As the sky changed sun for moon, the town took on a new ambience of its own. The shadows overtook everything, but straying from the lights, our eyes adapted to the night well enough to navigate. A lingering malignance saturated the air, even though all to find was wisp and smoke. It felt like somepony was watching, but it wasn’t Celestia. The raiders fought skirmishes all around. We could hear the sounds of war, the sounds of anger… but also the sounds of pain. A vivid night alive, it was in Ponyville. Perhaps the dead were still screaming? Chilling right? Either way, we chose to steer clear of whatever conflict we could. I had no intention of letting this town tear me into pieces.

I directed Scapegrace, motioning to my eyes, then pointing toward a patch of overgrown brush. She had bundled herself up, only her eyes were uncovered. A foggy light shined through her eyes, giving her a world of vision to her alone, but the light was just sufficient enough as I pulled her close to function as a reading lamp. By the faint illumination I could see what I needed without killing my night-vision.

The grass had been parted, meaning others had traveled this route recently. Scape planned accordingly. She waved a hoof in a circle, and then pointed down through another alleyway. We trudged forward.

Clink, clink, clink, clink…

Oh that obnoxious sound crawled in the ear among whatever ambient noises filled the air. Grace and I both turned a dirty eye towards Calypto’s noisy spurs. We were going to need to fix that. Both of us were thinking it, but Grace had an unsettling brand of smile on.

…sigh

“This is never, ever going to happen again…” I grumbled in the dark. And that was how I ended up as the unfortunate steed. The Calypto-Tumbleweed super combo was quieter, but the appearance left something to be desired.

“Giddy up, Buttercup!” Calypto whispered back, kicking his spurs into my sides. I begrudgingly followed Scapegrace into the next overgrown alleyway. There were many structures, but the curtain of shadows made them blend into an indistinguishable wall. My eye caught sight of a torch burning out from the deck of some wasteland re-furnished junk pile of a house. We could barely see the evidence of the raiders camped by it.

“Should we watch out for that? They might be able see us.”

“They can’t see us at all. That light is killing their night vision. What a bunch of idiots…” Scapegrace responded. Did she have experience with this sort of thing? Her specialties were starting to show.

“I don’t know, Desperado and I over here are the size of Canterlot Fucking Castle, I feel like that would count for something.” I added.

“Looks like we have at least two other groups waiting for a party…” Calypto pointed out into the darkness.

“What? Where?” I asked looking around before Calypto clamped a hoof on either side of my head and physically wrenched my eyes towards the two encampments. Even with Calypto’s help it took me a moment to see the band hiding in the dark. This stealth business was dangerous.

Back at the house with the torch, a raider with an eye patch over her right eye walked out in front of the light. Who ever thought putting a half-blind pony on watch was a good idea?

…but then the cyclops lifted the eye-patch, putting a sniper rifle up to her newly unveiled eye. She had her night vision.

I bounded into a sharp pivot, nearly throwing Calypto off of my back when the loud crack of the sniper rifle pierced the air. I barely managed to bring my shield up to deflect the bullet.

“Shit! Let’s boogie!” I said, before Calypto drove his spurs into my side again.

“Boogie? Really?”

Scapegrace was already headed towards another alley, but we didn’t have much time to pick our routes. The raiders with the torch started mobilizing, and the ones in hiding were taking notice.

As I broke into a gallop through the tall grasses, I tripped on something large in the darkness, and Calypto was flung to the ground as I planted my face in the rising earth. A well camouflaged figure rose out of its hiding with a knife in its mouth and blades on its hooves. Another raider behind it struggled to rise to its hooves, but couldn’t hold an intimidating presence. Heat exhaustion had bled it of its precious water and it could barely maintain itself. While I was reorienting myself, the steady raider jumped me, locking into a grapple with me, trying to gut me as we wrestled. The struggle was cut short as Calypto fired two well placed rounds into the backside of the raider.

I rushed in to scoop Calypto off of his hooves. As we approached the corner where Scapegrace had escaped, my own instincts caught my worry. This would be our grave if we had to fight; there were just too many ponies. What were we thinking, coming in here? We would need more ponies to fight this kind of group… Too many ponies, not enough ponies… Just as things were falling apart, an interesting idea came to my mind.

“Calypto, can you shoot one of those other groups?”

“I thought you didn’t want to draw attention…”

“Forget that, draw all the attention! Can you do it?”

The zebra laughed at me. “I’ve been eyeing those bastards this whole time.”

As we were rounding the corner, Calypto turned around and reached out with his revolver on his hoof. The machine spell inside his eye piece outlined each of the targets in the night. The movement was something he wasn’t used to, but with a deep breath and a smile, he let loose a bullet flying through the dark into one of the shoulders of figure posted as a sentry of one of the other raider groups. The raider howled at the injury, and his brothers roused to spot the assailant, but we were already around the corner. Confusion was the terror of battle, and in their search for answers, a shining torch pointed to a most convincing answer. It was the path of least resistance, really. Gunfire erupted between the groups, and the oncoming march was forced to tactically give up pursuit.

As we were running down the alley, my senses picked up on a weak panel of wooden boards in the wall of a building. A quick check revealed that it was loose enough to gain entry. I called Scapegrace over, and we snuck into the house. Between the chaos of raiders and the sanctuary the walls provided, we had escaped a surefire death.

The skirmish confusion was a good draw of attention, giving us some respite in the tense atmosphere. Death was all around, but it wasn’t looking at us, and that was the closest thing to calming we were going to get. It was nice. We crawled through the house, and Scapegrace picked up a few supplies along the way, namely a few dusty old books. To her, pre-war homes might as well be libraries. Be it information or an inspiring story, books were valuable in life. The house was home to several giant mole rats, so to keep our profile low we decided to carry on the journey. This house wasn’t a good match for stealth it seems, but travelling through homes might be a good plan.

We poked our heads through a crime against somepony’s safety deposit to see if we were clear to make it into the neighboring building. I licked the ground to taste it, but Scapegrace gave me a horrified look.

“Is that another earth pony thing?” Scapegrace grimaced.

“Not really, It has been hot, and everypony has been sweating rivers. Well traveled roads are going to taste salty.” I explained.

The dirt was powdery and chalky in taste, but certainly full of nutrients. However, it wasn’t salty, so we were in luck. The stretch reach the next house was longer than I would have liked to risk, but the perpetual cloud cover helped even the clandestinely challenged Calypto keep in the shadows.

When we set out on this, part of me had been waiting for us to hit the limit of our capacity. We would find the point where we would know we couldn’t save those in the town, if they were even there. The silver lining would be that we didn’t betray our intentions, and by working together we could save ourselves. That was the plan that gave me confidence, but we didn’t seem to be hitting that limit. Ponyville was such a mixed scenario of danger and safety. The night was an ally, and it was dangerous to sneak around in the dark, but for the raiders, it seemed equally dangerous to keep watching out for opponents.

When we piled into the building, we caught the sound of an old radio in the upper levels of the house. As we followed it, something gave Calypto an eerie feeling that I wasn’t as quick to pick up on. There were knocked over furniture and couches, and indentations in the walls, but I missed them.

The room with the radio was looking out over a stretch of town. The sight was grizzly. A burning building illuminated the road, the shadows caught upon an array of countless bodies.

“I’ve never seen this many raiders in my entire life. It doesn’t make any sense. They aren’t acting like raiders.” Calypto said as he surveyed the area. There were groups holding up in all the cracks and chasms along the road, but they shared a single fixation. They were focused on a single odd looking stone building, it had the same kind of six pointed star emblazoned on it as I had on the storage crate I carried around. “It looks almost like… a standoff.”

As the music wound down, a voice came over the airwaves.

Children of the wastes, hear this. The wasteland is ripe for the molding, everypony. The end of the world was just the beginning, a necessary shattering of the shackles, but the evils of the old world still plague us. The cities reject you, they toss you out, they mark you as an animal, and they call that justice. The masquerade has gone on far too long, for those who damn their brothers to exile, then fear when their brothers return for their fair share, why must anypony mercy them innocent? No, the days of the parasite are numbered. I call upon you, the rejected, the misunderstood, the outcast, the forgotten, the pariahs of the wastes, for now is the time for reckoning. The march for the kingdom you have been denied has begun. The legacy of kings began 10 years ago, and it will echo again. A king among ponies will rise. How do you ask? It can be only through trial that a king can prove himself. Those great among you, the summons are cast. A king needs a jewel for his crown, and you will find as such a fitting crown in the old ruins of Ponyville. The MAS jewel box is treacherous, and only through combating your own, will a true king be found. Those who survive are those favored by the wasteland. Let combat choose its champion! Go now, to ponyville, ambitious children. This is Pharoah, the heart of the revolution, and this is Evolution Radio.

Suddenly things fell into context. The bodies on the streets were those of the impatient, the greedy, the arrogant, and the desperate. This wasn’t just raiders fighting for blood; it was a battle of ideals. All that was left around were the smart, the experienced, and the determined.

It was Calypto’s wits that caught sight of the incoming blade flying toward my head. He pushed me out of the way and drew his guns to the group of ponies that had crawled in behind us. There were five in total, each with an outfitted silhouette of bulky armor, and various weapons between tooth, back, and hooves obscured in the dark. Scapegrace had brandished the submachine gun she had pilfered off the raiders back at the boutique in absence of her laser pistol. The mouth grip adaptor she had was very useful for this. The unicorn who looked like the leader shook his head at Calypto’s show of arms.

“Tch! Tch! You don’t want to do that friend. Think a little, one shot is going to bring a lot of attention in here.”

“I’m not your friend.” Our zebra shot back. I put a hoof on Calypto’s shoulder and shook my head. I hated to agree with the enemy, but they were right.

“Forcing a melee? Clever.” I said as I stepped forward taking point. After all, I wanted them in hoof swinging range.

“Guns are scary. I much prefer to gut you on my sword, it is much more civilized.” The unicorn said. I could barely make out the bird talon emblem on his armor. I always found it bizarre that bottom feeders had a bird talon on their armor. I must be a buzzard talon. “Raiders keep looking weirder and weirder these days.” The unicorn said.

“We aren’t raiders.” I replied. “You should back off, pinecone head.”

“What did you call me?” The mercenary asked as the shadows caught the angry crevasses on her face.

“I called you a pinecone head. Because you’ve got a pinecone on your head…”

“It’s a horn,” The pinecone head said catching the exact meaning of my words.

“That’s a pinecone, and we aren’t raiders.” I said pointing appropriately.

She scowled at me. “Nothing a little bounty magic can’t fix. Shut up and give me your head already.”

One pony jolted forward, slicing a path of attack toward Scapegrace with a combat knife in their teeth. I intercepted the attack, deflecting the blade by swinging my case into them, also warding off other’s approach. I reached a hoof around the side of the case, and wrapped around their neck, pinning it to the corner of the fridge. With a split-second drop, I made the top of their head touch their shoulder. It all happened in the first moments of combat. I had reached that calm nirvana and I had only one thought on my mind. ‘Next?’

As I readied my stance I caught out of the corner of my eye a dark figure rush in toward Calypto with a hoof spear that ran through a ring on their saddle. They lanced in, and it was a direct hit to the head.

But just as I had thought my adventure with this crazy zebra had come to premature end, there was a metal chinking sound as the spear was deflected along the edges of the hat. Calypto counter-balanced the edge of the visor with a hoof. With the other hoof, he hooked the muzzle of his revolver into the nostril of the offending merc, wrenching the pony off of him by cartilage alone as he extended the revolver upward. The merc’s quaking eyes could be seen only because the reflective surfaces of the revolver had caught a glimmer of ambient light from outside as he repositioned the barrel downward.

“I don’t like your rules…”

And with smile, a bullet tore through the merc’s skull with a visceral headshot. Calypto didn’t drop a beat in changing the rules. Before the body fell to the ground, Calypto was already punching drainage holes in the surrounding mercs like some kind of striped homicidal maniac. It was like he was sending them all off with express tickets to the afterlife. Still, it was dark, and not every bullet was fatal.

“Switch to plan beta!” The leader called out as she dodged out of the way of Scapegrace’s machine gun, which curved up as the recoil tore her off aim.

Damn it, the rules were changing too quickly. We were making a ruckus, and we couldn’t afford to get pinned down. “Damn it, Calypto! This was the one situation where I didn’t have to deal with guns and you blew it!”

“Get over it.”

Personally, I didn’t have any intentions of having guns pointed at me, let alone have them shoot bullets at me. When I saw the frame of a rather large thug of pony with compensatingly oversized rotational gun barrels slung over each of their shoulders in a battle saddle, I had no choice but to ballistically assert myself like wedge beneath the pony as they were crossing the threshold. I interrupted their stride, knocking their body upward, pressing an uppercut to the chin. As badly as they wanted to mow our merry party down, I forced their body to pivot up as their turrets wound up and brutalized the ceiling above. “The pre-war called, they want their stupid looking towers back” I mumbled referring to the ridiculous weapons on the pony’s back. I didn’t know about the S.P.P at the time, but those giant towers were hard to miss, and they killed the view.

An earth pony with blades on their head and hooves rushed at Calypto between reloads. Calypto belayed the first cut, getting by with just another stripe before dashing behind the radio stand. The multi-bladed attacker kept swinging, spinning their torso around for a second and even third attack in a feat of freakish flexibility before rotating their hind legs with a quick hop. Riding one hit to dodge the second strike, Calypto pulled away enough to kick up the stand and, with his hind hoof, pinned the attacker beneath it. The flexible bastard bent around the wooden support for another attack, but Calypto flicked a newly loaded cylinder into his revolver. For all their flexibility, they couldn’t bend around bullets. Not while pinned at least…

Still locked with the emissary of necessary firepower, I was in a tight spot. The brute started bearing down on me, trying to crush me. In my peripheries, I noticed something moving. A pinecone head rushed towards me with a blade in her teeth. I only caught on because of the faint glow of her horn and the aura that coated her blade, but I was the only thing keeping the pony with stupid ridiculous guns from tearing all of us to pieces. I neither could nor wanted to dodge. I whipped my tail, but the attacker didn’t flinch at all, powering through as it wrapped against her temple. But before the blade could reach me, the glow of her magic had faded, and she had collapsed to the ground. It was probably an enlightening experience as the tiny hidden weights in my tail crashed into her skull at just barely subsonic speeds.

The gun barge sized pony wriggled their chin out from my hoof and sank their weight. They telegraphed a shove, pulling back their hooves as they leaned forward, but the thing about tumbleweeds is that they roll with things. Just before they were about to kick me back, I reached my neck out and clamped my teeth on supports for the battle-saddle’s bite trigger. They wanted to kick me down, and I kicked back, thinking that sounded like a grand idea. Now, when ponies work together, the results are incredible. The distance I flew was something of pure beauty, only rivaled by the look on the muscled pony’s face as they vainly probed the air trying to bite hold of the trigger mechanism I had take along with me in my travels. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the pleasure of being able watch it, as I nearly impaled myself on another pine cone headed mercenary. I only barely rolled around them as I stumbled across the room.

Damn it, there were too damn many ponies. I stumbled to catch my breath as the corn-headed pony turned around and readied a charge. From the darkness, it wasn’t until they were close that I realized it wasn’t a pine-cone… er… it wasn’t a normal horn. They were an earth pony, with some kind of animal claw they decided to strap to their face. Sometimes I feel like some ponies think they can get away with duct taping just anything to themselves and calling it a weapon.

As they bolted towards me brandishing their make-shift pinecone at me, I parried the blade with the metal plating on the back of my hoof and passed to their left side.

“Tumbleweed, watch out!” Scapegrace called out before I could manipulate or throw my opponent. Just as I turned to look, my eye caught an exceptional large hoof. I wish Scapegrace could have given me bit more of a heads up about how the turret pony had figured out that I broke their weapon and had decided they didn’t need any weapons to beat me up. I rolled with the strike, fading back, but not before wrapping a hoof around the horn-faced bastard.

“I’ve got your back!” Scapegrace shouted, as she drew her sights. The words rang through my ears, and a chill ran down my spine. I had a chilling flashback. Why did we let her have a machine gun?

My body bolted into action. The horny pony tried their best to break through my hold, but as they tried to rush forward, I curbed their motion around in a circle. This was life or death! With hooves clamped around the pony’s head, I drove him straight into the gun pony, rendering them into shish-kebab. The kabab tried to run away, but I leveraged the horn to pull them back in front of me as the hail of bullets began to fly. The body shook violently as the machine gun ripped holes while I screamed like a filly.

“He has a shield…” Calypto mumbled to himself, bringing a hoof to his face.

The bullet fire ended and I channeled my nervousness into strength. With a powerful sweep and a twist, I robbed the duct-tape unicorn of all connection to the ground. I drove their horn straight down into the flooring. Breathing heavy, I turned to give a powerful double-legged kick, but then another hail of lead minced them to pieces. I only barely noticed in time to abort my strike. The bullets mostly landed in the enemy’s groinal region. I didn’t know what gender they were before, but whatever they were before, they weren’t anymore.

“Got ‘em!” Scapegrace called out with a rather pleased expression on her face.

“You could have killed me!”

“…But I didn’t, so it’s okay.”

As we were bickering, the heavy blast of a shotgun launched Calypto in between the two of us.

“Cal, you okay?” I asked.

Calypto picked himself up and took a small red vial from inside his cloak and drank it. “This is going to be a problem. I think it’s time.”

They had finally surrounded the three of us. Even with taking out as many as we had, there were just so damn many of them. How many ways were they splitting this bounty, anyway? Was there a discount for rent-a-merc? Whatever the cause, it was time. I pulled my goggles over my eyes. They had been modified to have darker frames. Calypto pulled down the brim of his hat, and Scapegrace tossed aside the cloak she had wrapped around herself.

At the center, the unicorn leader from before was at the front, a combat shotgun floating in the air next to her with two blades bracing the bottom of the gun. A sickening smile hung from her face.

“Oh, are you only getting serious now? Sorry, it’s checkmate! Goggles aren’t going to…!”

Before she could finish, there was a sun-like flash of light.

“My eyes!”

“Fuck I can’t see!”

“Where’d they go!”

And like that, we disappeared, or at least it seemed as such. The light had rent the surrounding merc’s eyes, robbing them of night vision. They might as well not have eyes at all.

Gunfire filled the air as they shouted in panic. They fired blind, searching for us, but we had ducked down. They found their comrades before they would find us.

We hugged the ground as we crawled out towards the exit. As we got some distance, we picked ourselves up.

“We should’ve done that from the start” Calypto quipped.

“Let no pony ever say that natural bioluminescence and stealth can’t be compatible” Scapegrace said rather proud of herself.

“You’re still a night-light though…” I joked at her.

I let Scapegrace and Calypto go in front of me down the stairs. We needed to be careful, because other groups could have been drawn to the fighting. As I made my way down the stairway, my ears caught several repeated clanging sounds.

“This isn’t over! Get the fuck back here!” The mercenary unicorn screamed as she rounded the corner. It was as if she had turned into some kind of beast. In a telekinetic vortex she swung three different swords around with mad fury against the walls and ground… but it wasn’t mindless. No, I could tell exactly what she was doing. She was feeling … She wanted to find us. It seemed less like a cloud and more like a whirlwind, her telekinesis picking up blood, dust, and debris as she clawed ravenously with her blades.

I didn’t need more of an invitation to get the hell out, but just as I started down the stairs, I felt the tug of a telekinetic pull at my bags.

“You’re not getting away. I’ll kill you myself!” The blind unicorn screamed, her face twisting and writhing in anger.

A blade lanced forth, hitting my saddlebag, followed by another blade. I tried to dodge down the stairs, but the sword clipped my bag again. As I turned, a white orb, the kind I found in the MoM building, flew out of my bag.

The second the unicorn’s trashing telekinetic maelstrom touched the orb, her movements halted all together. I was surprised at first. She seemed so damn motivated before about killing me. That orb really made her reconsider or something. As I got a better look, I could tell she was really frozen there. I poked her, right in the eye, and I still got no response. I looked at orb, and it was like the skies parted and I could see clearly. I knew exactly what they were. It wasn’t a mystery anymore.

… they were unicorn grenades.

“Hey Dirtbag, get down here already!” Calypto called up the stairs.

I grinned as I cantered down the stairs. I had a shiny new kind of weapon!

--------------------------------oooOOOooo--------------------------------------

It was a strange experience, being thrust into another’s body, not that I had ever experienced anything of that sort. For that bounty hunter, it must have been one of confusion, and then panic. At this point, there was nothing she could do. The room was plain, almost eerily so. The host sat a desk and waited for instruction. She was nervously fidgeting and chipping away her hoof with teeth. An elderly mare entered the room, and with a smile dismissed her escort. She had a pink coat and mane that at some point may have held more color, but age had bleached most of it white, except for a renegade strand of reddish pink hair that made her mane take on the likeness of a candy cane. She was old, but something about how she walked had a warm spring to it.

“Hello, you must be Ms.Forgetmenot? Kind of a mouthful of a name, but a nice image to it.” The elderly mare smiled. “Age 24, birthday January 26th? Working at home in a family run flower shop?”

“Um… actually, I collect for data for Ministry of Image… and my parents are engineers.”

The elderly mare brought a hoof to her head. “My bad… I’ve got my eye on so many things these days it’s hard to keep track of all the things on the dossier. I have a selective memory, and so I usually stick to names and birthdays. I’ve been known to even forget my own birthday from time to time, but we aren’t here for my memory, but rather for your memory. We’ve heard you have a super duper memory! The kind we really really need.”

The host nervously dodged the gaze of the mare.

“Have you been doing the memory exercises that have been distributed to you?” She asked looking from behind fake reading glasses.

“The ones given to me by the ponies with tropical shirts and sunglasses? They said it would ‘radically cool’ if I worked on them for the sake of Equestria… were they from the Ministry of Awesome?” The host asked, to which the pink pony gave shrewd little contortion in her face.

“Whoops, that’s a memory we will probably have to pull later on.”

The host strained her lower lip in concern.

“Oh, don’t worry about that, it just shows you have the kind of memory we need.”

“…um… thank you, Madame…”

With a smile the elderly mare interjected. “Please, we’re friends. Call me Pinkie Pie.”

“We’re friends?”

“Yup, everypony’s my friend… even if they don’t know it. I’m trying my best. Calling me anything else just sounds like I’m supposed to be doing work, and that is just the worst.”

“Okay, Ms. Pinkie pie.”

“It’s just Pinkie Pie. Anyway, I take it you have been doing them?”

“Yes mmmmmmm…” The host caught herself slipping into the honorific, and in an act of social dexterity, turned it into a yawn. “ahhhhhwwwwn… Pinkie pie.”

Pinkie Pie shot her a sassy look from the corners of her eyes. “Nice. Do mind if I test you?” Before Forgetmenot could reply, Pinkie Pie turned her front hooves upward and smiled. “Surprise!” When she said the word, glittery magic confetti popped out of the talisman encrusted horseshoes unleashing a gust of air that blew the shy pony’s hair around. “That was a rhetorical question, I’m testing you anyway!”

The poor pony stared slack-faced for a moment in social whiplash, before shaking out of it. Pinkie Pie showed her a deck of cards, particularly flourishing the order of all the cards. Then, Pinkie placed all the cards faced down across the table.

“Let’s play memory!” She said with a smile, but then a stray thought made her bounce her head back and forth. “Or it’s sorta memory. No pairs, I’m just going to say a card, and you’re going to pick it out. Okay?” The host nodded quietly.

“Ace of spades.”

The host pointed it out rather quickly.

“Queen of diamonds.” The host thought for a moment, and picked another card. Similarly, it was the correct card. This trend continued for the next couple of cards.

“King of Clubs” The host quickly picked out a card, but when it was flipped over, to her shock, it was the red joker. The host looked nervously at her mistake, but Pinkie Pie smiled on.

“Good. You pass.”

“but... but…but…” Forgetmenot mumbled.

“Keep you hold of your ‘buts’, I switched that card. Had to make sure you were doing it by memory and didn’t just have crazy powers to see the future!” Pinkie said oscillating her hooves back and forth. “We have a different department for that!” She said happily. “Now of course you could have lied to and pretended that you were doing it by memory, but since you could see the future, you would know that I would be very disappointed that you would lie to your own friend.” The pink mare blabbered on getting lost in the labyrinth of her own mind. “But enough about that, I want you to look at this!” Pinkie pie said as she put a map over top of the cards.

The host’s gaze crawled all over the map, which was entirely drawn with crayons, taking in details like some kind of high powered machine. A lot of the layout looked familiar to the host, but also to that of mercenary inside. It was Ponyville, although it had strange annotations for things various things. Particularly, it mentioned buildings on fire, places that are destroyed, and notations for various groups scattered around the town.

“Alright, this is going to be a little bit hard for you, so I am getting the traumatic stuff out the way first. Don’t worry about what I am telling you, you’re not even going to remember this.” Pinkie then grabbed Forgetmenot by the head and stared her straight in the eyes. “Hey, you! Yeah, you! I’m Pinkie Pie, and I don’t know your name, but we’re friends, and the oracle and I need you to do us a favor.”

“The oracle…what? Who are you talking to.” The host blathered in a low panic.

“I get the idea that you are good at killing ponies, and there is a pony around your time I need you to kill…” Pinkie paused to look at her watch, which really wasn’t helpful, because at every hour tick it said ‘Party time’. “… in about fifteen…twenty-ish minutes.”

“What? Oh my… Kill somepony? I couldn’t… I wouldn’t…”

“Oh, I know you wouldn’t, you are a nice pony. I wouldn’t make you kill anypony. Don’t be silly.”

“But you just told me to kill somepony.” The host said as her breathing increased.

“I wasn’t talking to you, I was talking to somepony inside of you.”

“But… I’m the only pony inside of me!”

“Well, actually you’re right, but you’re wrong. There isn’t anypony in you right now, but there will be! It will be a while, but they’ll be there. Get it?” Pinkie said letting the pony’s head free so that she could diagram with her hooves a little bit in a very convoluted way.

“No, no, I don’t get it!” said the perplexed pony.

“All you need to know is that future is sometimes now.” Pinkie said turning a grin. “You wouldn’t want to kill somepony, but the pony that is sorta inside you is super mean, so I figured as her friend she would be more up to this.”

The sweat was pouring out of the host. “Oh my… I don’t know if I can handle this…”

“You’ve been doing good. Just keep focusing on this and don’t worry about it.” Pinkie trying to be encouraging to the frantic pony.

“But… killing is wrong. Why are you doing this?”

“Well, it’s a hard job and we are trying to do our best with one eye on current events and one eye on the future. The oracle is helpful, but we wish I was born with way more eyes. In the end, this is why we are the Ministry of Morale, and not the Ministry of Morality.” Pinkie said as her face sagged a little and the lines on her face slackened with her frown.

“I thought you said you were friends with everypony! You don’t kill your friends!” Forgetmenot said as she held her head in her hooves.

“We’ve taken the target under our-wing, and we are going to make sure their life is as comfortable and pleasant for as long as we can afford.” Pinkie said recommitting herself in resolve.

“If they are under your wing, why do you need someone else to kill them?” Forgetmenot asked, her hair now damp from sweat.

“It’s a matter of timing.” Pinkie said, knowing it wasn’t enough of an answer for the mare.

The host sat and breathed in and out for a while until her heart rate had caught up to her. When she calmed down, she looked down and asked, “Will this stop the war?”

Pinkie contemplated giving a lying smile, but she caught her words before she spoke them. She sighed. “Honestly, I wish it would… but we are caught between a bunch of hard decisions and the future we are choosing is a hard one, but it is the one we can protect the most friends with.” Pinkie shook her head. “I guess…” She caught herself again, and waited in indecision for moment.

Forgetmenot squirmed in the silence. She flipped the table, scattering cards and paper all over there ground. “Then why are you doing this?”

Pinkie looked around and sighed. “Since we are going to remove the memory anyway, I might as well tell you. This won’t end the war, but the war isn’t the end. The ball is still in play, and if Equestria is going to have a future, we have got to keep playing the game. This is our rebellion against the hoof we have been dealt.”

“Is that … that group? The Vigil of Chains?”

Pinkie’s eyes widened. “That is going to be another memory we are going to have to take out. Some things need to be left as secrets, and telling somepony’s secret is the fastest way to lose a friend forever, and that is something I want to stop.” Pinkie said with a serious look in her eyes.

Forgetmenot sat with shoulders deflated in a cloud of her own angst. “Are you done playing with me?” Her voice was bitter.

Pinkie leaned back and brought a hoof to chin. “I think I have one last thing. Can you look over here?” Pinkie asked pointing in a direction. “And try to remember that I’m not talking to you, so don’t take it personally.”

Reluctantly Forgetmenot turned and forced the captive mercenary inside her to watch. Pinkie Pie pressed a button, and a party ball descended from the ceiling. Bursting open, a banner, with the words “Congratulations! It’s Your Big Day!” written on it, unfurled in a whirlwind of confetti and streamers.

“Keep your head up, kiddo! You are going to be doing a huge service for the future of what I hope is Equestria. In fact, I’m not asking you to do this, I’m gonna make you do this. We are going to put an enchantment on that memory orb because I’m not entirely certain you will really agree with me! So, thanks for your brave but involuntary service! I couldn’t have asked for a better friend to do this.” She said with hooves up high. When she was done, she hoof on Forgetmenot’s shoulder. “Thanks for putting up with a kooky old mare’s hazardhoofed plans. This was the worst I was willing to give you, so everything from here will be much easier. You’ve helped out in ways that are hard for me to describe. But for now, we are going to let you take a break.” Pinkie said ruffling the hairs on the head of the young mare that she wanted to give a better world for, but couldn’t find the answers. Forgetmenot shrugged. “How about I get you a cupcake? Would you like a cupcake? Hmm?” She said out of habit.

“No… I don’t want a cupcake.” The host said with dismal enthusiasm.

Pinkie Pie looked side to side before leaning in and whispering with the back of her hoof to her mouth. “Well, if you wanted a cupcake, I’m just saying that I have connections. I can get you a cupcake.”

The host didn’t respond. Pinkie sighed and escorted her outside of the white room where a stallion in pink suit and sunglasses was awaiting them. “I want you to take my friend down to extraction. I want her to be taken care of well, and I want you to make sure she is happy and doesn’t have to remember any of this.”

“Did it go poorly?”

“No, it went perfectly, but I hate hurting any of my friends. Unfortunately, the job sometimes requires me to. It’s definitely the worst part of all of this.” Pinkie said pulling the stallion away, knowing that Forgetmenot would not have wanted to hear it. “Anyway, take care of my friend.”

“Anything for you, Pinkie Pie.” The stallion said with a nod. The host gave him a look, and the two of them started walking down the hallway.

The old mare sighed. “I miss the days where I could solve everypony’s problems with a dozen cupcakes…” As she looked around, she caught the gaze of nervous security pony who was stationed on the side. She furrowed her brow as she pointed a wrinkly old hoof at the young guard. “Your birthday is … August 24th.”

The security guard’s sunglasses fell right off his face. “How do you do that?”

The old mare grinned in defiance to world of troubles surrounding her. “I still got it…” She quipped while flapping her ears back and forth. With reborn confidence, she began walking away from host. “Alright, I need some ponies to help me clean up in here. I’ve got another friend coming over, and I want it to look nice! And somepony get me a cupcake!”

----------------------------oooOOOooo-------------------------------------------------

There it was… Town hall. The dome tower stood tall, cracked open to the sky. The wood was decrepit and soggy, as a century or so will do to those things we had built. Plant life had taken a fancy to it, but it didn’t seem to be quite exotic or carnivorous as some of the other things we had encountered before. On one side a great arena was dug out into an amphitheater with several plateaus to seat many ponies, more ponies than I ever wanted to deal with in my life. In the center was a stage. An acoustic arch hung over top, visible only by the smoldering fires that had been eating away at it. Much of the detail was obscured in the dissonance between the arrays of light and shadow, but a single equine figure was distinguishable in waiting, leaning against the tall stone club across his shoulder. Scapegrace shuddered at the sight of the scar that ran across his face from beneath his eye all the way back to his ear. Of all the times and places, this was certainly a terrible one. The purple earth pony tossed and turned, in a world all his own. He drew the air in through his nosed as he paced.

And then he turned to us.

It was hard to tell when the wasteland loved or hated me, but it certainly didn’t mind throwing all these challenges my way. It was too damn hot for this kind of thing.

“Hell of a party, huh?” The voice of Killjoy called out, but he couldn’t coax us from the darkness.

Author's Notes:

I wrote the beginning of this bit soooo long ago! It is weird for me looking back on it, because my writing style has changed a lot. There are many things I don't tell you guys about the character's thought processes and tactics, but I assure you that you can infer a lot of things. A lot of stuff in this is based on real tactics people would use. For example that thing about "well traveled roads taste salty" is a real trick from the Shonin-ki.

Pissing people off and proper "Pinecone" head etiquette:
Why "Pinecone head"? Of all the derogatory words, what makes one call a dinky forehead spell tumor a pinecone?

To be honest, it is a simple concept. It is close enough to be understood, but incongruous enough to get backlash. If you were a unicorn and somebody called you a "pine cone head", you probably would be surprised at them. You would be like "Is this dung flinging dirt rat talking to me?" When you realize they are talking to you, you would probably say, "It's not a pinecone." because you have never thought of it as a pinecone in your entire life. Unfortunately, you have fallen into the trap. When calling somepony a "pinecone head", you must be aggressive. For every time they try to tell you that it is not a pinecone, you must reassure them with all of your heart that, no, they are absolutely mistaken, that definitely is a pinecone. Do it belligerently and without mercy. It will drive them nuts.

I'm glad unicorn grenades made it into the chapter. They were one of the original ideas I have been throwing around since I began brainstorming this story. So many stories use them, and I think it scares people off from having earth pony protagonists, which is a shame.

By the way, a thanks goes out to my prereaders and editors, especially Nastyhooves for some serious editing work. Be sure to check out FOE: Stable Scout, by Kyler Adams. It's got some fun military action going on. And if you want less stories about stable dwelling unicorns, and more stories about snarky earth pony wastelanders, check out Almanac Pony's FOE: Letters to Celestia. He has a good grip on tension and if you enjoy Tumbleweed's antics, you will probably enjoy Tome Tale.