, you were still part of an operation that bombarded Portland… the HLF are… are going against us cause they think we’re immoral. You didn’t do much to help humanity there, and what he did doesn’t seem all that different…”

Verity stares for a moment. “Great. Being told I’m not so different,” she groans.

“Ah, it’s part of a natural process,” Kraber says sympathetically. “You have to learn from your mistakes. You’ve got to want to be better, and then it’ll stop.”

She glares at him.

“Fine. Take what they said as a challenge to get better,” Kraber suggests.

’This...’ you think, ‘Will not end well.’

The streets were cratered with shellfire, and in the morning dew the dust and filth clung to everything, settling in a deathly pall. People moved through the grey waste like ghosts, scavenging, looting, searching for the dead. He adopted a shambling gait, adding to the act of the average bergie, as he staggered through the streets.

It was a good act, because it wasn’t an act.

“...Can’t imagine what this has to do with ‘saving’ humanity,” one woman said, holding up a heavy bit of rebar and using it as a lever to push a slab of concrete off of a pony.

“Oh, fuck, thank you!” the pony gasped. “My… my legs… ah God, that hurts…”

And Kraber saw what he’d done.

This… this is who we are, Kraber realized. This is what we do.

If any HLF on that rig had made their way off, he sure as fok didn’t want to meet them. Wasn’t a place for him in the ruins of Portland or the HLF. So, with that in mind, he staggered towards what looked like a commandeered bus.

The bus he’d taken was old, a krimpie among buses, a relic of an earlier era that had been clumsily refitted into what little of the modern age could be built up at times like this. There were Crowe solar panels on the roof, and the seats were ever so slightly uncomfortable, arranged so they’d work with ponies and humans, and not quite doing the job of either.

Evidently, Kraber wasn’t the only one that had agreed. There were a couple stallions and mares squashed uncomfortably into the rattletrap beside him… even some zebras. He’d never been quite sure of how to feel about zebras. He’d signed on to kill ponies, and eventually Pinkie Pie. But the zebras weren’t part of the newfoal rushes, you never heard about zebras trying to ponify everyone.

“I have to deal with PER, people that want to fuck me,” muttered one zebra mare in… Kraber still found it a bit weird. Xhosa. Still, considering that ponies spoke English - though Celestia claimed they spoke Equish or whatever, and used that as an excuse to take possession, he’d long since decided not to question it. “So much shit I gotta go through. Still better than home.”

Ah, what the hell do I have to gain from not talking?

“Why?” he asked. “What was it like back home?”

“Well, the Queen Bitch leaves us alone…” the zebra mare said. “But any day now, she’ll go after my folks. It’s not ‘if’, it’s when.”

“...What do you do about it, though?” Kraber asked.

“What can we do?” the zebra mare asked. “The Queen Bitch eviscerated the Griffon lands - the only ones that had enough military power to support us. If any provinces rebel, she decides not to provide them with rain and bombards them with storms. And the reindeer of Adlaborn, our oldest and truest friends, are pressed ever further into their heartland as the Equestrian forts press closer to their borders. There’s places that have practically killed off their own culture just to make sure she lets them be. I guarantee that in a couple years, they’ll be newfoals too, or as near as.”

“That’s fokking awful,” Kraber whispered. “How the hell’s that worse than here?”

“Well, at least she lets people on earth have some semblance of dignity,” the zebra mare said. “The Tyrant? She’s just playing with her food, but at least here we can die free.”

The bus stopped at a grade crossing, waiting for a train to pass in front, heading back into Portland. Probably to help in withdrawing resources, not to render aid, though thanks to the HLF - to him - it’d have some major delays along the way. Kraber marveled at it - it looked to have been put together by a model train fan with more parts than sense of realism. There was a large steam locomotive, too big and moving too fast for Kraber to identify (and even then, all he knew was that it was identifiable by how many wheels it had. And that was… four? Three? It was dark) followed by a large cabless booster unit, a road slug, that looked to run on clockwork. The things had proved surprisingly popular when trying to save fuel.

Kraber was looking out the window, watching TVs in the windows of an electronics store flicker and crackle. The glass had been smashed, but a metal grill had saved the inventory from damage and looting.

Faintly, through the opened window, he could hear a news broadcast…

“-estimated three thousand dead in Downtown Portland, with a further seventeen thousand unaccounted for…”

“What did you say?” he muttered idly, having missed her last words in the rattle of the passing train.

“She’s playing with her food,” she repeated bitterly. “She doesn’t think they’d ever be a threat. She knows they’ll never amount to anything. And what few resistance factions exist back there are afraid to do anything big enough that she gets rid of their biggest advantage - the campaign against you.”

“- Refugees of Lagos, Nigeria, and other cities atomized by the Barrier were slated to be first in line to receive treatment from Sutra Cross’ medical convoy…”

“It’s only that sort of thing that keeps her from killing every resistance fighter. They’re on sort of a low burn, anyway,” the zebra continued.

“Kinda of like the HLF, I’d bet,” Kraber said.

“Yeah, tHaT’s rIgHt,” the zebra whispered in a dozen screeching tones, and Kraber cringed, shivering at the realization of what that means. It was if there were multitudes of voices over or underlaid under what that zebra’s saying. Oh no.

Oh, fok.

“THaT’s RiGhT, KrAbEr,” the zebra said, her eyes yellowing and melting down the sides of its face, worms growing out the empty sockets. “ThEy’D cHeErEd uPoN fInAlLy sEeInG tHe HLF rEtReAt. AfTeR tHeY’d HeLd A cItY fOr RaNsOm, DeStRoYiNg So MaNy FaMiLiEs AnD lIvElIhOoDs.”

“No…. no no no…” Kraber whispered, and people turned to stare at him, though they don’t know what he is denying. He can’t look Kraber - no, crazy! He can’t look bosbefok before all these people and all these… yes, before all these ponies. Even what few zebras are there.

Grabbing his bag he staggered off the bus and almost collapsed against the smashed window of the electronics store.

“What’s wrong Viktor?” asked all the TVs on display behind the security mesh. From each screen a flickering face stares back at him, glares back at him: his family and friends, Lovikov and Verity, Caduceus and Sylvia, whose eyes glow with the light of the Reaper within. Nebula and Socket Wrench share a screen, as does the filly from the roadblock and her mother. The newfoal is there, and Victory, and the zebra mare. “Who are you running from?”

“Hou jou bek! HOU JOU FOKKIN BEK!”

Another flicker, and now the corpses of the pony family he slaughtered back in the mine appear within the screens, speaking around the worms in their rotting mouths, glaring at him through the maggots in the eyes.

“We only scream, Victor, because you made us scream.”

Fingers trembling, he pulled out his phone, turned on iTunes, queued up the first thing on the playlist and drove the earplugs into his ears, trying to drown out the voices-

All our times have come
Here but now they're gone
Seasons don't fear the reaper
Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain, we can be like they are…

“You’re a hypocrite, Kraber,” the newfoal said, clear and audible over the screaming music. “You’re near as bad as what you fight. You’ve inflicted just the same anguish on strangers that was visited upon yourself. You’ve claimed to liberate people, but you fired on a city full of civilians, taking an eye and a limb for every slight against you, leaving the whole world crippled and blind. You’re-”

“SHUT! THE FOK! UP!” Kraber screamed. “I KNOW, DAMN YOU! I KNOW!”

There is a pause.

“...It’s about fokking time,” the newfoal said.

“I know what I’m doing,” Kraber said. “I know what I have to do. I’ll try and be a correct ou. I’ll… I’ll choose life. Maybe I won’t fok a pony, but fok jou - I’m doing something now. I promise that. Now SHUT THE FOK UP AND LET ME THINK!”

He had to admit it now.

The ponies were people too. He’d seen enough - gone so far beyond his limits - that he couldn’t deny that anymore. The ponies he’d met on the rig had been decent folk, same with the ones he’d seen in the city and the ones he’d fought alongside. But Lovikov? He’d tried to shoot him for not being fanatical enough. Galt was a pretentious prick that followed a loathsome philosophy. Mariesa put on the face of a kind and loving mother, but her bloodthirst shone through the mask. His own chommies had shot children and foals - yes, foals, though admitting that is like sandpaper against his brain.

“...investigation continues into the public abduction of Sutra Cross. So far, no official statement has been given by authorities, but all signs point to the HLF.”

“Unless we show self-control, everything will fall apart,” said a yellow earth pony on the TVs, and for a second he thought this was a new hallucination, before realising with relief that it was just a sample from a recorded interview. Thankfully, his subconscious wasn’t that sadistic… yet. Her cutie mark was a blue medical kit with a green cross in the center. She had a red bob haircut - well, manecut, Kraber supposed. “There’s a lot of people in Boston, including ponies in hiding, that won’t react well to the cramped conditions proposed in the evacuation protocols. Furthermore, the inadequate provision of food, water and sanitation create a perfect environment for cultivation, incubation and transmission of diseases. We need only remember what happened when the Feather Flu crossed the species gap and became infectious to humans to realise the dangers of-”

“Wait, can I backtrack a little?” interrupted the interviewer. “Please elaborate on ‘ponies in hiding?”’

“Yeah,” Sutra Cross answered. “The majority of Equestrian asylum seekers have neither military training or the inclination to bear arms, and are affiliated with no particular organisation. That’s not enough for most governments however, who offer refugees a choice between service in the PHL or enforced custody in detention centres. I appreciate the risk of infiltrating enemy agents through civilian refugees, but you can’t fault somepony who doesn’t want to choose between serving in an army or serving time. Or worse. The ones in hiding are the ones who tried to cut themselves a third path. They just wanted out of Equestria...”

Kraber could sympathize with that.

“I hate to say it, but they’re putting themselves in danger,” Sutra Cross continued. “They’re on their own in a hostile world with nobody to vouch for them. But with the way tensions are escalating, I highly advise any unaffiliated Equestrians hearing this to seek out official protection before the HLF or somebody with a grievance against our species throws a punch in their direction. You don’t have to carry a gun to help your host nations in this fight. More than anything now the PHL needs water-bearers more than arms-bearers. We’re never short of people and ponies volunteering to be soldiers, but what we really want are good engineers, medics, scientists, farmers and mages. Most of these unaffiliated ponies already fulfill the same roles in their local communities, already. And...”

She paused. “I just realized this. But that’s what the HLF don’t get.”

Now that, that was hurtful. True, but hurtful.

“They’re only focused on the fighting. Not building new infrastructure, or growing new crops, or even learning new ideas. There’s a few that try, but most HLF just hide in camps and force themselves to either steal or starve...”

“Are you worried about the Front?”

“If by that you mean ‘do I think they’re a threat’, then yes. But I am also concerned for them...”

“And we know how that goes,” Kraber sighs. “I swear, this seems like tempting fate… but this is what I remember her saying.”

“They are underfunded and undersupplied and that makes them dangerous. Worst of all, they’re desperate and scared,” Sutra Cross continued. “Even so, we’re attempting to reach out to them, with offers of medical supplies and amnesty if they agree to come under the aegis of the UN. And by the Golden Lyre, I hope they accept, and realise the good that the PHL can do, for them and with them…”

“Ah, fok,” Kraber sighs, taking another drink.

“...because they’ve suffered just like the rest of us,” Sutra Cross finished. “Yes, for now they are the enemy, but we all have a responsibility to them as much as to our own. To help as many people as we can, because the real Enemy won’t. Every free-minded being has a duty of care to their fellows, and I don’t propose that we fail in that duty.

A duty of care… what had he done like that? Had he saved people since the three weeks of blood? Executed any operations where the safety of civilians was more important than pony casualties?

No, he had simply executed.

He slumped against the wall of the store, unnoticed. Just another breathing corpse in a city whose destitute and homeless now form the majority of the population.

“YOU ARE NO PARTISAN. NO HERO,” the zebra from the bus intoned, fading in from shadow to loom over him, light blue-green eyes burning into him.

She was transparent, another shard of his splintering hold on reality, but the words rang out in his skull, louder than a heavy-frame revolver next to his ear, burning just as much as the gas that escaped the gap between the cylinder and the barrel…

Were those tears straining against his eyes? Gasping from the pain, taking in deep breathes, hyperventilating as if he had just been shot. He clasped one hand to his head. No blood.

He’d killed hundreds, enough that his body count was enormous. He remembered stripping the flesh of the living, salting the wounded, and an litany of drownings, beatings and stabbings.

He remembered the words “tell us what you know or we’ll send you to Kraber, “ becoming a shibboleth of the Front’s torturers. Remembers his growing myth, of being built up as some kind of monster, of coming to believe his own propaganda. Kraber: the rabid dog on a chain, the kind of story told to frighten children, by loving parents full of the kind subconscious hate for their own offspring that inspires those scary stories, on the offchance that a little dose of nightmare before bed will make their children behave, be good, stay close, and avoid the HLF.

Kraber the Animal. Kraber the Krampus, the mad doctor who will find you and get you and take his sweet time killing, working naughty children and foals over for hours, days even, loving your screams

He can’t be that way, can he?! He’s… he’s not… Oh god oh god oh god, you’re not Kraber, you’re not that much of a kontgesig, you’re fokking evil, you have to be someone else? Ivan Bliss? No, people like Nebula and Caduceus will be looking for Ivan Bliss. You’re someone else. Someone from Leith, maybe, someone-

Who am I kidding? I’m fokking terrible at keeping up a Scottish accent-

Your name is Viktor Marius Kraber and you give up. You couldn’t wade against the current of your own grief, but instead of standing your ground you let the river carry you off into the Heart of Darkness, to die forever in cynicism and blood...

He can’t…

He can’t do it anymore! HE CAN’T DO IT! FOK! The tears are coming out before he even realizes it, and the inside of the mask he donned to hide from himself is wet with them.

He loved kids! And now a war-born generation is being raised to fear Viktor the Boogeyman!

He loved kids, and would have learned to love foals too if only...

If only...

If only that man, that poor kid Dietrich, hadn’t gotten gesuip that night in his parent’s car. After three bottles of Leffe Triple, the kid had rolled Papa’s vintage DeLorean DMC-12 on a hairpin turn and needed paramedical treatment before they could safely cut him out of the car’s fiberglass body-shell.

Guess who’d been the paramedic on duty that night?

Drunk driving was the kind of behaviour he expected back in college, but not so much in adulthood over here in Germany. People got up to crazy shit on campus. Not so much here in the shadows of the mountains of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, the German ski resort he has come to call his pozzy. Or, well, home, as he explains to people unfamiliar with his accent. It’s been a good place to raise a family, in the shadow of the Alps. He can snowboard as well - he finds it vaguely similar to surfing, back home in Cape Town.

Dietrich crashed in the evening, and beside the thought of his kids’ birthday, Kraber had been looking forward to a planned ski-trip with some friends. He’s missed the challenges of downhill and cross-country, and has barely had a proper chance to hit the trails since he and his chommies all went up to New Hampshire to go skiing.

There was this one place, Wildcat… real bare-bones, no condos, colder than a witch’s tit, looked like it hadn’t had the touch of modernity since about the seventies or eighties. Perfect! All those American condos got annoying. And Erika knew a lot of good trails on that mountain - well, off the mountain, down in the backcountry, near-miles off the mountain onto a whole other peak. Ah, memories!

Oh, the memories...

In the hours before death, the man is attending to Dietrich, pressed into the DeLorean’s passenger seat and trying to stabilize the injuries the kid sustained from being crushed against the steering wheel, before the rescue technicians can bring in the jaws of life. It’s an emergency, and he respects that, but dammit, he’d specifically asked for this day off to be at his kids birthday, the one he hired Pinkie Pie for, but no…

It’s not his bosses’ fault, this last-minute duty change. That bastard on G-wing, Miliardo, had quit without notice and ‘gone pony’ - willingly, or so he heard - and they’d needed someone to cover him. Kraber hates covering for other people on the job, unless they’ve arranged it with him beforehand. “You irresponsible kontgesig!” he’ll always yell at people that make him do that.

And yet, he can’t blame Miliardo either. The guy’s family had all emigrated to Equestria, except for a kid sister away at boarding school... the pain of separation must have gotten too much.

”You see?” Burakgazi will ask, disgusted, a few months from now after rescuing his niece from a Bureau and placing a borrowed STG44 in the fifteen year-old’s hands, giving her a quick run-down on how to use it. “That is how they do it. All your friends or family get ponified… willing or no… and it’s just so fokking lonely. It’s simple psychology, playing on insecurity.”

“Wait, are you a psychologist?” Kraber will reply.

And Burakgazi will simply say that he dabbles in what interests him. Which Kraber can - or will - sympathize with, as he’s tried writing and drawing before. It’s the writing that really showed promise, though. But, no - we are back in the now.

He can’t really blame the kid either. Cases like Dietrich’s are getting tragically common in the age of the Conversion Bureaus. The boy’s parents are followers of that crazy, Jacqueline Dionna Reitman, and have already taken the potion. From what Dietrich mumbles as Kraber preps him for extraction, they’ve been trying to pressure him into making the same choice. Unable to cope with the stress, he’d gone out to lose his mind in the bottom of a glass...

After three bottles of something with an ABV of 8.5, going for a joyride in Papa’s turbo-modded DMC to blow off some steam seems like a good idea. After all, it’s not like Pa can drive it anymore, not with those hooves...

The boy’s murmurs and gibbers in the wreck of the DeLorean freak Viktor out more than he should. It should be nonsense, but there’s a horrifying sense of reality to them. Somehow - for Kraber is good with understanding accents and slurred speech - he knows what’s going on.

And fear. Fear of the things that were once his parents, but which can now barely remember his name, and who try to serve him equine meals on a nightly basis.

Fear that, when he gets to the hospital, they’ll be waiting for him, insisting that he be treated immediately with potion.

It’s because of those fears that Kraber stays at the kid’s side, all the way to the hospital. In the back of the ambulance he forges a few signatures on the report forms, citing complications that don’t exist, and making it ‘doctor’s orders’ that the boy not be administered any potion until he has fully recovered…

...by his estimation, that will be after the kid reaches his age of majority, and then nobody will be legally allowed to force ponification upon him, not even his parents. He doesn’t want this to turn into another clusterfuck...

“I was running away,” the boy whispers from the gurney, barely audible through the oxygen mask as Kraber tries to remember how Direktor Dermail signs his name. “I don’t know where, to Amsterdam, Britain, America, anywhere but my house…”

He’d been making those kind of noises since before Viktor arrived, and that was what had convinced him to falsify the paperwork. Yes, what he did was illegal. But he would argue it was part of his duty to the kid…

...his Duty of Care.

Because it was the right thing to do. Beyond the gruesome work of ensuring Dietrich survives, the forged documents will ensure that he lives...

They part ways at the hospital, the man confident that the boy will not be ponified and that he’s in a ‘stable’ condition.

He mentally chuckles at the pun, thinking in English ‘Right. He should be anything but stable.’

The man likes puns.

He won’t have much to laugh at, soon. Not helped by the fact that the world is going to end.

It is Year One, the last year of anything approximating ‘normal’ human society. It’s a world where meat is plentiful, where everyone’s pozzy is still intact, where the world isn’t in constant war. It is in fact nearly a month before that paradigm gets turned on its head: the Three Weeks of Blood have yet to come, humanity’s greatest treasures aren’t at risk, and most people the world over can wake up without fear that the next morning won’t be their last. And yet, there is something… off.

The man hates that he cannot quantify this feeling that something is wrong. “Off” does not feel like the right word. It's a cliche, people saying "off" in reference to something changing, conveying so much through that verb. But there is a shifting under the skin of the world, a tremor of fear beneath the excitement that remains after First Contact with Equestria.

‘Ladies and Gentlemen, we are not alone. There is life out there, and they’re friendly!’

He cannot deny this unease. His mother has been running experiments on what few newfoals she can find that have not become recluses from their former lives (that’s another thing, why are newfoals so disdainful of their own humanity, so hostile to the memory of the people they had been?), and here findings worry him, as do the rumors beginning to circulate, about Celestia. Her drive to open a hundred new bureaus has unnerved a lot of formerly ambivalent people, himself included. What’s… what’s the need? Even though the rate of conversion has plateaued (though at a higher rate than he would have expected), Equestria is pushing for a mass expansion of their facilities, as if expecting an influx of willing converts… but he can’t rightly say why they are.

He will later suspect a cocktail of spells, suggestion, and pheromones inveigling their way into the general populace and the political establishment, for how else could humans have jumped on that bandwagon so fast? Kagan will support this theory.

He’s called upon his old chommies, the few that he's still in contact with (God knows what Polo's up to now) and they're various shades of unnerved. Though there's funny news as well, specially about Helen’s sister Corinne, the one they bombarded with horse porn, but that’s cut off when Helen says she herself has now joined the Harriet Thomas Foundation, and she’s terrified. She was a sister to the man in all but blood, so a bit of the old instincts stir in him…

He understands her fear. There are groups advocating compulsory ponification sprouting up all over the place, and even some that practice what they preached. Obviously, they are totally not affiliated with Queen Celestia.

Unpleasant ideas are circulating within the medical profession as well, with various doctors reporting that the numbers of people admitted to Bureaus are statistically unlikely.

And Heather, who ended up staying in Boston, nursing at the hospital there, passed along a really disturbing bit of information about a particular patient from last year, a graphic artist. It was one of the rare cases where the resulting newfoal was so unequivocally different in temperament and attitude that it was impossible to deny something was seriously wrong. Heather is now convinced that whatever the potion did, whatever mental rewiring it entailed (“Of course it rewires them, you sure as hell don’t have the muscle memory to walk on four legs like a quadruped!”) is far more extreme than anyone realizes, outright destroying identity at worst.

Heather felt very sorry for that poor artist’s daughter as well. She’d apparently reacted, well… saying she’d reacted ‘poorly’ would be like calling the ocean a body of water. The poor girl had gone nuts, that was how Heather put it. Her screams of “THAT’S NOT MY MOTHER!” had carried through the entire hospital, until the police had to be called in to secure the girl and arrest the father for attacking a representative assigned by the Equestrian consulate...

But that was one drop in a pool of water. After the Conversion Bureaus opened, the number of leaked horror-stories and rumours tailed off to nil, though there’s some that whisper that something’s being done to people’s minds. With nothing to work from, it was impossible to conclusively prove anything.... Sure, ponies come out, not people, but nobody hears anything. Not for a long time.

Yes, something has been set in motion, and people are beginning to sense that nothing can stop it, lending a curious unknowability to the coming days...

There is distrust in the air.

In particular, the man distrusts the Conversion Bureaus. Heather is not alone there. He considers them overused, too good to be true. He has seen the potion, seen the newfoals. There is something other, something they’re looking at that nobody else can see, and some parents were disappointed that Anka, who loved horses, did not invite any ponified children to her party tonight. Come to think of it, Richard Pretorius - his cousin from back in South Africa… seems like he’s not all there anymore...

In the future, Kraber will make it inside the Innsbruck Bureau with a load of satchel charges and bathtub semtex, and the battle cries die in his throat. Even when he is telling a room of ponies and humans about this story, he will never say what he has seen inside Bureaus. He’ll soon have an impressive count of Bureau bombings to his name, but he shall never speak about it. All anyone will know about the Innsbruck Bureau is that he had just stepped inside, and simply decided to kill anything that moved and blown the place to hell.

...Peter and Anka do not like the Bureaus or the Newfoals, a fact upon which the man agrees. He also does not like Reitman’s insistence on potion being the Grand Panacea, the Cure-All-Elixir. He has seen her and that odd unicorn Catseye together on TV, and there is something vaguely off-putting about both of them. An odd… unity to them, like Goss and Subby, as if - whoops, that’s a spoiler. But it is as if they are fundamentally the same, two appendages of the same mind, using two mouths to say what is, in essence, the same.

There are colleagues of his who want to use the potion as well, though the hospital has heavy restrictions on its use. They claim that the potion has been too easily accepted, without sufficient long-term testing (oh how wrong that will eventually prove to be - the potion was tested and refined for years!). But his mother has done her own extensive tests, and the preliminary results disturb him beyond belief. They indicated that, without exception, newfoals eventually show an almost complete dissociation from previously-treasured passions, possessions, peoples and philosophies, becoming almost completely different people. She is growing worried, especially as tensions rise between the increasingly unstable ‘Human Liberation Front’ and Ponification for Earth’s Rebirth.

As people become ever so insistent to ponify his children, her grandchildren...

He can believe it. Newfoals are not the same people they once were. They have faraway, glassy looks. They act vaguely distasteful of anything un-Equestrian, and proselytize on behalf of everything equine. They are distant from friends and family. They cannot rightly be called the same people, and almost everyone knows it.

Can you hear me Mr Kraber

These are strange times. Something is stretched to its limit, and it has to break.

It nearly broke for Kraber when some PER evangelists, one newfoal and one woman, had come by and attempted to ponify his daughter, implying that she had a mental disorder, easily ‘treated’ through ponification. Rather aggressively, as well. His response to the newfoal and his eyes had been simple and decisive.

“I was only being polite about your eyes! They are weird! Now you FOKKING LISTEN TO ME! YOU WILL NOT CHANGE MY HOMETOWN! YOU WILL NOT CHANGE MY FRIENDS! AND YOU WILL NOT CHANGE, OR FIX, OR DO ANYTHING AT ALL TO MY WIFE, MY SON, OR MY LITTLE GIRL!”

The man takes pride in his work. He admits a distaste for the military, but he has joined the reserve forces to better ‘support’ his family. And he likes the feeling of firing an LMG on full-auto, one of those new .338 Norma Magnum MG2019s that still can’t quite improve on Hitler’s old buzzsaw. He does not suspect how familiar the future will make him with these weapons...

When he is done with Dietrich, the man leaves the hospital and jumps into his car, breaking so many speed limits in the process.

You need get out here

The HLF end is coming

soon

He hears something strange over the radio. That there are hundreds, if not thousands of ponies crossing the border every day, and many are claiming political asylum. Some are making names for themselves, such as Vinyl Scratch and Octavia, both of whom Peter and Anka like. Other newcomers attest that Equestria is not all that it seems. Hints of an Orwellian nightmare, cultural suppression, extreme civil unrest, anti-human sentiment, a growing military buildup. But for what? Are they that afraid, having already vanquished the tyrant Sombra? Are they… preparing for war? That’d be a fool’s game.

But that is of no notice to the man as he pulls into his driveway. It is a small, modest house, unused to the man’s new salary, near a ski area because that means a lot of business for him.

He practically flies out of his car, his coat trailing after him.

Today is April 23rd 2019, his children’s birthday. Peter and Anka turn five today. The twins were an unexpected blessing (never an ‘accident’) that came during that production of Trainspotting that he was in, and he has been through hell for them and Kate, dropping prematurely out of university, going from job to job, putting in weeks of overtime to makes ends meet. He would do anything for them, he loves his children, and he will be damned if anything happens to them.

Can only do so little stuck here in Equestria

Flit from mind

to mind,

and read dreams

Kate, his wife, said she would baking the cake. She is the perfect wife, he thinks. Or, he thinks, remembering his love for Welcome To Night Vale, perhaps it’s her imperfections that make her so beautiful and beloved in his eyes. Yes, he loves her because of her imperfections, not in spite of them. She cooks with love and eccentric yet decidedly delicious flair, making such culinary marvels as the roast-garlic-onion jam, brie, roast beef, apple, pecan, and maple syrup sandwich. Which, to the man’s surprise, is delicious. Even the smallest dishes she makes for her husband, a man profoundly undeserving of someone as wonderful as her, might as well be served at the finest restaurants of Germany.

He’s looking forward to seeing what she’s baked as he steps up to the front door.

It’s pure agony

Not being

But feeling nothing, just

the absence of

feeling. Seeing all this

mind opened to your plight

And unable to do anything

Perhaps because of her preternatural skill in the kitchen, she tells the man that he must never refer to her skin as ‘chocolate-colored’. That’s a food, she says. You might get to eat me up, but nobody else does. Besides, it’s annoying when urban fantasy does that. He is looking forward to a kiss from her, a hug to welcome him in.

This party is mostly for Anka. While Peter loves the visitors and ponies less than she does, it is made with her in mind. Perhaps Anka will become a vet? Though she expresses quite the fondness for dance class. She might just have a little girl’s love of costumes, and he wishes so much that he could have been around to see Pinkie Pie create the party. She… Hell, it just seems to fit. Pinkie seems to him like an adult with the partying capacity of a teenager, and the bubbly sugar-driven enthusiasm of a child, which Peter and Anka will love. The man muses on this, the noise in his head drowning out the terrible, deafening silence coming from his house.

Perhaps he wants to ignore it.

When he opens the door, he expects a great, bonecrushing hug from his wife. He expects Anka to laugh and smile and for all the anger he has for being forced to work on his children’s birthday to just melt away. Perhaps Anka will be wearing a horse costume. A brown unitard with a tail. Silly, he admits it, but he helped make it for a ballet recital (who would have guessed that skill at stitching up wounds from industrial accidents also translates to sewing fake manes onto costumes?) and she loves the thing.

It is a struggle to get her not to wear it in day in and day out, but the man loves her even so. Even with his friends in attendance, judging by the girls and ponies Anka has invited, poor Peter will no doubt have already been forced into a matching costume, whether he likes it or not.

The man is also hoping Pinkie Pie hasn’t had to leave for her next appointment. He caught a lucky break in managing to secure her services today, but apparently she has a soft-spot for twins. To his amazement, she refused to accept any of his hard-won cash, saying over the phone she’s happy simple to help ponies ‘smile, Smile, SMILE!’

It’s odd that she limited her definition to ‘ponies’, but her presumes its force of habit for her. From what he’s seen and heard, she seems like a nice pony, and expects a good hug from her too…

...perhaps he’ll get a quiet conversation with her, and some clarification over his concerns and fears over the potion and Equestria…

No!

No, none of that pessimistic thinking now. I’ve worked my ass off, I get to be with my kids and my wife, scoop them up and hug them and ask how happy they are...

“Today is a Happy Day!” he says aloud, before throwing open the door and bracing himself for-

In the first hour after death, the silence is overpowering. The absence of any of the sounds of rowdy children and foals is deafening.

There is no one within the house. He is certain of it. The man calls out again and again, eyes wide. He wishes he had a gun. He feels as if he is walking into the gullet of some great leviathan beast, something to swallow him whole.

In some distant corner of his mind, the man knows what is about to happen. It urges him to get his gun from upstairs, a modest bolt-action hunting rifle. Though he can’t rightly say why, it’s not like the house is full of something dangerous -

That’s not true. There is nothing in this house, and he’s afraid that the nothing is going to come up and swallow him. He knows what is about to happen, a panicked realization that he has been here before. And yet, even as his feet and mind scream against him, he is powerless. He can do nothing.

A speaker crackles. It is playing some pony song that Anka likes, straight from Kate’s iPhone. And it’s on shuffle, so as soon as the track ends, it switches straight to something new.

‘C’mon everpony smile-smile-smile,
Fill my heart up with sunshine, sunshine...’

The man knows these lyrics. The man has heard this song countless times before, not just on Kate’s phone but on one of those radio stations that plays music from Equus. He steps into the living room, praying to not see blood on the floor or walls. Prays that his children are fine, that they are just trying to surprise him. Perhaps Pinkie Pie is trying to surprise him? She is a genius of partying, after all. Or so he’s been told.

Praying that the house he and his family have made together is not white with crimson inside, as that favorite song of his says. He looks into the dining room. My god his mouth is dry. There are drops of something purple there. Something grotesque.

He knows the smell before he even sees it. Like lavender shampoo, or wildflowers, but sickly sweet and cloying. He knows that smell, has seen its source in hospitals, held out by dead-eyed doctors with clammy hands and gray-white-yellow skin. They always seem like addicts to his eyes, far too insistent on bringing it to patients attention, singlemindedly convinced on using it on everything more severe than the common cold. And even that’s a stretch.

He does not like these doctors. Nor does he trust their Grand High Wizard, Reitman.

He trembles. No. No, it cannot be.

But it is. It’s potion.

He sees the room. It is as if a cyclone has come through there. Cake is splattered all over the walls, the furniture is smashed, and there are tiny hoofprints leading out the door. There is more of that purple slimy shit everywhere he can see.

There’s a cord suspended from the ceiling, with a few scraps of papier-mache suspended from it.

A pinata. Pinkie Pie had promised a pinata on the phone…

SHE’D FILLED IT WITH POTION!!

...potion which had splashed all over the children when the bat had been swung hard enough, by a pair of tiny hands…

“No… Oh God no, oh God… Oh God...” He thinks he is going to be sick.

But the logic was...no-no-no...his children and countless others couldn’t be newfoals.

But there were hoofprints in the floor. Tiny, foalish hoofprints! Oh God, Oh god… he’s trembling like a leaf, eyes are tearing up, he’s drawing in ragged, unsteady breaths. What sick, deranged, fokking KONTGESIG would do this?! What fokking bliksem could ever devise this idea?!

He’d report-

He’d summon the pol-

He’d drive to the barracks an-

HE’D BLIKSEM THEM, RIP THEM ALL APART AND SLAUGHTER THEM WITH HIS BARE FOKKING HANDS!

He’s got so many things planned now. Oh, they’re going to burn. They’re going to suffer, they’re going to scream just like his children must have, they’ll drown in their own fokking blood as he flays them to strips...

In the second hour after death, the man hears a terrible laughter, and he is not sure whether or not it is his. At one end of the room, he sees a clown in makeup. A pony, though how makeup works with fur, he does not know.

Not Pinkie Pie… one of her staffers… an accomplice...

The creature will not stop laughing. It laughs and laughs, hysterically, and the sound grates against the man’s ears.

The man does not know what he is going to do. He walks upstairs, and finds his rifle and medical bag. All he knows is that he is going to stop that clown from laughing, from laughing that his children have disappeared.

In the fourth hour after death, he realizes he cannot remember why he was pressing that spoon into the pony’s eye. He can barely remember the previous day, or even how he got into the house. Is he interrogating? Is he just angry?

In the fifth hour after death, after some work with a knife, he decides he is trying to avenge them.

In the seventh hour, he realizes he has been screaming at the pony so long he can barely talk. He realizes it has been quite some time.

There’s tables of untouched party-food on the tables, and to keep his new ‘friend’ alive he finds himself stuffing some of it down the creature’s throat.

Cupcakes...

In the eighth hour after death, he takes a short break, dresses the wounds, and reads a storybook in front of it, showing kindness, acting regretful…

‘Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better, it’s not…’

...only to go back on it with his grandfather’s medical bag. He ruins a perfectly good pair of scissors and pliers that way.

In the ninth hour after death, he has used every chemical and device in that old, weathered medical bag. He goes down to the basement, deciding that the contents of his work-bench will be more persuasive. There’s a nice jigsaw, power drill, circular saw, and staple gun that will do nicely...

In the tenth hour after death, he is so covered in blood that he cannot tell what color his clothes were before. He has run out of power tools to use. Which is disappointing, he could have sworn there were more…

There’s a hardware store down the street, and he has a crowbar...

In the eleventh hour after death, just after the man has used a large saw to cut off one of the clown’s legs, he hears an answer to his repeated demands of ‘why?’.

The pony speaks in a weak, whispery voice. The man has been careful to avoid the vocal cords and lungs so the bastard can speak. He learns that soon, there will be war. That all ponies will rally behind this righteous cause, that Celestia shall let the Barrier expand and envelope the world. That this is a crusade, and she won’t stop till every human on earth is dead or a newfoal, an automaton dead in mind, body, and soul.

And that makes the claw hammer in Kraber’s right hand shudder, and before he knows it, the head is covered in blood...

In the twelfth hour after death, the man rams a foreign object into his neck, performing a casual tracheotomy, and he’s so sure he will be a suspect.

It’s so amusing to feed a cupcake into the mouth, extract it from the throat through the hole he’s just made, and then repeat the process...

In the thirteenth hour after death, the man laughs like the clown, and brings down a chair on the pony’s head.

In the fourteenth hour after death, he flays strips from the pony.

In the fifteenth hour after death, it hits him once more, the enormity of what he must do and what has happened to him. He realises that somewhere, within just a few miles, there are some smiling, glassy-eyed zombies indwelling the corpses of his family. He knows he will be forced to kill, in the fullness of time. Tears stream from his eyes, but they don’t wash away the blood.

In the sixteenth hour after death, he knows what he is doing. All of a sudden. He is making them pay.

In the seventeenth hour after death, but the first hour after the clown has ceased to breathe, there is nothing left of it but meat and bones. All over the room, and the man’s clothing.

Nor is there anything left of the man.

In the eighteenth hour after death, something walks out of that house, with a bolt-action rifle, a lot of ammunition, and bombs made from household chemicals. It searches for someone, anyone willing to assist in its quest for revenge. Polo, over in Boston, he’s been talking about being harsher nowadays, and he thinks that some preacher man named Mike Carter’s a true focus for fighting this war. Let the klein kakfokkers burn…

It’s going to be fokking kwaai.

The thing that walks out is not the man.

During the Three Weeks of Blood, Erika Kraber will receive a phone call. It’ll be something asking about the status of her children. The podcast she makes in response will be the final nail in the coffin for this man - that his children are drunk up, that there is nothing left to get back.

What is left of the man dies. It may never come back, and there is nothing left inside him tying him down - he’d love to be with his parents. He really would. But he’s too angry about it all, too bloodthirsty to do anything but kill.

It walks out of the house, following fresh hoofprints into the thick, dark forest beyond the street, where trees stretch tall enough that the stars themselves seem to be caught within their branches.

He doesn’t take long from him to find them. Or for them to find him.

Ponies, many of them newfoals, slip out of the trees. They form themselves out from the cracks between bark, the shapes between branches.

The man smiles.

With each pony he kills, with each newly invented act of brutality and sadistic glee justified as ‘saving mankind,’ every self-effacing reason he gives for his newfound murderous tendencies, he kills a little more of himself.

The seasons change all around the man as he walks through the forest. There are ponies swinging from the trees next to him, hanging by their necks, a thousand torments visited on him. They are bleeding, missing limbs, strips of flesh crammed into their mouths, cutie marks ripped off, de-horned and de-winged, too covered in their blood, spit, and shit for the thing that was once the man to tell what color they are. One of them, tied to a tree that the man remembers from out west near Agua Caliente, has an adorable little wolf pup gnawing on its insides, spilling from a wet bloody hole in its stomach.

Wait. Torments visited on him? Something wasn’t right.

Yes. They all have his face. It is not an equine’s face and snout, it is his face, stretched grotesquely over the pony skulls, torn and bleeding, a ghastly smile on it. It is… No. They are turning to him. The man runs, backing away, trembling, finding he has no knife, no weapons. He has only his fists. No no no no, he whispers.

They are looking at him… for approval. Hoping for his pride, like the young fresh-faced recruits that have never been in a battle.

Oh, God. The thing that was once the man runs, trying not to scream, as the corpses hanging from those trees turn to follow him, still looking at him expectantly.

He finds himself in the main drag of Defiance, and…

Oh, mother of God.

On one side, Defiance is under siege. PHL forces are laying waste to it. Their armor glows crimson in the night, and they hold strange weaponry. He has seen the power of the stolen weapon he holds, seen how effective it is compared to the average HLF machinegun. But the HLF, those (kontgesigs) brave men, are fighting back, in Defiance (ha!). They’re opening up with their guns, which the thing that was once the man recognizes. They are realer than real. They are rusty, running the whole spectrum of colors of decay. The ammunition, the cases it spit out, are hand loaded, and look like they were stored underwater. The cases are a dull, waxy color, and the bullets they spit out are either oversized or pour in great torrents like rain from ridiculous, silly magazines of great and terrible size.

Because that’s how the HLF fokking thinks - maraud them with more bullets, or bigger bullets.

But the bullets are not worth shit. The PHL are shielded, so when they walk out of cover, from behind trees, it is as if they are immune. The PHL guns, though… they rip apart any HLF on the other end. And there are ponies nearby, wearing assault saddles. The thing that was once the man - Kraber, of course - thinks most of them impossible to aim. However, the ponies have some kinds of headsets that let them aim.

Anything on the receiving end of them is simply cut down. The HLF are not worth shit before a bunch of humans and ponies. A pegasus, this one strafing a row of tents with his machineguns, cries that he has run dry, and flies for a human woman with a large belt of ammo. Gingerly, the human feeds ammo into the pegasus’ LMGs (they look sort of like MG42s, actually), and he is off to fire again. A human fires a shotgun into HLF members, and off in response someone shoots off an HLF ‘panzerfaust,’ which is really a homemade graffitied rocket launcher made from odds and ends. The rocket races for the PHL man with the shotgun, and-

A unicorn mare blocks the rocket with a shaped shield spell, sending the explosion everywhere that isn’t the man, redirecting it into what is almost a work of art, the flames of the explosion scorching the HLF. The PHL have unicorns on their side, Kraber thinks. He can see them, even Marcus Renee, striding into the camp with a Remington ACR. There’s…

Oh fok, Colonel Renee is unstoppable. Nothing can stand against him! The bullets simply deform against his shield, and the chaos just can’t touch him. He’s looking over at Kraber, and there’s nothing he can do but run - he isn’t going to be welcoming. He wants to shoot him right through the face...

On another side, the Barrier is ripping through, and the HLF are running, screaming. They are leaving the weak and injured behind, firing at the barrier, only for the bullets to simply disappear into it.

There is no miracle. There is nothing awaiting the HLF but death as they stand and fire madly, or run. And, in one truck with a home-brewed tetanus-farm HMG in the backseat, the man sees himself. He is…

He is…

What is he? The version of him in that truck, it cannot be defined by what he is. Only by what he is not. He would like to look happy, but the veneer is cracking… fragmenting… there are holes in the facade, holes in the sky, behind. They are swallowing everything up.

He has lost his mind.

Lost his mind.

Lost. And broken. Through the cracks, he sees possibilities.

He pours bullet after bullet into the barrier, screaming, pleading, begging, a smile like a skeleton’s grin on his face even as tears pour down it. He has no other HLF in the truck behind him.

And yet, underneath it all, he looks resigned. He has given up on everything - on himself, on his conscience, on his life. On anything that tethered him to anything beyond the killing of ponies.

No, Kraber whispers. No! THIS IS NOT ME! I’m never going to become that!

“Oh, Viktor,” said the faceless newfoal stalking toward him, its eyes full of worms and maggots, covered in blood, its cheeks missing, its skin taut, hanging off it like a ripped and tattered too-big coat on a skeleton. “You already are.”

“No,” Viktor pleads. “NO! I can change! I can-“

“You cannot,” the faceless newfoal says, and its voice reverberates everywhere… except it is not one voice. It is a babble of several, out of sync with each other, coming from no discernible source.

Finally, Viktor realizes. It is his voice. It is Kate’s voice. It is the voice of Peter and Anka, of Dietrich, of Burakgazi, of Lyra, of Marcus Renee, of those two ponies he had spared. Wait, that makes no sense, they never said a w-

“It is too late,” the newfoal says, and Viktor cannot tell if it is sad. “There is nothing you can do… But that’s not so bad, is it? Those PHL are idiots!”

It is Verity’s voice now. The newfoal is mocking him, he is sure of it.

“They’re selling their souls to the devil. They’re-“

And Kraber is angry. Angry at this bitch that treats him so poorly each day, angry that he deserves it. Angry at himself. Angry at himself for the shit he’s done.

“FOK…. JOU!” Kraber yells. “NO! JY NIE DIE BEHEER MY NIE! EK BEHEER ME, JOU BLIKSEM! EK… BEHEER…ME!”

“The HLF does!” the newfoal yells. “They want you to jump, you ask how high, they want you to kill foals, they ask you how many, you murderer, you kiddie ra-”

“VOETSEK, JOU BLIKSEM!” Kraber yelled, kicking the newfoal in the face.

This was the worst damn dream he’d ever had. It was practically making his ears bleed, and his skull hurt like hell as he

Lying in bed now, lying...

FOK! That was the worst babbelas he’d ever had…

Slowly coming to, staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling and barely conscious, Kraber massaged his skull with his hands, eyes watering as he winced. Ow.

He looked at the bedside clock, and saw the digital readout read % ! : * £.

Ah, half-past-midnight. Perfect sense, then. Though the sun wasn’t all that bright… Well, that was annoying. He couldn’t see it.

A whistle sounded outside the window. This one was a diesel locomotive, no doubts there.

A hotel, in the middle of...somewhere. He’d paid for the room. Paid with…

BLOOD

“Oh come on, that wasn’t even subtle! And for the record, it was dead people’s money!” Kraber gasped, finding himself in bed. A real bed, not a sleeping bag. He scrabbled around under the sheets, panting, gasping, grasping for his gun, finding it on the nightstand and…

And...

Well, this was anticlimactic. He was just aiming the Smith and Wesson at a picture of the gondola at Wildcat, the ski area he’d wanted to visit later in the winter - and had, once, a long time ago, one of the winters he was at college. A generic picture, yeah, but it wasn’t worth shooting. He checked his phone, also on that nightstand. 1:20 PM. The stuffed animals he kept in his backpack, Ambassador Nikai, Joanna, and Spitz were on the bed, which was… how’d that happen?

What the fok just happened?

He struggled to remember the events of the previous day.

Maybe… maybe the small, dark-colored mare writing in crayon on the wall could answer that question. What was she writing? Couldn’t be that important.

‘We are… something.’ he read.

“Hello?” Kraber asked, looking down at the mare. “Could you-”

“Change the war, Viktor,” she said, and Kraber saw what she’d been writing: ‘We are in hell - HELP US!’ Her head - flashing between hundreds of equine faces, some human, some not - snapped back in the direction of Kraber. “SAVE MY SOUL!”

The faces flowed across her skull like clay, some of them bearing wounds that Kraber knew himself to have inflicted… or would inflict, quite possibly.

And some of them… some of them were Pinkie Pie.

But others, looking at him, exuding howls of misery, were those of Peter, of Anka, of Kate, of cousin Richard…

He staggered back, and rushed through the door, only to find a long hallway, lined with many doors. He tried each and every one, staggering down the hallway. Each and every door, locked.

Many rooms. Many locks.

He looked behind him from time to time, and no matter how far he walked, there was always a wall at his back. He never saw it move, but it was always at his heels.

The only path available to him lay along the corridor… treading a carpet red and wet as wine.

The walls were lined with paintings. Places he’d been since the War’s outbreak - Istanbul, Israel and Jerusalem, Iskenderun, Innsbruck, Graz, Fethiye, Kas, Cyprus, Syria, Gaza, Cairo, Libya… in all of them, he could see dead ponies. In another, this one copied almost verbatim from a newspaper, Today’s Zaman, he could see himself and Burakgazi, sitting in that cafe with the delicious baklava… and in a window, in that picture, he could see himself on the Sorghum in the hallway to the radio room, staring down at that dead foal.

And, to Kraber’s shock and horror, the Kraber sitting with Burakgazi stretched, and turned to look right back at him, confused.

Desperate not to think about that, Kraber turned and walked away. There was nought to do but keep going, take that hallway, and turn. There was a staircase behind the door at the end, and he turned and walked down, opening the door at the foot, only to find…

To find…

The same fokking hallway. And behind him, blocking all retreat into the past, a wall.

He kept on traversing the corridors, stuck in a loop without end, until, strangely - the door at the end, the one with the stairs had snapped closed. He tugged on it, quizzical, only to hear a sharp rap...

...and found another door hanging open. Bereft of options, and knowing that he simply had to go in, he headed for that door...

...and he felt tired. He felt old, more than anything. Fok’s sake, he was thirty-six! But… thirty-six was older than he had any right to be. Older than the age itself had any right to be. He’d seen over a decade of battle, of the world gone to shit, all but for one island.

"Angel, angel, what have I done?
I faced the quakes, the wind, the fire.
I've conquered country, crown and throne.
Why can't I cross this river?"

He’d seen everything. He’d seen Converted militia, he’d seen his pozzy destroyed, he’d seen Barrierfall in Britain… he’d seen the Avatar of Albion himself at the height of his glory, the battle in the sky between him and that hondenaaier Solamina… God, that battle...

He held his Bren gun at the ready, focusing himself. He was already dead, and the dead didn’t get distracted by anything. The dead had purpose, and they fulfilled it until some fokker was lucky enough to send their body the same way their soul had gone.

He steeled himself. He was ready. There was a Webley riding his hip, and a sword at his back he'd taken from a Knight who'd never need it again. Lucky he'd learned how to handle one-

This wasn’t right. He’d had sword lessons from Burakgazi, but he’d been shite at them!

...and now he was talking to the Undead, the tall man’s face obscured by the same death mask gas mask they all wore.

“Kraber, isn’t it?”

“Ja, sir. Joined when I heard South Africa was gone. People kept saying I was lucky. If I'm fokking lucky, my family burned in the Barrier and didn't get ponified by the PER."

No word. No anything except madness and thousands of homeless people struggling to live and all the while wondering what would happen when the Barrier finally reached them… except it never had, and instead there had been war, and a chance for even the Dead to seek revenge. Stuck in Britain, with only the khakis and a few million from other places, with nowhere to run.

’This is what would happen, isn’t it? No ability to trust ponies till it’s too late and we’re down to millions instead of billions,’ Kraber realized.

And yet, instinctively, he knows that’s not what happened here. But it could be. Not Britain, but somewhere... Whatever it is… it still left him without a family. Dear God, why can’t he see visions of happy things? It’s always got to be horrible fokking doom.

"Not knowing is the worst," another man - a Frenchman named Pierre Dupont that he had joined up with in the early days - said quietly. Yeah - that was true.

’No,’ Kraber realized. ‘It’ll be worse. Not like there’ll be ponies willing to help… We’ll have made PER of all of them.’

"This is why we have purpose, brothers," the Undead assured him, and Kraber believed him. The Undead had always inspired that. "Kraber, I want you to lay down suppressing fire. When they're suppressed, we'll charge."

"Excellent," Kraber said, smiling.

The Undead turned to look at the approaching group of militia ponies, as though waiting for the perfect moment. Kraber trusted the man - he was as nuts as the rest of them, but he was a good leader.

"Now!" the Undead called suddenly.

"Booyah motherfokkers!" Kraber yelled, and his Bren Gun barked out a deep staccato rhythm, the heavier bullets simply cutting the ponies apart. Three ponies from the head of the militia group dropped, spurts of blood exploding from the impacts. The rest of the ponies take cover, suppressed, though a bunch of spells flew in the direction of the Dead Men. One impacted on the rubble near Kraber, and then he cursed, grabbing at his gas mask. The fokking convies had broken it! Ah, fok, he needed a new one now!

"Right!" he said angrily, drawing the sword and looking at the Undead. "That's it! Tell me it's time, sir!"

"They're suppressed, Kraber," the Undead said, and Kraber figured the man was probably grinning. "Everyone, charge!"

And, right as Kraber stepped forward, opening fire...

...he was somewhere else.

He was in a line with a hundred other soldiers, each of them standing to attention. Their uniforms were jet black, with bulky body armour and full face masks. No two soldiers were identical though - each of them had messages painted onto their armour in whites and reds, and all of them had at least one trophy. Some of them had small repurposed pieces of golden and silver armour attached to their body armour. Others had necklaces of teeth, and a handful (he felt almost sick) had skulls on spikes attached to their backs like grim banners.

He himself had seven tails that he had ripped from their former owners sewn onto the cloth of his black long uniform overcoat. Each one was a great commander of the Equestrian Royal Guard, and each had fought well. These trophies were testament to his skill.

They were, in a way, the reason he was here at all.

"Each and every one of you has served humanity to the fullest," a voice was saying. He could not see the speaker, but he felt a (strange and unnerving) combination of fear and pride at that voice: it was soft, almost whispered, and yet it echoed and filled the room where they all stood. "You have sacrificed in the name of Earth. You have given your blood and your toil to her, and you have been rewarded with life at the close of this war. We stand victorious over the bodies of every pony that has stood in our way. The Tyrant is dead at our feet."

Kraber swelled with pride. He had played his part in this victory. He had stood his ground against the horde. Though the final battle had been one man's victory, every soldier here had fought hard to win him the time to fight that victory.

"Those ponies who resisted are dead," the voice continued. "Those who were amenable now serve to rebuild what their Mistress laid low. Their freedom is a small price to pay for their lives."

Kraber thought about the many ponies who toiled outside in the work camps even as the voice spoke. He scowled at the thought of them. Many of the little varknaaiers had claimed to not support what the Tyrant had done - but if they didn't support it, where had they been when mankind had burned? Where had they been when less than three million of them finally broke the Tyrant's last assault? And when their champion had marched into Equestria and slain Sol Invictus and Commander Sparkle and thousands of others alone, a tornado, a hurricane... when the last chance to step forward and make their difference had come... where had they been?

One of the indentured ponies, an overly-large stallion nearly the size of a small earth horse with strong, hard eyes, had yelled at Kraber and some of his colleagues as they patrolled the occupied lands. He had screamed about having a family, about how this wasn't fair or just.

"So did I,” Kraber had said, too quietly for him or the stallion to hear any emotion in his voice. Not that it mattered. He had shot the stallion and crucified the corpse at the head of the work camp entrance as an example. There would be no dissent. No protest. No anything. These ponies had had their chance to make amends for their kind, had had their chance to stand by the human race in their hour of need, and they had never come. Mankind, alone and confined to one island, had stood against the tide and, though they had suffered more than anything had any right to, they had survived.

This was their retribution. And, much as some people over in London grumbled about it, they needed the work camps. The country’s industry was shot, they needed minerals and iron to rebuild anything like pre-war infrastructure. How many of those people were using devices or vehicles built with metal from work camps? he wondered. Fokkin’ hypocrites.

"Some," the voice continued, shaking Kraber from his reminisces, "may say that we have won. That now we may rebuild our shattered world. And it is true - there is much work to accomplish." There was a pause. "The Converted, our erstwhile kin, need to be tended to. We must salvage what we may of them that they might once more become as part of us, and that they might rule over the ponies of Equestria and keep watch over them - in time, maybe even guide them to become more than they are, and if nothing else, keep them from ever again standing against us." Another pause. "But we are not done."

Kraber frowned. Not done? Had they not fokking suffered enough? This was insane. What was this? What was that voice? What was he remembering...?

"I have stepped into the darkest chambers of Canterlot," the voice continued, and Kraber's eyes narrowed in hatred at the very mention of that place. "Within those cursed halls I have seen a device. A thing that has shown me other worlds. Other Earths, other Equestrias."

Kraber frowned in confusion. Other Equestrias? Other worlds? What was this kak?

"I have seen a thousand worlds where the Tyrant marches," the voice pressed on. "She goes by many names and has many forms: Celestia, Astra Solamina Maxima, Ra-Abaddon, Solaris, Corona, The Dark Star, Stella Imperatrix Supremus... but whatever the name, she is the enemy of humanity, our darkest foe."

And now the owner of the voice stepped into view at the head of the line of men, and Kraber swelled with pride (and his heart almost stopped in his chest). The figure wore a full set of ornate, pitch black knightly armour. Slung over his shoulder was a sword as long as him: the blade was tempered steel and the hilt looked almost as though it were made of black marble. No face could be seen, but two burning, almost glowing eyes could be seen behind the slit in his helmet visor. Seven locks of mane hung from his belt, one for each of the Elements of Order and one for their foul Mistress.

This was the man who had slain the Tyrant, the man who had led the last armies of Mankind for four years alongside Constantine the Mad. This was the Nameless, the Avatar. And Kraber was terrified: was this a vision of a world where everything that could have gone wrong, would go wrong?

Had already gone wrong?

And was this man he was... this... other him (and that was as crazy a concept as any)... was he the man Kraber would become? No, no. That wasn’t right. He’d left - things had changed too much for this to happen. But still, it felt too close for comfort.

Kraber blinked as the Avatar approached him.

"You have all served with distinction and valour," he said, and Kraber felt the urge to bow his head. He resisted and kept looking directly ahead. "There is not a warrior here who has not proved their mettle on the field."

Kraber swelled with pride (this... person's praise was terrifying...) and tried his best not to grin beneath his own mask.

"I have brought you here to offer you a special honour," the Avatar continued. He paced along the line and Kraber stifled a sigh of relief at his passing. "Those other worlds are a threat - this Equestria came to our home and threatened it with war. This Equestria reached beyond the veil of the multiverse and nearly destroyed us. There is no way of knowing whether others will seek the same thing. Therefore... we shall go to them."

What?

"We shall seek them out. We shall find every threat to mankind across creation, and we shall crush them. Every Celestia - every Solamina, every Solaris, every Corona, every Stella Imperatrix, every Ra-Abaddon. All of them will die beneath our blades."

Fok no. Fok that fokking shit right the fok now.

"It will mean suffering and pain. It will mean hardship and the burden of responsibility, the likes of which you have not yet come to comprehend. It will be a life of unending war. You may never see this world again." He paused. "I will not ask any one of you to commit to this life. Only those who accept this burden will face it. Do you accept it?!"

Every warrior was silent for a moment, but Kraber needed no time to think (...don't do it, jou fokkin chopkont, don't you even fokking dare...). He had lost everything already. There was nothing left but duty - and vengeance.

"I accept!" he yelled, stepping forward one pace. The Avatar looked at him, but Kraber did not falter.

"I accept!" another man, Eric Smith, yelled a moment later, also stepping forward.

"I accept!" came the voice of Manfred Stein further up the line.

One by one, every warrior in the line stepped forward, each one accepting the hardship promised by their leader. Though none could see his face - though none of them even knew what he looked like under that armour - Kraber imagined him grinning.

And yet he felt so cold...

"Good," he said. He stepped up to Kraber first and placed a hand on the man's chest.

'For God’s sake! THINK!' Kraber screamed wordlessly at the other him. ‘Think about what the fok you’ve agreed to! About… Ask yourself! Please! I’ve done this - I might be younger than you, but… I swore to do this! I swore to exterminate all those fokking gluesticks, go in skop skiet and donner and fill them with lead, and it’s destroyed me! No family! No friends but fokking kontgesigs that just want to kill and kill and kill some more! It’s hell!’

"You have all suffered, brothers and sisters," the Avatar said. "But now we shall deliver that suffering tenfold. Each of you shall become like me. Each of you shall have magics and augmentations that make you the equal of the worst of the Tyrants. I promise you Viktor - one day, with Excalibur as my witness, you will have as many manes on your belt as I do mine - all of them."

That kind of power... the power to slay Elements... to slay Tyrants...yeah. That sounded good. But then his conscience stirred...

‘One question,’ he thought, and he was surprised to hear the words coming from the one he saw below...

“Question,” he, the self from Maine and the Sorghum said through Kraber - the other one, thirty-six or thereabouts - and he was surprised to hear… himself. It was him talking, his own voice overlaid over his own. “What if we find a Celestia that has not done anything? One that knows nothing of us? One that is... dare I say it, innocent? Are you truly guilty if you haven’t done anything yet? Perhaps… we could teach her what she would do. And help in our crusade.”

The hand of the Avatar was retracted, and Kraber sensed he was pondering the question honestly.

"There is no such thing as innocence, Viktor," he replied grimly. Oh no... "Only degrees of guilt. And you... all of you... shall be the iron fist that punishes it in the name of mankind."

Kraber looked into those eyes - those fiery eyes, eyes that had seen death and promised more... and he believed.

“NO YOU FOKKING DON’T!” Kraber screamed at the other him. “I fokking hate Celestia, I don’t like ponies any more than you… But think! He wants you to attack ponies that haven’t so much as heard of us!”

The other him - this broken, terrible man with seven pony’s tails sewn into his coat - was impassive as he faded away.

“For God’s sake, was I always?! This! Much! Of! A! CHOPKONT?!” Kraber yelled. “YOU’LL REGRET THIS, JOU FOKKIN BLIKSEM!”

“Hrm?” the other him asked, and-

-The vision blurred, faded into blackness like smoke and fire, and Kraber thought he could hear a voice screaming in the darkness, the sound of battle behind him. And the voice, though deeper and colder and raspier than he hoped to ever be his own voice sound, was him.

"I am Viktor Kraber! I am the slayer of the twelfth Celestia, the fourteenth Pinkie Pie, the thirtieth Sparkle, the butcher of the Legion of Nightmare Corona and the doom of General Aegis the Giant! I wear the skulls of Kings, the manes of Gods! I am the iron fist of the Avatar! I am death! Now FACE ME AND BURN!"

The warrior - the him that was the iron fist of that dark knight - was changed beyond all recognition. He wore some kind of advanced plate armour that wouldn't have looked out of place in a gothic science fantasy. It was massive, bulky and yet moved as fluidly as cloth. Runes glowed all over the armour, and the flayed skin of a pink pony was hung from one great pauldron, while a symbol that Kraber didn't recognise was hung from the other.

This... this was the darkest point. The very pits of evil. A man who had seen things Kraber couldn't have dreamed, and never blinked. A man who had walked the spaces between worlds as the herald of doom. This was a man who looked at all the horrors Viktor had performed in his time with the HLF, every butchery, every murder, all of it... and he called it a slow Tuesday.

“Aegis is my china, you kontgesig!” he heard someone yell - a woman who was and was not him. “My china! SHUT YOUR FOKKING FACE!”

“You realize that you’ll die if you fight me,” he felt himself say. There was pity there, but no remorse and an edge that promised only death.

“Ja,” said the woman who was and was not him. Victoria Kraber, he supposed. “But it’s me between you and him, or his foals.” She looked up at the other him, defiant, light machinegun held out. “Come at me, jou fokkin kontgesig.”

There she was. Facing an unstoppable engine of destruction, just a machinegun and a scant few grenades, looking out at a burning landscape, and daring him to kill her.

Kraber wished - desperately - that he could be so brave.

And, as the other him, the monster that had strode between worlds, looked upon her, he wished he could be anything but that, and found himself screaming that

“WON’T BE ME!” he screamed, and he was surprised to hear his own voice, his own heavily Cape Town-accented voice, the one he cultivated after hours and hours of watching District 9 and Elysium on his laptop and at movie night at Defiance’s bioscoop. The one that was, thankfully, not entirely an affectation.

“It already is,” Victory said. “None of you… save for a few… ever go pony. It would be so much better for them! Not like it’d be any different from what you already are… but at least you’ll be free! Untainted by morality or conscience!”

“DON’T JOU FOKKIN QUOTE TRAINSPOTTING AT ME!” Kraber screamed. “HOU JOU FOKKIN’ BEK, JOU FOKKIN KONTGESIG! EK SAL NOOIT DARDIE! I’LL NEVER BE THAT! I’LL-”

“But you already are!”

And suddenly, a hallway opened up behind her, lined with doors, the spaces between them splattered with bloody splashes. Kraber looked back - all he could see was a blank space.

“These are your choices, Viktor,” Victory taunted him. “No matter which door you do, it’ll probably end the same way! Dead! Ponified! A monster!”

Newfoals, unicorn, earth pony, and pegasus alike formed themselves from the stains in the wall, stretching their way out, dripping blood onto the floor from massive wounds.

“Dead! Ponified! A monster! Dead! Ponified! A monster! Dead! Ponified! A m-”

Kraber looked down at Victory and sighed, bending down on one knee, arms outstretched, as if he was about to hug. “There’s only one thing I can choose, I think.”

“I’m glad you-” Victory started, right as Kraber picked her up, suplexed her, and threw her at that bare patch of wall.

There was an audible crack.

“NEVER! FOKKING! BE! YOOOOOOOUUUUUU!” he screamed, and punched her in the face. Cracks spread out from where her snout had rammed into the wall.

“This isn’t either world! Maybe I’m a monster, but I’ve still got time to change, I hope… But I’m not a fokking monster! I’m ME!” Kraber yelled. Victory weakly punched out at him, and Kraber kicked her hoof out of the way. “ORE WA VIKTOR KRABER DA!” A punch, even as the newfoals tried to grab at him with that peculiar hoof TK, or with their horns. “ORE WO DARE DA TO OMOTTE YAGARUUUUU KIIIICK?!” he curled his toes, like he was playing football again, and drove his foot up into Victory’s face.

“I’M NOT GOING TO BE SOME FOKKING MONSTER!” a punch to Victory’s face.

“EK! GAAN! TE! WEES! ME!” Water spread out from one crack in the floor when grabbed her by the neck and rammed her down into the concrete. He could see a sink on the wall - why was it there? - and he ripped it off the wall, bringing it down on Victory’s head.

“VIKTOR MARIUS FOKKING KRABER! IVAN BLISS! ME! ME! ME!” He punched her in the throat, and the floor exploded into a geyser of saltwater, and they were all washed away, blasted down the hallway.

“WHOEVER THE FOK I AM!” he held Victory’s head under the water, watching the bubbles as she drowned below him. “Ek sal iemand anders wat!”

And Kraber was floating, far away, in a turbulent sea, doing a breaststroke up to a rowboat.

He panted, raising himself up onto the boat, and laid back gasping and wheezing, coughing up seawater.

No…

Tears?

And suddenly - far too suddenly - the sea froze. Not as ice, no - the waves were held, suspended and sculpted into bizarre shapes and his boat stood at the peak of one wave, above a strange sculpted vista of waves.

He reached one hand into the water. It was not frozen, simply… held in place.

“Mr. Kraber,” someone said, “Your mind is a hellspace where logic and reason fail.”

“Thanks for the fokkin’ compliment,” Kraber said, realizing himself to be sitting back against a pillow on the boat. “So… you are?”

“A princess, maybe...” the voice said, and Kraber could see a ghostly equine shape forming itself from the water and dreamstuff around him, climbing from behind the boat onto the .

It was a (green? No, blue!) mare, with a living mane. Stardust rose from it...shimmered in it...she was…

“Luna?” he ventured, guessing at a name.

“Meh, as good a name as any…I...We greet you, Viktor Kraber...”

Yes, yes it was Princess Luna before him now. Probably.

“Ah,” Kraber said, both feeling the warm lassitude of a dream that leads you not to question certain absurdities… and simply too exhausted to question it.

“That is all you say?” ‘Princess Luna’ asked, confused. “I have… We have seen you before.”

“Wait, you have?!” Kraber asked.

“You are like a beacon of nightmares,” Luna said. “They hang over you even while you are awake… We had expected you to react poorly to my presence.”

Above her, the sky cleared. Not revealing a bright sun, of course, but the clearest, crispest, most beautiful night sky he had ever seen, with millions of points of light against the sky. And a moon, a beautiful white-blue orb that lit up the unearthly vista of frozen waves.

But - beyond the moon - he could see Earth, improbably huge compared to the moon, with a great purple orb that resembled a tumor swallowing it up...

“Well, I’m…” he yawned. “Tired as fok. I’ve had a terrible fokking day. Besides, of every horrible fokking hallucination I’ve had, it could be worse,” Kraber said, willing a bottle of bourbon into his hand and drinking the whole thing in a gulp. “Plus, a good pony gave me a rather sterling recommendation.”

“Mind if I ask who?” she said.

“Oh, this Night Guard mare named Nebula,” Kraber said. “Great…” he yawned. “Great mare,” he said bitterly.

“Are you mad at her?” Luna asked.

“No, no,” Kraber sighed. “This point, I’m just fokking mad at myself.” He looked down at the floor of his boat. “...I need a hug.”

“I have seen your mind,” Luna said. “I can-”

“What, you’ve seen I’m a kontgesig that deserves to die or get ponified?” Kraber interrupted.

“No,” Luna said, “Most of all, I have seen the guilt. It’s killing you.”

“That doesn’t seem like something a regal alicorn princess would say,” Kraber said.

“I was being literal. I mean it is slowly eating away at your will to live, and you’ll commit suicide if you don’t do anything to assuage it,” Luna said.

There was a brief pause.

“What is that one quote from that game you liked? From almost ten years ago?” Luna asked. “There was… a floating city, nothing like Cloudsdale…”

“Are you reading my mind?” Kraber asked. “Fok, I’ll have to talk to those tea party guys from Defiance about government overreach-” and then he realized, no, he wouldn’t. Again. Ever.

“I can, but I swore not to unless absolutely necessary,” Luna said. “It would be a violation of privacy. Or just a simple violation. Rather, it echoes in your mind. I can pick those up, and not much else.”

“Okay,” Kraber said. “And, I have no idea what quote you mean. I once had to ghostwrite an assignment for a chommie back in Boston, and it was really hard to find the right one.”

“Well… this seems similar. That’s water, and the game said that baptism changes people,” Luna explained.

“Except I’m Jewish,” Kraber said. “We don’t believe in easy forgiveness. It doesn’t quite work-”

“It still applies,” Luna said. “You know what you have done or would have done, so in that sense, you are a new man, or might become one. I know you can change.”

“I can?”

“You already have,” Luna said. “Today, you saved plenty of ponies and human alike-”

“But the hallucination said I was already-”

“It’s just a hallucination,” Luna said dismissively. “It’s not real. It’s just guilt, not what’s real. Some of the places you saw through the holes and cracks in your mind are, in fact, real, but you said… you said you’d be you. Which meant you’d make your own decisions, forge your own path as a good person. Am I correct?” she asked.

“I think so,” Kraber mused. “Wait, are you a hallucination?”

“Maybe! But you did so. You ignored a superior, saved a hospital, and evacuated those survivors from that rig. You joined in an offensive against a Bureau. You befriended one of my nightkin and did a good deed for a lost mare. You cleared a hospital of PER, risked your life to save the city from that abominable newfoal. You were willing to listen to that pegasus mare. While you may have no restraint when it comes to PER-”

“Is that a bad thing?” Kraber interrupted.

“It depends. But trust me on this,” Luna said. “There is good in you. I believe you will rediscover it and nurture it not too long after you wake-

-up.

Wake up

Wake back up in that same hotel room. 12:30 AM… just like the last time he thought he’d woken up.

Wake back listening to that same diesel locomotive whistling outside, again...

Wake up with his stuffed animals on the bed…

He looked up, surveying the area. Nothing on the wall, thankfully. No hoofprints or anything. Nopony had been in here.

He yawned, stretching, arms against the bed.

Where was he? Well it sure looked like a hotel room. He’d lined all his long guns - the new Fostech, his MG2019, Sylvia’s rifle - up against one wall, ammunition on that little writing desk that all hotel rooms seemed to have, right next to his pistols.

‘Okay. Don’t… don’t panic, Viktor. All the places you could’ve woken up, this is one of the best so far.’

It could have been just like that one time in the desert when he’d found everyone in his tent ponified and had to stab his way out, grabbing a Kalashnikov. He still had that gun lying around, he thought. Could have been anywhere in Defiance.

But he wasn’t in Defiance. He was here instead. With a real bed, all this space to himself, a shower which he was going to use in a few. He checked his phone.

Alright. So he peered at the stationery on the desk. Okay. Kearsarge Inn, North Conway, NH. He sighed, and switched on the TV. He needed to get his mind off things. It was wandering… okay, more like running around screaming.

Fokking hotels, he muttered. He decided to flip through the channels, and look for something good. Maybe some cartoons.

As his mind stirred, he vaguely remembered his breakdown outside the electronics store in the outskirts of Portland. Of pulling himself together and catching another bus… or had he hitched a lift? Taken a train? It was fuzzy.

“You have to get out soon, he thought, and was pleasantly surprised to hear a voice other than the newfoal inside his head - he’d come up with that idea on his own. It made sense, honestly. Now, if he got out and blended in, the first thing to do was make sure nobody saw him as an outsider. Make sure nobody thought he was anything out of the ordinary and called the cops…

...and besides, he was a bad person, he was a villain, and villains blended in better than heroes...

Where the fok had that thought come from?

Oh fok. Right.

More memories of his breakdown came rushing down like tears in a waterfall.

He was a bad person. He couldn’t deny it any longer. He couldn’t deny that he’d shot kids, he’d broken families, he’d committed atrocity after atrocity and laughed, he’d killed PER-

Abruptly, his guilt faded as he thought that. And yet... he’d caused just the same kind of trauma that had been visited on him. He’d been in a world where every pony was the enemy, where they were always chaotic evil and they deserved what was coming to them. A world where he didn’t have running water. A world where the apocalypse was not just upon them, but had already hit.

Outside, he could see another world. There was no place for him there-he killed ponies, he couldn’t think of them as anything else, other than targets, try as he might.

He looked down the barrel of his revolver.

Still, the world outside seemed happier. Why not give it a try? Someone - who was it? His wife? Someone kind - had told him there was good in him. Maybe.

He wasn’t sure he believed it.

Still - worth a shot to go out there and try and find it.

He packed his MG2019 back into his old duffel bag, and set off into a new world.

Kraber’s first act upon entering this brave new world was to eat two orders of apple butterscotch pancakes for breakfast. He’d decided on a little eatery down the street called Peach’s.

Afterwards, he walked over to 18C for a large order of some french toast ice cream.

He was very hungry.

Author's Notes:

Translations of Afrikaans phrases:
* Chopkont: 'kont' means exactly what it sounds like. While 'chop' actually means idiot, not, well... sliced up. But if you thought the latter, it's still in character for Kraber.
* Kontgesig: ...Well, gesig means face...
** Poesgesig: Pretty much the same thing.
* Pielkop: 'dickhead'
* Bliksem: 'bastard!' Or 'Damn!' Oddly enough, for reasons I cannot explain, "I'll bliksem you" also means "I'm going to punch you!"
* Eish: It's a general expression of exasperation or disbelief.
* Kak: 'shit!'
* Kwaai: This actually means 'angry', but it can also mean 'cool'.
* EK BEHEER ME! - I control me! This is a blatant reference to Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. Cause he has a mental breakdown at the end of... issues 4 and 5... and... Huh. I didn't even plan that shit. COINCIDENCE! :)
* Bosbefok: PTSD-sufferer. Derives from how soldiers would go out in the bushes, or bosses in a war... while 'befok' is a general word for 'crazy'. Therefore, bosbefok - gone crazy in the bushes. Or at war.
* 'Tuning me kak' : Are you shitting me?
* 'Moegoe' - A coward or weak person.
* Hou jou fokkin bek - 'Shut your fokking mouth'
* Ek sal nooit dardie: "I'll never be that!"
* China: Friend. This is actually where China Mieville gets his first name from. It's originally cockney, anyway - 'plate' rhymes with 'mate'.
Random clarifications!
* Kraber's parents wouldn't actually celebrate his death. He's projecting his own self-hate onto them here. I'm not so cruel to him that I'd make his parents hate him.
* 'Today's Zaman' is an actual newspaper from Istanbul.
* Yes, I was inspired by Bioshock Infinite and P.T. And probably Silent Hill. ...Conversion Bureau / Silent Hill crossover. Well, there's a thought.
* 'Breed-model' is actually a shoutout to Twilight's Monster by Fuzzyfervert. Read it or I will punch your butt. Okay, I won't, but just imagine me punching your butt. Boop.
* Also, if you read Avatar of Albion by Jed R, everything in Kraber's dream will make sense. Except the part with the Avatar himself in here. Just the way we like it . Funny enough, Jed and I actually collaborated, and you can see the scene with Kraber himself in chapter 48 of Albion. Okay, maybe none of it makes sense, but there's... context? Probably?
Other stuff
Originally, this was going to all be one chapter with Sunset City, but then I was all like 'eh' and decided to add in a boss battle with a proto-pretty-private! I'm happy that I did, I think it's badass! ...That, and the 40k word chapter I had the first time I updorted this was kind of a turnoff for some people. Also, I really like that Kraber's response to the personification of his guilt here is to suplex it and throw it at a wall. I wish I could suplex my guilt....