Calypto hadn’t missed, but he’d been a split second too late. The raider died, the bullets through their head made sure of that, but it didn't stop the momentum as the grenade clattered towards Scapegrace and Calypto.

But I could not let destiny have its way. The only way to meet momentum was with momentum, and where they met would be a crash to break apart the universe. I charged towards the grenade, kicking it mid-gallop with my hind leg. It’d barely traveled before it erupted into fire and shrapnel. I grit my teeth and howled as pain shot through my bloody leg. The clicking sounds of a raider's busted trigger just rebuffed the terror that echoed through them with every growling step I made with bloody hooves. The few raiders left on the MAS rooftop trembled as I roared with fury in my eyes. They dropped their weapons and ran. I was invincible, and nothing was going to stand in my way.

This was my answer, Hexerai. Whose fate was stronger? Yours or mine?

From the rooftops, we could see everything. The confidence of raiders had been whittled down. The undead abominations were everywhere. We had parted ways with Tough Cookie and his gang.

Scapegrace, Calypto, and I galloped across the MAS facility’s flat top.

“How much time left?” I turned to Scapegrace as we ran.

“Twenty-five minutes.”

Good. If we were actually pushing down to the second, we would have been dead anyway.

Scapegrace stared at my leg. “Gah! Y-your leg! Are you gonna be okay?”

“Ain't anything to worry about.”
“Gotta say...” Calypto chimed in. “I'm looking forward to this. I so excited I think I'm gonna burst.”

Balefire birds were cawing in the distance as we passed across the satellite stations that tapped into the old broadcasting systems. The floors were littered with bullet holes, casings, and viscera all the way to the gargoyled edges of the building. It wasn't as if we cared about the sights we were missing. The only thing that was important right now was getting away before the whole place lit up.

“Ahh!” Scapegrace cried out as a knife-edged tongue whipped around her leg from within a decayed garden bush.

“Why do you resist?” the saggy-fleshed abomination cried out as it extended a myriad of slashing blades from beneath its gut.

“Shit, Scapegrace!”

The creature was calm, speaking now on its own, even at a steady rhythm. “Forget the coldness of this hateful world that rejects you, rejects everyone, rejects everything. Come into our warm embrace, beyond disparities!”

Scapegrace kicked frantically as she morphed her hooves into crude blades. She thrashed in panic, cutting at the limb pulling at her leg, but just as she would sever one, two would replace it. “Stay away!”

The mare's flailing stopped as she found herself having locked eyes with the terrible thing. Paralyzed in fear, she couldn't look away.

“You can be free of your fears,” the lopsided horsehead on the creature replied as it stabbed a pincer down on Scapegrace's leg, and she wailed in agony. “Don't fear us.”

Damn it, she had been pulled so far. It was going to eviscerate her. I scrambled after Scapegrace, slamming through dead branches in my charge.

“I don't... want to... I don't...” Scapegrace panicked as the creature caressed her face with a bulbous talon, despite her punching and thrashing against the creature.

“Lies. All things seek love and acceptance. Rest in us, until there is a better world,” the giant nightmare said as it towered over Scapegrace.

Scapegrace teared up as she shivered.

“Keep fighting!” I shouted as I crashed headlong into the abomination. Its larvae-esque form rolled out as I broadsided it with my fridge. “And I thought you guys were creepy before you started talking about love! ”

“Sins of the thief and the monster, not your fault, we can forgive.” A different voice came from the side. A slender corpsebeast hung from the trellis walls. “Children of a broken world. There is chance at rebirth.”

“Fight me, you jackasses!” I grunted.

The whelps lunged and slashed, but it was like I knew where they were going to be, before they even reached there. I felt light. I felt strong. I arched the fridge over top of the nightmare, letting the fridge block my own vision.

“We can forgive you,” the slender creature called as it jumped onto me from behind. “We can forgive what you are. The monster you've become.”

“Shut the hell up!” I said as I turned and flung the creature from my back, ripping my jacket on its jagged claws.
“Join.”
“Embrace.”

“Love.”
Three more appeared. Fuck.

As the first one charged me with several horns and tusks jutting from its face and jaw, I heard the jingle of spurs. “Give me your good side!” Calypto shouted, breaking gallop to rise up on his hinds. Upon his hoof was a stubby-looking double barreled shotgun. He pointed it straight at my face.

The explosion of buckshot ripped through the carcass of the nightmare as I turned my fridge towards Calypto. He fired at me again, splattering the head of the monster in a burst of lead, only taking a moment to reload as he made his mad approach.

“You finally pick up a new gun and first thing you decide to do with it is shoot at me,” I grumbled as Calypto smiled. We repositioned to kick away the newly dead corpse as we stood back to back.”

“What else was I going to shoot at?”

The huge larva gaunt reared up above us with its many blades poised to strike. “We can forgive...”

Calypto and I stepped back as the monster primed itself to leap, but it began to writhe unnaturally, before suddenly falling to the ground. Scapegrace stood on its back quivering, coated in blood as her clawed hooves held a grotesque, pulsing organ. Scapegrace let the heart roll out of her hooves to the ground as she grit her teeth. “Forgive that.”

“Did she just rip that thing’s heart out?” I spazzed.

“Holy shit, she just ripped that thing’s heart out,” Calypto reiterated.
“What the hell did they mean? Love? What are they trying to do?” Scapegrace joined in our circle.

“They want to kill everything?” I said as I slid down into a ready stance. “They're betting everything on the end.”
“And that's love, huh?” Scapegrace asked, still a bit shaken.

“Join!”

“Die”

“Embrace!”

“Love!”

“Get ready to run!” I commanded.

The circling aberrations struck in, but Calypto intercepted the first with his horn of venom, then blasting the head off of another. It didn't kill them, but it made them stop for some time. With me bashing a path through with the fridge, we broke free of the horde. We galloped across the rooftop garden, until something in the sky caught our attention.

They swooped down from above. They had Celestia-damned wings. Shit! I watched as Calypto was ripped off the ground by one of the winged nightmares.

“Calypto!” I screamed out. I took a moment to grab his fallen hat before chasing after that thing. I had to cling to hope. It was never over. Dashing through the shriveled branches and vines, past the horrors on the ground, over benches and around crumbling statues and through empty fountains, I followed after the creature. Scapegrace had caught up with me after a while, and was cantering by my side. The trail was laden with the many things falling out of Calypto's pack.
We chased all the way until we reached a tall radio tower and the stone insignia of the MAS. Calypto struggled and cursed as the skydork wavered in its flight like a drunken bird. Its vain attempts to tread the air robbed it of its altitude. With an echoing thunder, the eruption of Calypto's shotgun sent the zebra rolling out across the garden bed.

“Stupid ugly, shit loving taff. Fuck! Damn it!” Calypto cursed, picking himself off of the ground as we skidded to a stop behind him.

“Are you alright?” I rushed over to Calypto.

The zebra grit his teeth as he spat blood. He was covered in light lacerations and scrapes. He glared at me. “Just give me my hat.”
“You got it.”
“Mi Amore Cadenza...” Scapegrace glowed ghastly white as she called our attention to the macabre scene on the elevated plane.
Killjoy's blood was dripping from the grated staircase that led up to the garden radio tower. Impaled on the railings, he was shivering intensely. Marina, Midnyte, and the rest of Killjoy's gang were scattered on the garden grounds in similar shape.

Eerie shadows of the garden's broken arches stretched out as if to grab us. Upon the arches were several ashen birds, searing with a glowing green light that pierced the veil of their blackened cores. Balefire phoenixes, their wings smoldering with bitter tongues of fire, watched over the elevated courtyard, and the unicorn standing above on the antenna platform that skirted the edge of the garden by the large MAS insignia.

Some kind of weird, biological gunk had coated the platform. The white mare above, cloaked in tattered robes adorned with countless bones, stomped her hoof down as a miserable screech came from the broken looking phoenix on the ground. As she ground her leg into the writhing animal, the flock of phoenixes seared with balefire anger.

“Miserable immortal birds... Still holding loyalties and grudges all this time, ha!” Hexerai laughed as she kicked the bird to one of her whelps below. The witch smiled as her creature devoured the bird. “And not one of you has the guts to stand up for your friends... Pitiful. I'll ruin every one of you for raising those flames against me.
Calypto rushed up to Midnyte who was struggling to get up. “Get out of here...” She coughed as she stumbled on her weak leg.

“I should kill you...” Calypto grimaced as he gripped onto her.

“I don't want to be one of those things,” Midnyte cried. “I don't want to be a monster.”
As I took steps towards Killjoy, he growled and spat up blood. “Get away, you fucking idiot!” he howled through pain. “She'll kill everypony.”
Hexerai waltzed in front of six-pronged star of the Ministry logo. A corpse was suspended against the wall, delicately carved to give fresh air to viscera inside. With the glow of her horn, the blood lifted into the air as it swirled into a nightmarish tapestry. The mare was focused intently on the intricate designs and patterns weaving together through the dancing blood.

“And at last, the rats in the tapestry have fallen into the soft of my hooves.” The bone-clad mare grinned. “Do you finally understand? Tumbleweed?”
I needed to stop making friends.

Calypto sneered. “Looks like we don't have to track her down now. This makes everything simpler.”
I took a few breaths as the wind kicked up. “Scapegrace. You got everything you needed, right? I want you to get out. Don't turn back.”

“But--”

“I said get out!” I growled.

Hexerai grinned as she looked up to the moon before turning back to me. “Trying to save your skin-deep friendship. Still clinging to a liar's vanity, yet maybe that is fitting for a snake.” She turned and braced a hoof against the railing. “You hide it well, Tumbleweed.”

My face hurt as I grit my teeth and contorted my mouth into a caustic grin.“ And you look good for a cremated old hag, Hexerai.” My head hurt, but I was ready. A balefire spirit was coursing through me, and I didn't want to bow to her. “You know what? Stay. I'd like to break your damn prophecy once and for all. Still alive. Hexy. How do you like that?”

“Hexerai?” Scapegrace questioned.

“She's like the boogie mare,” Calypto chimed in. “Look at that, you're on a first name basis with a fairytale.”

“Is there anypony you haven't managed to piss off today?” Scapegrace muttered.

“Thanks for the support, everybody.”

Hexerai stood tall with a smug look upon her face. “How many more have to die before you start cooperating?” she said as she dragged a ghoul up into view, bound and gagged with biogunk. Audacity wriggled in his bindings as his horn shimmered.

“Don't worry about me, kid. Do you see how ugly this face is? Be better than your damn fate,” Audacity's voice spoke out from the glowing vibrations of his magic. Hexerai slammed his head into railings.

“I should cut out your tongue.”

“That wouldn't do shit, honey. Do you see how awesome I am? Cut off my horn and I'll talk through my ass,” Audacity said despite his gag.

In a geyser of blood, a blade erupted from Hexerai's hoof, hovering at Audacity's neck.
“I'll make this easy. I can change your fate. I could spare you your friends’ deaths. Nopony has to die tonight. Just join with me. Give me your strength, the Malleus, and your friends can live,” Hexerai said with brutal serenity.

“Don't do it, kiddo. She's a bitch, and a witch!” Audacity shouted as he earned himself another strike.
Scapegrace looked over to me as she helped up Marina. “Tumbleweed, You can't...”

Calypto grunted, “Kill 'em.”
I sighed as I shook my head. “I don't know who you take me for, but I know a bad deal when I see it. There's no choice there. Either way I'm killing everybody. I can't take that deal.”

“Good choice, kiddo,” Audacity grunted through his magic.
Hexerai grinned. “And now you die--”

As the blade was about to reave. A flash of light burst in the air as one of the phoenixes erupted into a flare. Another flash came with the twang of vigorous magic as a unicorn ghoul blinked into existence right next to Audacity. She was wearing bulletproof vest and what looked like a tropical shirt and sunglasses. Hexerai swiped with her bladed hoof at blistering pace, but the two ghouls disappeared in an instant, just as her hoof rent through the heavy bars of the railing.

The mare reappeared, gripping her gut as blood dripped out from the wound. She blinked in to grab Midnyte and Marina, then the rest of the Killjoy gang. It happened at such a blinding speed.

“What the hell is going on?” I balked as I couldn't believe what had just happened.

“It's cause we're awesome!” Audacity's voice blared over the speaker system. “Let me tell ya, Phone-A-Friend is the best lifeline.”

What the hell was going on? Could he hear me through the radio? Could he just jack anything he wanted?

“Cavalry's arrived. Celestia sends her regards,” the ghoul shouted through the speakers.

The teleporting ghoul reappeared again in a flash, this time with a spear... the kind from the underground village. How in hell did she even know about that?

Before she could plunge the dousing talisman in, a burst of spikes jutted out from the sleeves of Hexerai's tattered robes as she shredded the ghoul into bloody fragments. The ghoul muttered her last words. “How cool was that? Whatever... Peace out.”

“So much for cavalry,” Audacity burst in. “Damn, it’s gonna be awhile until rest show up. Get the hell out of there. Be smart, have fun, don't die.”

I grinned at the strained face of the mare on the tower. “What's wrong, Hexerai? Not going as planned?”

“Give me... the artifact!” Hexerai growled.
“Let's get out of here, guys.”

“Um, Tumbleweed, that's gonna be a bit tough,” Scapegrace muttered as she pointed to the masses of undead crawling up the sides of the MAS building.

“Join.”
“Embrace.”

The voices came together into a symphony of madness as they formed around Hexerai. They bound together into pulsing mass of flesh, towering above.

“Suffuse yourself across the oceans of our love.”

“Shove it up your ass!” Calypto called out.
“Your individual hatred can not measure up to our infinite love,” the myriad of voices cried out as it formed alien arms and legs of chaotic transforming flesh. Gross tendrils wrapped over each other, weaving into a repulsive mass. “All life will eventually succumb to death, find love in our joined embrace. We are inevitable.”

“Come on. Can we please just get a break today?” Scapegrace groaned.

“Well, look at that...” I choked as I looked that the abomination. “They made a mega-dork.”

“It's like the dumbest thing I've ever seen, and it’s still going to kill us,” Calypto muttered.

My zebra friend and I looked at each other and nodded. Born on different days from different tribes, but we die on the same day.

The giant necrotic titan swung down with a destructive splattering fist as Calypto and I split to different sides of the strike. With whistle and I cheer, I pointed to the pass under the satellite station railing. We galloped along its sides as the body of the twisted beast tangled itself, trying to chase after all three of us at once.

Just as we slide underneath the railing, the colossus unraveled its limbs with whirling force. It was fast! The railing crumpled in several feet, knocking Scapegrace to the ground as she took on a dark yellow tone.
The creature’s revolting head reared down to peer in at us in the cavity beneath the stairs. “Your individual strength can not measure up to our love,” it said as its equinoid torso with webbed digits reached out to grab at us.

As it reached in, the creature's balance lurched, causing it to fall forward and roll out onto its back.

“pfft. It fell!” Calypto snickered.

“It's gonna kill us, but it's also a bit adorable,” I laughed.

“It's got too many controllers,” Scapegrace said shaking with excitement. “It’s not brainy. It is fast, but the reaction time is slow, so it overcommits. The town was founded by earth ponies, if we head to the east, there's the old district of Ponyville, we might stand a chance there.”
“You're brilliant!” I grabbed Scapegrace by the shoulders. “But you have your own mission to handle. You get out of here. We'll be fine.”

Scapegrace fretted in protest, but I pushed her on. “I can't leave you... I thought we were doing this together.”

“Bitch.” I bit my lip as I growled. This hurt, but I had to do it. “Useless bitch. You're just gonna get in the way.” Scapegrace shuddered, turning pale as I glared at her. Even so I couldn't hold it. “You've gotten what you came here for, so shut and get out of here, while we distract it,” I seethed with bile in my throat. I seethed not at her, but to myself. I wanted to tell her I'd see her at sunrise, but this was better in the long run. The ground shook as the mutant behemoth rolled to its legs.

Scapegrace teared up as she stumbled/shrunk back. Breathing heavy, she fought through her seizing emotions as she choked out the words, “Fine. I don't want to be a burden anyway.” She collapsed to her hind hooves. She groaned as she wiped away the tears with her forehoof. “Than-kga...ah...thanks.” Scapegrace's colors faded into washed out greys. “For... I don't know...” She started shaking.

Fuck. This hurt more than anything, but it’s what I should have done from the start. “Wait until it chases us off the building. Climb down the side. You can handle yourself,” I said as I motioned to Calypto to move to the side of the railing.

“Little harsh, don't you think?”

“I can't watch my friends die if I don't have any friends.”

“Cold. What does that make me?”

I turned to Calypto. “You wouldn't run even if I told you to.” I grinned. This was good. I didn't have anything to worry about anymore. I could cut loose and do this right... just me and Calypto.

Calypto and I nodded to each other. The two of us rushed out the opposite side of of the satellite tower, whooping and hollering. I knocked over one of the smaller abominations from the edge of the building as I was running alongside it. I shook the Malleus Maleficarum in the air and chanted as I watched the monster try to push directly through the tower, sending its glowing blood dripping down the metal trusses. “You want my love? Well, I like to play hard to get!”
In the glowing light of the burning city, the wasteland looked so damn proud as it never did before.

The beast swaggered aggressively forwards on its awkward limbs, pulverizing the garden as it launched towards us.

It slammed into the wall as we leaped down to the A-top cottage on the side. Dancing cross the inclined slope, we raced up as the bloody talons lanced out against the thatched roof.

The building shook as the claw hit with explosive aggression, punching a hole in the roof. Calypto lost his balance as he wavered over the crest. The wrenching of the monster threw him back down the side of the roof.

You will watch your friends die.
To hell with that! I slid down the edge of rooftop to catch Calypto's hoof as he dangled by the gutter. We grinned at each other as the monster thrashed, unable to free its claws from the rooftop. I pulled Calypto up, as the goliath raised a gnarly mass of serrated tentacles. We dashed up the side, narrowly avoiding the frenzied assault of the wrapping tendrils. I could feel the tips slash and slip over my back, but as the creature leaned across from the MAS facility, its claws receded down the surface of the cottage when it crashed into the gap between.
“Whoo!” We cheered as we cheated death. With wind at our backs we glided down one cottage on to the next. The symphonic sounds of howling reminded us of our pursuers as we were putting more and more distance between us and them.

We crossed another roof top when the beast caught up, swiping madly as I dove down to a balcony below. It smashed the balcony in single swipe, but not before I dove through the window, back into house. I rolled out on some kids’ bedroom.

I rushed to debarricade the small pile of tiny chairs and toys in front of the door. The gargantuan claw burst through and probed inside as it ripped a giant teddy bear from the clutches of a foal's skeleton. Tough break, kid.

I ran through the hallways of the derelict flat. Checking doors, everything on my left opened to the street. I needed an alley-side window, but I was cut off from it by the hulk’s probing limbs. The right side was dominated by the stairwell. As I charged forward, the walls shook as the fist of the beast thrust the ceiling inward. The fist writhed as blood rushed over the splintering bones protruding from it.

“Ascend with us.”

“Maybe I will!” I grinned as I jumped onto the pulsing arm. A web of new boney knives swiped a little too slowly as I climbed up the arm of the monster.

Before I could reach the rooftop, the violent convulsion of the giant ripping its arm free of the house sent me flying through the sky in a splendid fashion. The earth accepted me. I nearly twisted my whole shoulder against the fridge as I spun out into a split roof house across the street.

The creature looked down at me with a thousand empty eyes as Calypto threw two Mallethoof cocktails of some sort, coating the mutant's head in flames... not that it did much. It turned to Calypto as he took a chain wrapped in some cloth and hooked it over a clothes line. With a jump, he glided across the street on a zipline. Midway, his tail flung a tightly packed sphere that burst in contact with the flames, releasing incense everywhere.

The huge nightmare wrenched blindly as it clawed through the zipline, sending him crashing into a cart that was luckily filled with soft, plush radigators to break his fall.

Cascading down onto the streets, I rushed through the grasses to get to Calypto as he was shooting holes through the gators as they investigated his intrusion.

“Let’s bounce!” I shouted as the goliath charged wide of my position, slamming into the wall.

Calypto ducked under the incoming strike, as the thorny appendage raked the stones up from the pavement.

“Too slow!” I chided as we turned the corner. Together we were invincible. I boosted Calypto up a wall, climbing up into the open framework of another house. The bloody claw with a hundred bladed hooves gripped the open crevasse as it crawled after us.

It wanted to chase, and it was coming in. We took to the free-hanging stairs as it welcomed itself into the rent-open living room. When we were only half way up, it smashed the stairway way apart and left the upper levels collapsing into the next building.
Calypto and I looked at each other from across the shattered stairs. He was on the upper deck, which was good. He'd be safer. I won't die from any of this.

Reckless, I charged down the stairs expecting a miracle, only to be knocked flat against the floorboards as the creature pinned me with its palm. I kicked and fought, but I wasn't exactly in my weight class. “Partytime!” Nothing happened. Shit.... still wasn't working.

The tendrils didn't tear through me, it seemed Hexerai wanted me alive. They coiled over the fridge as they yanked at the cables on my neck. They weren't going to break, so at this rate, it didn't matter if they wanted me alive, they were going to kill me in my harness. It lifted me up by the fridge, trying to shake it off of me. It smashed me into the floor a few times before it dedicated its efforts to prying the case open.

Calypto jumped down from the second story as he dove towards the inside of the abomination’s arm. With the horn cask full of venom, he aimed for a thick pulsing artery on the gargantuan arm. He slashed through it, although it didn't seem to stop the monster. “Not enough?” Calypto broke the vessel of venom inside the arm.

The flesh all over the arm swelled as the blood thickened. The aberration howled as it braced its arm against the flooring. It tried to cut the flow with its other arm. Calypto took a bouquet of grenades shoved them into the opening in the mangled vein.

Glowing viscera splattered as the grenades erupted. The giant tried to lift its own arm, but the sinews and muscle tore apart under the strain of gravity.

I scrambled out from the swollen limb. We needed to go. A new path between the houses opened up from the sundered walls. We climbed the fallen wall, out of breath to get to the roof of the next house.

“I'm realizing I don't have any way of fighting this thing,” I grimaced.

“Well, we better find something, because my magic bag of tricks is spent,” Calypto said looking back at flailing monster.

“Shit!”

By the time I turned to look at what Calypto was cursing about, there was nothing there.

It had jumped.

The flat top crumpled as the one-armed nightmare crashed down on top of it. I was knocked off my hooves as the building quaked. Out from my jacket pocket, the strange conch shell I got as a gift from the water spirit rolled down into sundered building below.

“What was that?” Calypto demanded in an aggressive tone.

“It's nothing, we got to get out!” I shouted as I made my way for the far edge of the roof.

Jumping to the other side, I carved a sizable gap between myself and the beast.

Thinking, I grit my teeth. “I have two balefire eggs left, although, I'm not sure how I'd launch them... do you have any ideas?” I asked as I turned to see nobody there behind me.

Back up on the opposite roof, I saw the zebra running towards the ravine in the house. The goliath stomped down..

There was only a stain.

“Calypto!” I froze as Calypto’s hat soared through the air, clattering against the ground behind me while I watched the aberration slam down relentlessly with every part of its body. In moments the entire building was nothing rubble.

We have a phrase in the wasteland... one you got very used to...
“It only hurts if you let yourself get attached”, and after so much practice letting go, I think I had forgotten the feeling.
The wasteland demands sacrifices...

I pushed back the emotion slammed a hoof into ground and roared. First Killjoy, now Calypto. Guess you're looking really hot for your damn prophesy. I slammed my head against ground to breed the anger. Physical pain was easier to deal with than loss.

The beast turned to me. Come at me, son of a bitch. Even if you strip away my friends, I won't die. I'm invincible, and you just pissed me off. I climbed to the crest of the building and pulled the balefire egg from my fridge as I beckoned the devouring beast.

It brandished its tendrils from every part of its body as it rose to its hind legs, towering tall above.
It reaped down on the building, pulverizing everything where I was, but a vehement red light slammed into me and sent me sliding down the backside of the rooftop.

Scapegrace stood over top of me, gritting her teeth in furious rage as she emanated a fiery red aura. “I... AM NOT... USELESS!”
I was speechless as I gawked at the teary-eyed mare above me.

“And I don't believe any of that crap you said before. When we're out of this I want answers,” she said as she threw her grappling hook to a high-up post. She grabbed hold of me tight as she swung us to a distant ledge before the creature could scramble over the building.

“Calypto...” I cursed as I was laid out on the ground.
“You can't save him. Worry about yourself!” Scapegrace growled with authority.

“You could have gotten out of here alive!” I shouted at Scapegrace as I looked over the burning city.

“I don't care about that anymore,” Scapegrace said with more resolution than I've ever seen from her as she pushed me to the ground. “I told you, you don't get to save me.” She glared at me.

I couldn't look her in the eyes, so I just pulled her close to me. Holding her tight against my chest I shuddered a bit. “You could have run.”

“I've spent too much of my life doing that.”
Somehow, she was so much stronger than I was. I admired that, and that's why I had to push her away. “You should just shoot me in the head and get out of here. Trust me, you'll want to.”

Scapegrace chuckled. “With all the crazy chaos you've made me suffer tonight, that sounds satisfying. I would, but that junky beam pistol was torn to scrap and all I have left are some spare spark cells.”

I rocked up as I looked at Scapegrace aghast. “Spark cells! That's it!” I raved. “You're brilliant!” I said with a grin as Scapegrace's colors swelled into a blush. I dove into her saddlebags, searching relentlessly.
“What are you...”

“It’s not that the Party Hoof isn't broken, it’s MAS design. It uses spark cells! Duh! I'm an idiot!” I cheered as I snatched the bundle of sparkle cells.

Scapegrace's colors faded as she tensed up and grabbed onto me. “Shit... Tumbleweed. This isn't the time for this...” She panicked as she struggled to maintain her grasp on me.

“Yeah, it is!” I grinned feeling the passionate bloodlust radiating off of the goliath behind us. I flipped open the chamber on the party hoof and kicked my hoof down, ejecting the drained batteries. Arming the chamber and locking the chassis, I grabbed hold of Scapegrace as the beast swiped. “It's party time!”

The full-charged burst of arcane fire launched us out of the swath of destruction laid by the giant amalgam of death. “Why do you resist?”

“I like being me too much.”

The beast wrapped its claw against its head as it swayed in its drunken bliss. It began to lunge. “Your individuality can not stand up against our--”

“Party time!” I growled as the force of the party hoof fired the balefire egg. Suddenly, the abomination splattered apart by an explosion of bright green hellfire. Bio-gunk dropped out of the sky and the ground beneath the goliath crumbled under the impact. Our bodies shook as the shockwave rippled through the air. The shambling husk of the undead beast tried to hold itself together, but it seized up in trauma from the blast as glowing green balefire danced across its body, devouring it insatiably. A red rain pattered down from above, and we saw the scattered pieces vainly clawing at the ground, trying to reunite.

A flock of balefire phoenixes cawed in the sky as they flew down to pick at the undead nightmare as it writhed in agony.

Were they actually screaming? In pain?

As I picked myself up, wind picked up as the howling echoed. A long sliver of blood shot through the air, forming a whipping tendril that tore the phoenixes out of the air.
I felt Calypto's bloody stripes crawl over me. I could feel it in the ground, she wasn't dead... not yet. The sound of ash and fire stilled my heart and I turned to Scapegrace.

She looked to the burning wreckage, then back at me. I could feel her aggravation carried in her eyes. The apathy I was contemplating fell away as I saw her battling for words she couldn't say.

“You were right. I was lying. You're amazing and brave, I'm an idiot.” I looked deep into her blue eyes as they softened up. “And I'm sorry for saying all that. I didn't mean it. So, I need you to do something for me.”

Scapegrace's coat blushed red, only to fluctuate with a blueish tint. “Don't go... You can't win. Please... Come with me. We can get out of here.”

I smiled as I wrapped my hooves around her. “You're the bravest pony here. So forgive me for taking a bit of inspiration, because I'm gonna go be the most idiotic pony in this town, so I need you to listen.” I removed the straps from my fridge and pushed it towards her. “I need you to live through this. Take this and keep running.”

Scapegrace teared up as she shook her head. She choked on words as she wavered. Anger, hope, despair could be seen cycling on her face. “...No. P-please. Don't... you don't have to.”

I wrapped my hooves around her and held her close. Damn it, I was doing stupid things. I was getting soft. “She is a threat to everything I care about. I don't know what this thing does, but it seems she needs it bad, so I need you to run while I buy time. You're the only pony I can trust with this.”

Scapegrace tensed up, but even her strength faded from her embrace. Her lips reached out faintly as her coat swelled pink and her eyelids fluttered. I really didn't deserve the worry I was getting out of this. I think I realized, I loved a lot of things I didn't deserve.
Damn, if there was ever a moment for the hero to just shut up and kiss the girl, this would be it. I didn't have time for this, but her eyes had a magnetism I couldn't turn away from. I stepped forward. Scapegrace leaned in as her lips moved so lonely, hanging gently open.

“Grrraaahhhhhhhh!” I growled, shocking Scapegrace's eyes open. I tapped her right on the tip of her muzzle, breaking the spell as she gawked in befuddlement. There! I broke free, galloping off towards the burning corpses as the crystal mare fell back to her hinds.

“Am I just supposed to run and never see you again?” she cried.

“Oh, I forgot!” I turned about in a skip. “I'll see you at sunrise!” I cheered as I crossed the makeshift breezeway made from the charred bone of the creature’s arm. As the mist parted over the graveyard, I saw a red glint of light reflect off of Hexerai's eyes from within the red mist. Inside the cindered carcass of the goliath, I stepped beyond a threshold where the windswept dust gave way for a mix of viscera, blood, and ash.

The arm quaked, its remaining muscle sinew snapping apart, as I descended into the descended into the blood soaked den. The creature's alien skull twitched as it fell from its perch above.

The place smelled of death and ash. The moon hung close as rain cleared, just as it did in my dream. Different city, but the similarities both terrified and amused me. In the smoldering skeleton, I spotted a bloody chrysalis pulsing at the heart of the cadaver.

A whirling three-digited claw, sliced a phoenix out of the air as a red-cloaked Hexerai cleared the web of skin and tissue, before falling to the floor. “That bitch...” she cursed in a suppressed growl. Her face was scarred with balefire burns. “Throwing away the souls of her subjects in balefire! How far Celestia's fallen... no matter…” she cursed as she gradually returned to her calm resolve.

As she pulled up to her hooves, pulling the thick tethers connected from her back, my hoof was there to reintroduce her to the ground. She crashed through fractured plywood into what must have been a cabinet. I didn't give her time to react as I skidded across the blood-slicked floors to punt her head across the ground. “You losing your cool, Hexerai?”

Her form shifted beneath her bloody cloak as she grasped at the ground. “Angry over your friend’s death? After a single day?” She smiled. “That will fade. They never were your friends, never could be. You're a casualty of a sick world, unable to overcome a dysfunction you don't even understand.”

My seething hoof crashed down on top of her, again and again, as I knocked her about the ground. Something burned inside of me, and she only fanned the flames. “Sick world? You've never lived there.”

Hexerai kicked free of her tethers as she took to her hooves. “You don't get it, do you? You can't outrun fate. It's what brought you here. Every step of the way. It is inevitable,” she said as she braced herself against the cindered vertebrate.

I didn't falter. As I approached, a grasping claw thrust out from her robes, but I saw it coming before it ever moved. Without my fridge, I was light on my hooves, and I felt faster and smarter than I had in a long time. I ducked low, sliding beneath as I preempted the morphing joints, dipping back to dodge the first unraveling limb, slipping through the momentary gap before the second sliced through, and letting the third chase around its own arm as I vaulted over her. I shivered with fury as I slipped through the attack and punched her through the weakened spinal column. “Let me show you inevitability, H]exerai! I'm gonna kick your ass.”
Hexerai glared at me as she pulled up to her hooves again. I'd have to teach her to stay dead. “Fight all you like, but it will change nothing,” she said as her face became placid. “Enough games, out of my way.”

I grinned as I stepped out in front of her. Hexerai's serenity twisting into stern disgust. I didn't care if it changed nothing. Pissing her off was more than enough. I had never been much of a defender in my life, certainly never thought about it before I had the fridge. “You already said it’s inevitable. You'll win, but I'll never die. I'm invincible, so what happens when an unstoppable force meets an unmovable object?” I raised up to my hooves and sank into my stance. From the ground up, I could feel the wasteland world behind me. I was the gatekeeper to the wild. Fate would have to get through me. I'll dash her fate against the teeth of the wasteland.

“Don't act as if you're in control, I could kill you here, and bring you back from the dead.”

I grimaced. Hadn't thought about that... whatever, doesn't matter, ain't that right Calypto? “Go ahead. Bring me back, and I'll still kick your ass. If you could have had a drone do my job you would have done it earlier.” That was what we called 'job security'.

Hexerai grit her teeth as she furrowed her brow. “Tch,” she clicked as new claws formed, whipping out, bursting with teeth as they thrashed through the debris of the house.

I think I’ve finally pissed her off. Good. Even with my heightened senses, I couldn't get close as her furious limbs denied me any chance of getting close. I rolled and faded back, dancing away from the bundles of spikes that scraped the edges of my coat. I could feel the echoes shaking through the building and where the structure began to slip. It was enough to stay alive, in and among the chaos. Fate was on my side, and I bet that pissed her off. “Who's fighting the pointless now?” I said as I retreated back up and over the skeletal arms of the beast as she chased up edges. She had the range, and the further she was from it, the weaker she was. That was basics.

A moment’s hesitation would given the wall an extra coat of paint, but I parried the blow across my metal bracers as I lost balance and stumbled along the split bones. Dodging a wave of blades, I fell. I grasped my hoof around the radial bone of the goliath, hanging on for dear life. Hexerai dashed in to take advantage of my misfortune, but her axe-bladed tendrils swept clear of me as I switched over to the tibia. Bulbs of glowing flesh swelled up on the ends of the twin tendrils that spiraled out from her cloak, bursting into two fanning arrays of spikes. Life and death were a matter of inches: the spines glanced against my body on the next attack, but I was only spared getting sliced into ribbons due to a clever shift of my weight.

Hanging for my life wasn't the way an earth pony liked to go, but I could feel the cracks and imperfections around me, reaching up through the bones in the ground up to the teetering spire of debris above like an open claw. Hexerai's hungry flesh bristled, eager to burst, but with a gutsy tackle, I tipped the balance, as I jumped onto the boney brambles. The thought in my head was “flex”, but the words that came out were: “Party Time!”
In a surge of brilliant force, Hexerai's body snapped tight as her plummeting arm sent her crashing into the bones, offsetting her attack. My ascending hooves struck Hexerai through gravity. I felt every satisfying crack echo through her skull, though I didn't suppose it did much of anything. Wonder if I wouldn't have gone through, but I hit the arm bones like a grate. This battle wasn't being fought for victory, but I'd be damned if I didn't appreciate the little things. The seismic force shuddered through the foundations, and the tower of debris clenched up like a wave about to come crashing down. This time with just a simple kick, the disjointed bones of the beast split and swayed apart, carrying me away from Hexerai.. The beast, barely alive, howled as the arm shook and the snapped. Tumbling to the bloody ground, I thought the words, “Rend! Crush!”

And the wasteland obeyed. Like a tidal wave, the upper levels of the house caved inward. The cascading wasteland claw crashed through Hexerai, sweeping her in with its current as it shambled to the deck of the house. The sweeping cloud of dust and debris wiped away the scent of blood, replacing it with wasteland flavor.

I collapsed against the ground, shaking the daze from my eyes as pain stretched through my body. Wrenching my body around, I grasped at my hooves, my eyes widening at the glowing, azure roots growing over them. A whispering laugh crept into my mind as I thought of that tree. I saw my reflection in a murky puddle of blood. The veins were trellising up my neck and framing around my eyes. What was it doing to me? Whatever, the plans of Pharoah and that tree would have to wait. I had history to write. I grit my teeth and stumbled on my hooves, falling over the piled up detritus as I made my way to the half-buried Hexerai.

I stood over her, her white coat stained red and her mane drenched in primordial fluid. She almost seemed equine, relatable, as I stomped my hooves down across her head. I was vicious as I aimed for eyes and fractures of bone. I picked up her head and slammed it back against the ground. “You want to talk about fate!? You think I am ever gonna help you? Fat chance. YOU! DON'T!! KNOW! WHO YOU’RE MESSING WITH!” I growled as I pounded Hexerai's skull repeatedly, caving it in and grinding bones into dust. The nostalgia of the brutality made me sick. “You can't be stopped, huh?” I spat down. “Prove it.”

“Shut up,” gargled the brainless husk.
I didn't see the twisting horns that grew out from her shoulders. An erupting a wave of red glowing light unfurled from her horn. The cascading flames knocked me into the air, suspending me in place as the grotesque revenant ripped its flesh free from cindering wreckage. “That bitch tampered again. You were supposed to be the the perfect destroyer. You had something nopony else could compare with. That's why I chose you. Perspective,” Hexerai spoke. The torn apart flesh atrophied and peeled away loosely as the glowing blood surged replacing all the things she had lost. The missing pieces of Hexerai's head manifested as she spoke with gravel in her voice. She spread her wings and took to the sky as she carried me up above the town. “You've seen the world for exactly the kind of twisted nightmare it is. From the castle highs to shackled slaves, and all the vice and bloodshed between. The you I chose to be my champion understood it better than anypony. But something changed.... turned that fate rotten.” Hexerai glared at me she looked me over.

I grinned. “Perspective? I don't want hear that from the likes of you.”

Hexerai sliced a talon across my face. “Something changed. You never fell into the pits of despair. Never learned a damn thing. So, this is the last defense of that damn Ministry Mare, it has her saccharine scent all over it. Turned you into an ignorant fool clinging to the shadow of a world.”

I shook my head at pain from the strike. I spit the blood building up in my mouth. “Pits? Nah, I've been there already. I saw it all. Brooding gave me a headache. The world moves on, always does.”

Hexerai seemed to take offense to my cheer, like every smile was a threat. She grew horns along her hooves as an arc of light channeled down her hoofs. Her glowing talons reached... inside me, disappearing in a shimmering pool. Her glowing red hoof pulled a web of constellations from my body. It was such an alien sensation, I wanted to puke and swallow at the same time. Why couldn't she just try to rip my heart out like everypony else? “The world is poisoned--”

“It's better than it ever was!” I interrupted.

“Grr... The soul is shaped by the world it was born into,” se pontificated as she extracted the strings from my body.

“We're stronger, tougher, and way more magical than anything you could know.”

“Every single soul passing through this twisted reality becomes more afflicted than the last.”

“We like our jackets straight, our markets black, and our destinies are ours, something you don't understand.”

“It's a cesspool of unrestrained vice spiraling inevitably towards misery and despair.”

“So what?” I grinned as Hexerai boiled beneath her mangled skin. It had been a long-ass time since anypony interrupted her.

Hexerai growled as she threw me down against a building below. Fate still on my side, I landed rolling downhill of the rooftop. Still alive? Was I breaking your concentration, Hexerai? She quickly rushed over to rip me off the ground as she strained her magic again. “Your facade of joy is an empty vessel for you to escape into from your destiny as you placate your anger at this worthless, scum-ridden wasteland.”
“What the hell do you know about the wasteland? There is more heart and freedom here than there has ever been!” I said as I strained heavily against my magical restraints, managing to gesture to my heart before snapping back into position. I grit my teeth into a fierce grin “The wasteland is a living hell, alright, but it's hell of a place to live... and that terrifies the hell out of you. Everypony in the wasteland has earned the right to complain, but I don't want to hear any of that crap about a broken world from some prewar bitch who's never been there!” I laughed as the Hexerai focused on the thread of fate spindling out of my body.

“You're not worthy of your destiny,” she said as she isolated a single stellar node from my internal star chart and crushed it in her talons. I felt something inside me sputter and die, something that had been watching me for as long as I could remember, but which I could never feel. I could feel a vulnerability crawl over me as I began to tremble, unable to free myself. As the winding webs of stars funneled back into my body, Hexerai's flesh reeled back, priming a twisting javelin ready to lash out. I shivered as my eye fixated on the serrated spear tip looked as if it was tailored for a special level of hate. I struggled furiously in the restraints, but Hexerai doubled down with magic to keep me in place. “A christening in blood to commemorate your beloved freedom. Now, perish in the abyss between.” Hexerai's javelin exploded forwards at lightning speed, striking me in the heart as its piercing force launched me back into wall. I hit the wall heavy and fell limp against shattered brick as pain was wracking my body.

Hexerai saw my broken body and turned away. “You have died. The so-called Chosen One. You shall be forgotten along with this miserable wasteland as it gives way to a new world.”

In a daze, I heard a laugh before a pony made of thorny azure roots stepped up to me. The phantom had a wooden tribal mask with two tusks that trailed down from the sides. One tooth broken. A symbol of my tribe. The bone-adorned mask was cracked with a bloodshot eye staring back at me. Blood was thickly soaking through the pony's matted mane. I'd never seen them, but they felt familiar. The sharp teeth beneath the mask flared. It said, “You and I, free at last.” Kingthorn... just felt like a name for him.
When I’d shaken my head there was nothing there. I thought about not getting up, but it was too exciting. I was gonna win tonight. Damn the odds, if everything else was just an orchestrated play, I was going off script. It was all in my hooves now. I gripped at my chest, and suddenly something caught my eye. There was a message on the inside of the broken interior of the chimney. In Case Of Ball Emergency

I smiled. As Hexerai climbed to the edge of the rooftop, I pegged her with the harmless prewar ball. Here I was, trying to play catch with an incarnated ghost craving the destruction of the world, and she had the gall to drop the ball.

“You!” she growled as her eyes widened in disbelief. Rows of jagged spikes pierced her shoulders as she trembled. “I pierced you through! There was no way you could have dodged!” She clenched the gnarly claws that burst from her hoof. “How?”

Author's Notes:

Work on setting up new joker's wild is going well. Its gonna be a brand new setting that will be something I'm calling "Shaman Punk". I've had this section written up for a while. Its probably not as well edited as some sections, but its so long and I'm moving away from ponies in general. I just wanted to get it out there.