Chapter SIX

Applejack's mouth was red and sticky from gulping down her own blood, choking on the viscous wad as she stumbled about in a sad attempt to find her bearings. Fighting in the dark proved to be just as harrowing as she had remembered. Neither the MM nor the rebels were really equipped for battle after nightfall, and in the blind chaos of it all it wasn't a stray bullet, or a stab, or even a buck from a rebel soldier that dealt AJ a nearly crippling blow. It was a solid and unforgiving tree trunk. After felling an already wounded rebel, Applejack managed to lose her footing, stumble over the hind-legs of a fresh corpse and smash face first into a tree. Her muzzle burst against the trunk like a water balloon full of red paint.

And so there she was, one of the most capable fighters the proud MM had ever known, stumbling about in the dark forest, head spinning from the sudden meeting of skull and bark. Her first thought was of Lyra: she hoped the chain smoking unicorn hadn't seen her little mishap, and if she had, then she thought it better to be cut down now by a hail of enemy gunfire, because should she survive the war, Lyra would never let her – or anypony else – forget about one that time they were fighting rebels in the Everfree Forest and the MM's supposed Iron Horse was takendown by a particularly crafty bit of greenery.

She was rubbing her forehead, making little circles with her fore-hoof, when something heavy landed with tremendous force on her back, sending her crashing to the ground. The wind knocked out her and still groggy from the head injury, Applejack bucked wildly, trying to throw whatever the thing was off of her back; but it seemed to stick to her, ridding out the furious bucks, as if waiting for its prey to tire. Then something sharp tore into her left side. Talons? A blade of some kind or maybe teeth? Blind panic made it impossible to know if what assaulted her was an enemy soldier or a stalking predator of the Everfree Forest. Applejack screamed, and unable to bear both the pain and the weight of her assailant, she fell and was pinned flat on her underbelly, legs flailing wildly. A potent cocktail of fear and frustration fermented inside of her as a strong appendage found its way around her neck, squeezing. She couldn't breathe. She tried to stand and when she failed, Applejack tried to roll over onto her back, but her attacker was strong and kept her pinned. She tried again, and this time was able to roll onto her side before being forced back to her stomach. She tried again to stand but the something sharp slashed at the back of her forelegs and again she fell.

Tears welled up Applejack's eyes as she struggled. A limb smacked the side of her face. Not hard, but almost – playfully? –no, it was a taunt. Her attacker smacked her again, then once more, coming across the other side of her face. AJ snorted loudly. Enraged, she neighed and her struggling doubled. Her hooves scraped at the ground and her hips bucked, but all her effort's earned her nothing but another taunting slap on the cheek.

She was being toyed with. It was beginning to dawn on AJ that her attacker could have killed her at anytime. She was a mouse at the mercy of a cat's claws. She imagined the creature on her back to be a great feline of sorts, a monster of the Everfree forest after all. She could feel the beast's breath on the back of her neck, and imagined its open maw, wet with silvery strands of glistening saliva. She was going to be torn apart slowly. She was going to be eaten alive. Applejack froze, paralyzed by fear as she awaited what was surely to be a painful and degrading end.

The something sharp bit into her side again, just a few inches above where the first wound had opened. Instead of slashing, this time it stabbed and Applejack could feel that the something sharp was a knife digging into her ribs. It hurt a hell of a lot more than the slash had, but she was grateful for it. The presence of a pony made blade gave her some context, snapping her out of her fear induced surrender. She wasn't being mauled by a monster pushed out from the festering womb of the Everfree Forest – she was fighting a pony. Just a pony. She could kill it if it was just a pony.

With some effort Applejack managed to get a hold of the hoof that held the knife and stop, what she now knew was a rebel soldier, from driving it in any deeper. But her enemy was one step ahead. The rebel rolled AJ onto her side so that the end of blade's handle was balanced vertical on the ground, as if somepony were attempting to drive in a railroad spike by striking the sharp end with a hammer. From there gravity did its sinister work and Applejack felt the rest of the blade slide into her body; so deep that weapon's hilt pressed against her hide. A miserable choking, gagging, coughing sound came from her throat. Thick black-red blood seeped out from the corners of the wound, the knife holding most of it back, keeping her blood from spilling out in waves like a damn against rushing waters. Then, as if that weren't enough, the rebel gave the handle a slight twist, tearing away at AJ's insides. She tried maintaining control of the hoof that held the blade, but her strength was fading fast. She was dying.

…And then there was light; bright and overwhelming, and colorful. She was dead. Applejack knew she was dead now. She was dead and this was the place ponies go when they die; the kingdom of light and color in the sky beyond the sky. She knew she was dead – only – when she looked upon her knew kingdom she saw that it was full of violence. All around her ponies were killing each other. It was loud too, lousy with gunfire and shouting.

The pain, the noises, the sights, the loss of blood. Applejack felt overwhelmed. The afterlife was spinning.

A pony was galloping toward her. She didn't have wings or a horn, the way Applejack imagined Celestia's angels would. Instead she had a rifle, and was wearing army fatigues, and she had a familiar looking mane that was mix of purple and blue that spiraled at the end like a ram's horn. The galloping pony had a distressed look on her face and was shouting something that Applejack couldn't hear over the gunfire and her own fading consciousness.

Disheartened that the afterlife was full of such disquieting images of slaughter and despair, Applejack turned her attention toward the rainbow colored light in the sky. It was so beautiful. She simply had to discover its origin. She looked up, only to find the wide eyed face of a blood speckled pink pony with a long straight mane looking down on her, obstructing her view. The pink pony looked on the verge of tears. She held a crimson coated knife at her side and her expression was almost comical. The guilty eyes were so big and the mouth hung open wide enough for a quick moving passer bye to pop a strawberry in without stopping. The open mouth moved to say something but the words were drowned out by a sudden and deafening boom, loud enough to wake the parts of the forest not already alive with war.

So loud.

Applejack was tired. She rolled over onto her back and shut her eyes, thinking as she drifted off, that the afterlife really ought not be so loud.

It was dark again. Bon-Bon galloped up to Pinkamina and shoved her aside.

"Get away from her!" she shouted, her riffle trained on the pink pony, hoof on the trigger should she try anything at all. She stood over Applejack, assessing the severity the soldier's injures as best she could in the near pitch black night.

"What happened!"

"I didn't…didn't know," Pinkie tried to explain, her voice sounding the way a shiver would if shivers weren't silent.

"You didn't know that you were murdering your best friend! Really Pinks, is that what you're going to tell me! You didn't know!" Pinkamina Diane Pie had a reputation for being out of sorts in the head, and though she didn't particularly like or trust Pinkie Pie, even Bon-Bon at least wanted to believe that the supposed "Madmare of Company Everfree" wasn't capable of something like this.

"It's dark! I – I didn't know!"

"The fuck does that mean? You didn't know?"

"It means I didn't know."

"Her voice! You must have recognized her voice!"

"It happened so fast! I didn't know okay, I didn't know!" Pinkie gave Bon-Bon a rough shove.

"Don't you put your fucking hooves on me!" Bon-Bon shoved back, digging the business end of her riffle into Pinkie's shoulder. "I swear to Celestia I will drop you if I have too, you physco fuck."

"Oh fuck you!"

"Fuck you!"

The shouting match continued on like this for much longer than it should have until Pinkie made a grab for the gun, forcing the barrel away from her. The two of them tumbled to the ground and within a few moments Pinkie had Bon-Bon pinned, the length of the riffle digging into the earth pony's throat.

Then a sudden burst of automatic fire turned their heads simultaneously. They stared out into the darkness, squinting in the direction from where they thought the sound had come from.

Another burst, this one sounded closer. There were other sounds, evidence that fighting was still raging all round them but this burst was particularly close.

Instinctively the pair sprang up on their hind-legs. Pinkie drew her service pistol. Bon-Bon shouldered her riffle. No firing though, not yet. The flash of a discharging muzzle would surly give their position away, that is, if their assailant hadn't already found them.

They stood that way for a while longer, waiting, practically holding their breath. When it seemed nothing more would come of their standoff with this imaginary foe, the two of them returned to all fours, breathing shallow panicked breaths. Bon-Bon eyed Pinkie carefully, and when she was positive that the pink pony wasn't going to try to blow her head off, she turned her attention back to Applejack, who was more than likely dead by now.

Bon-Bon muscled Pinkie out of her way. She pulled a flashlight from her vest, twisted the head to turn it on, and held it between clenched teeth as she began assessing the severity of Applejack's injuries. She checked for a pulse. Put her ear to Applejack's chest. Checked her pulse again. Faint. Alive but not breathing, and as she looked down at the fading soldier, a sort of hyper awareness came over her. Suddenly she could feel Pinkie's eyes looking over her shoulder. If she could do this to a loved one then there was no telling what she could do to somepony she hardly knew at all.

Bon-Bon drew her own service pistol from the holster on her hip and leveled it at the pink pony's neck. "Where I can see you," she ordered. Her eyes stayed on Pinkie, who offered no protest as she marched from behind Bon-Bon. Now the both of them knelt at Applejacks sides.

"Celestia damn it," she grumbled before pressing her lips to AJ's and exhaling heavily. She put her hooves to the fallen soldier's chest and pushed, counting aloud.

"One. Two. Three. Four." She pressed her lips to AJ's again. They were still warm and sticky.

"One. Two. Three. Four." Pinkie watched Bon-Bon work, teary eyes taking in the details and committing each and every sight and sound to memory. Years from now she'd be lying down in her bed at night, wishing to forget this moment. But this wasn't one of those moments a pony forgets. This was one of those moments a pony takes to her grave.

Again.

"One. Two. Three..." Applejack's chest fluttered. Unfocused eyes darted in her head, their lids flapping like the wings of a startled moth. She was breathing now, but her breaths were rapid and shallow. Okay. See to the wounds.

It was overwhelming: the stink of fresh blood coating her hooves as she applied pressure to the wounds, the taste of it on her lips like viscous rust. Pinkie watched, whimpering uselessly and below her a delirious Applejack pawed at the air with nearly limp forelegs, mumbling something about rainbows and the sky beyond the sky.

Sticky red life spilled out onto the forest floor in miniature waves. She was no medic but Bon-Bon remembered the little bit of first aid she'd learned back in basic. She needed to wrap the wound. Control the bleeding.

"Pinkie, cut AJ out of her fatigues," ordered Bon-Bon, trying not to sound as rattled as she was. "Right now, we don't have much time." A chill shot up Bon-Bon's spine as Pinkie reached for the blood stained blade. She twitched. The blade trembling in her mouth, Pinkie slashed AJ's uniform down the middle form collar to midsection. Bon-Bon watched the way she handled the blade, like she was afraid to touch it – quite different from the way she wielded the thing in battle. She was afraid. One of her best friends was dying, and it was her fault, and now there wasn't much she could do about it. Bon-Bon tried to understand what that must have felt like. She imagined Lyra in Applejack's place, and shuddered at how easily her conscious mind produced the image. It very well could have been Lyra down there tonight, or Pinkie, herself, or anyone of them. And if not tonight then eventually.

Together they managed to wiggle the wounded private out of the tattered fabric, and, together again, they wrapped her injuries; using the shredded uniform as an improvised bandage.

"Now keep pushing here," instructed Bon-Bon. Her tone was gentler. She took Pinkie's hooves in her own and guided them," ...and here. There that's good. Not to hard now. That's it – that's it. Good. Just like that. Good." Pinkie's hooves were shaking and though in the dark she couldn't see the tears streaking down the pink pony's face, Bon-Bon could hear her sobbing and sniffing.

"She's fine. You're doing well. She's going to make it." Bon-Bon nodded, feeling somehow that the gesture cemented her claim. She was lying of course. They both knew it. Applejack was going to die. "Still," stammered Bon-Bon uneasily, "If there's anything you want say to her you should say it now."

But before she could Bon-Bon suddenly shushed her, covering her mouth with a sticky blood stained hoof. Her ears perked. There was a rustling in the distance. Rustling? She shouldn't have been able to hear rustling. When did the fighting stop? She'd been so keen on saving Applejack that she hadn't noticed the forest had become eerily quiet.

In the distance she saw a lonely blinking light coming toward her. She readied her firearm, but waited, counting the seconds between blinks. The light disappeared. One. Two. Three. And then reappeared; the signal for an incoming friendly. With a relieved sigh on her lips, Bon-Bon spat the flashlight from her mouth into her hooves, held the little thing up, and returned the signal.

A long pony shaped silhouette drew closer. It was a mare, bearing a heavy load on her back, and an expressionless look on her handsome face.

"Lieutenant Octavia," exclaimed Bon-Bon, offering a hardy salute. "I'm glad you made it. What is going on? Has the fighting stopped?" Octavia raised a hoof to silence Bon-Bon's queries.

"Yes. As far as we can tell the rebels have retreated back to their headquarters, though it is likely they will have relocated by morning. They know they've been discovered." She paused for thought, then added, "I'm scouting for second platoon. Each scout was given little under an hour to locate as many stragglers as possible before rejoining the reaming force," she explained.

"And for those not found within the hour?"

"I have orders to rejoin the main force." At this Bon-Bon frowned. "Apologies," continued Octavia upon reading the disappointment in Bon-Bon's face, " I spoke with Sparkle earlier. She said we are to rendezvous with first platoon several hundred yards north of here. I'm afraid the matter is out of my hooves."

"And if it were in your hooves?" The lieutenant elected not to answer.

"We are wasting time. Come with me. We must return to the others."

"Can't," said Bon-Bon, "We've got a mare down. Her condition is critical. I'm not sure if we can move her." Octavia inspected the downed soldier herself. Ruthlessly calculating eyes peered out from holes in a placid face. Though it didn't show in her expression, Octavia was surprised to see Applejack, the MM's own Iron Horse, lying belly up in a shallow pool of her own blood, breathing labored breaths. A shame. The MM had lost a good a soldier tonight.

"She is not going to make it," she said without blinking. "We will have to move without her."

"The hell she isn't," exclaimed an angry Pinkie Pie. She stepped between Octavia and Applejack as if wishing to protect her fallen friend from an attacker.

Octavia sighed. A soldier really ought to be in better control of her faculties. She'd been with the MM for a long time, since the very start of the conflict, and she'd seen firsthoof what sort of role sentimentality played on the unforgiving field of battle.

"All due respect private, that isn't your decision to make." Pinkie snorted and scraped the ground with a threatening fore-hoof.

"No, no, no," said Bon-Bon, stepping between them. "We are not going to fight each other. There's been enough fighting today, and there will be plenty more tomorrow. Right now we see to Applejack."

"We have orders."

"I'm not abandoning her."

"She's not going to survive the night. Should we elect to stay with her, second and third platoon will leave us here in the woods to die with her." Octavia placed an awkward hoof on Bon-Bon's shoulder; a gesture she understood was supposed to convey compassion – and thus, a gesture unfamiliar to her. She looked Bon-Bon directly in the eyes. "I understand what you are feeling. Truly I do. But this is not the way. There isn't anything you can do for her now."

"Do whatever you want lieutenant," answered Bon-Bon, brushing Octavia's hoof away, "I've made my decision."

Octavia took a step back and rubbed the bridge of her muzzle.

What good would all their moral prancing and posturing do them tomorrow morning, she thought, when they woke up beside a corpse, low on supplies and stranded in the Everfree Forest? Morons. Too busy convincing themselves they were good ponies to see the bigger picture. That was the trouble with sentimentality. At the end of the day it always boiled down to an act of pure selfishness. It's never about compassion for your fellow Equestrian – it's about protecting your own flimsy conscious.

The long pony dropped her heavy pack, it made an audible plopping sound as it met with the ground. Then she drew an awkward looking gun of some sort from the holster on her hip. In an instant both Pinkie and Bon-Bon drew on her.

"Easy," she said aiming the gun into the air. A flare raced up into the sky and burst, splashing light across the sky like a single lonely firework. Then she returned the flare gun to the holster on her hip and began rummaging through the bulky back. Pinkie and Bon-Bon watched her carefully as she drew a sleeping bag from it, along with a small box and a canteen.

"Assistance should be arriving shortly," she said flatly. "Quickly, help me wrap her in this. We'll need to keep her warm so that she doesn't catch fever if she is to have any chance of surviving the night. Also, have her drink some water. If she refuses force her, and if she is able have her eat something. Private Pie, make a fire, and when you're finished the two of you have something to eat as well. It's been a long night and I'm sure you're both hungry."

Pinkie lunged out at Octavia and hugged her tight around the neck, practically knocking her over. "Thank you." She said, tears streaking down her cheeks.

"Quickly, I said." Octavia pushed Pinkie away and, with Bon-Bon's help, managed to get AJ wrapped snuggly into the sleeping bag. Pinkie had the fire going in no time. Together the three of them sat around the fire sharing a hay ration. Pinkie stayed close to Applejack, forcing the barely coherent, but always stubborn apple-bucker to drink from the canteen. When she was satisfied that her friend had had enough she passed the canteen to Bon-Bon, who hoofed it back to Octavia. She stared blankly down the whole of the canteen for a long time, as if the answer to some profound question was swishing around in the water. Then she took a short drink and capped it.

The three of them sat in silent thought, the glow from the camp fire setting them at ease. Octavia wondered if perhaps she'd fallen prey to the desire to appease her own conscious. Had she helped them because she truly cared for her fellow MM, or was she just making it easier for herself to get a good night's sleep? Did it even matter one way or the other? Absent-mindedly she tossed a fallen tree branch on the open flame and watched the discarded limb wilt and blacken.

"I used to play at The Grand Galloping Gala," she heard herself say. "I was a concert pianist and a violinist. I even played a little cello. Actually cello was always my favorite. It would've been the only instrument I ever played if not for my parents…"

Abruptly, Octavia fell silent but Bon-Bon waited patiently for her to continue, sensing that the lieutenant still had more to say.

Slowly she began again, nervously, as if speaking before a crowd of hundreds. "…I love my parents but they can be a bit…" she grouped in the darkness for the right words. "…Demanding. They insisted I master a number of musical instruments, as well as several other disciplines deemed valuable by high society. My parent's demands left little time for other things."

"Hey, if this is one of those, I-had-a-rough-childhood-so-I'm-kind-of-an-antisocial-prick speeches then save it. You don't have to answer to me for anything," said Bon-Bon warmly. In the firelight she could see that Octavia was blushing.

"Am I really so transparent?" she asked, laughing at herself as she did. She wasn't sure why but she found Bon-Bon easy to talk too. She had a genuineness about her; the aura of a pony that had nothing to hide, and of that Octavia was enormously envious.

"So how'd a pony from such a fancy family come to find herself vacationing in the beautiful Everfree Forest?"

"I was drafted."

"Drafted? Didn't think the mandate reached that high."

"Nor did I." The two of them shared a small laugh. "And you?"

"A friend of mine got drafted, so I signed up. Couldn't let her go it alone, you know?"

"Well she's lucky to have such a loyal friend. There isn't a pony alive that would willingly go to war for me." She tried to laugh off the little slip as if it too were just another joke, but Bon-Bon heard a very real, very sorrowful pang in her voice as she spoke. "I assume you two are close. She must be very important for you to take such risks on her behalf."

"Yeah. Yeah, she is."

Silence descended on them, snuffing their conversation like a stomping hoof on a small flame. It was alright though, all that needed to be said had been. If Lyra were here, she'd try to break the awkward silence by offering Octavia a cigarette. But she wasn't here and that was alright too. It was doubtful that somepony of Octavia's high constitution subscribed to such a filthy habit anyway. Next Chapter: Chapter SEVEN Estimated time remaining: 1 Hour, 54 Minutes