Do raiders love?

It seems such a bizarre question on its face. From everything I had seen and heard, raiders are barbaric beyond all belief. These are ponies who rape, torment, torture, and kill, all for their own amusement. Such acts even became something of a social dynamic among them; the more depraved and vicious you were, the more respect you commanded from other raiders, and the higher your status. It was little wonder that those who led their own bands, like Pike, were the most horrible of the lot. In their vile social structure, it was how they gained standing.

So they had social dynamics and concepts of respect. They obviously enjoyed certain things, as horrible as those things often were. It seemed reasonable that they would have a degree of interest in their companions for them to have banded together. But did that extend to the kind of appreciation that would place that other pony on a similar level as themselves, or was it entirely selfish? Were raiders capable of loving anything but their own self-interest?

These were the kind of thoughts I had as I peered through Dusty’s binoculars at a watchtower, while the pair of raiders within grew increasingly frisky.

We all lay on a low ridge, several hundred yards from the tower in question; all except Sickle and her heavy, noisy armor, whom we had left another hundred yards back. In the growing darkness of twilight, we would have been practically invisible, even if the raiders had been looking our way. It gave us plenty of time to observe, and I looked on with interest.

I was hungry.

The day had been long and quiet. Despite the friendship I had fostered in Starlight, she had been so focused on Sickle that she had spared hardly a moment of thought toward me. Even when we had halted in the early evening a couple miles from our destination, to wait for nightfall, I had hardly gotten a nibble out of her. So, I watched the pair of young stallions in the tower and silently contemplated whether I might be able to get any love if I impersonated one of them.

Not that I thought I’d have any chance of doing so, or that I would dare try should the opportunity have presented itself. Sneaking off from my group without arousing suspicion would be difficult enough. Infiltrating theirs would be even more difficult, especially done blind. I could maybe catch one alone and forcibly feed upon them, but even that posed significant risk of discovery. I didn’t plan on doing any of these things, but when one is hungry and walking by a buffet, one can hardly be blamed for looking. So I looked, and thought.

Was there any love to be had, there? Some might have looked at the way one of the ponies roughly handled the other, pinning him in place and biting, and concluded that there was only self-interest, but I knew things weren’t always so simple. Both were clearly enjoying themselves, but that didn’t answer whether that enjoyment was entirely self-centered or not. Did they care at all for the other pony, or were they simply using each other for their own personal pleasure?

“Enjoying the show?” Dusty quietly whispered from beside me.

“Thinking,” I replied, and presented a different reason for my interest. “If all of their guards show a similar lack of discipline, we might be able to pull off a silent infiltration.”

I lowered the binoculars to pass them back to Dusty, and looked over the compound as a whole.

Paradise Beach made a mockery of both parts of its name.

Five office buildings, multi-story structures of crumbling concrete and broken glass, formed a semicircle around a large, muddy pond. The sandy desert earth around the pond was dotted with debris, with the occasional picnic table and the tattered skeletons of old beach umbrellas. The rusting remains of a skywagon lay half-submerged in the pond, and a large neighborhood of ruined houses were set across from the offices. A few service buildings were set on the pond-side of that neighborhood; I saw what looked to have been a restaurant, a store, and a few other buildings I couldn’t immediately identify.

Circling the compound was a concrete wall, worn and cracked by the years. Automated defenses had long since broken down or been stripped for salvage, leaving skeletal frames and scorched craters where they had once topped the walls. A pair of crude towers had been erected to take up the task of watching over the facility, one over each of the two opposing gates. The gates themselves bore the name “Paradise Beach” in letters that had once been bright and colorful, but were now faded and chipped.

Other than the two broken-down guard shacks by each gate, the only building outside of the wall was a small loading facility to service the rail line that led up to the place. A train lay crumpled and broken past the end of the rails, having plowed through the barrier at their end and gone crashing into the barren field beyond.

While the pair of ponies entertaining themselves in one of the towers were the only raiders we saw, there were plentiful signs of their presence. Long metal poles outside the entry gate were decorated with bones, lashed in place with wire. The decayed corpse of a pony hung from another pole that protruded from what had once been a store. The flickering firelight from within that and the neighboring restaurant were the only lights to be seen, and seemed to suggest that the raiders had holed up there. No lights came from across the compound, near the dark and silent office buildings.

The whole place was set in a shallow bowl between a few sandy hills, one of which was currently host to us.

Dusty was sweeping his binoculars slowly over the rolling terrain to our right, looking for an ideal approach. “It’s a lot of ground to cross, and the cover could be better, but we’ll have the darkness on our side. Say… fifteen minutes to get there? Probably more, if we’re darting from cover to cover.”

“I’m not sure if they’ll be busy that long,” I said. “They hadn’t gotten properly started yet, so I’d say they’ll be busy for at least five minutes. How much longer, I couldn’t say. Fifteen minutes may be pushing it.”

“And it’d be longer because we would need to get Sickle, too.” He sighed, lowering his binoculars again. “Okay, salvage experts. How long do you think it’ll take to locate, break into, and download the entire server in five separate research offices?”

Starlight shrugged, still peering through the sight of her Lancer. “I don’t know, probably a few minutes each? Plus getting into the place and moving. Maybe an hour?”

“And worst case?” I asked.

She lowered her Lancer, considering that for a moment. “An hour each?”

“Shit,” Dusty muttered. “Would have liked to wait a few hours for their guards to get bored and sloppy, but that would be cutting things a bit close for comfort. Scoot back; we’re getting Sickle and moving in.”

We slid back on our bellies until we were behind the crest, then rose to trot down the slope. Sickle was sitting, waiting for us. “You done sightseeing yet?”

“Yep,” Dusty said. “Scouted out a route that should get us there. Let’s go.”

“About fucking time,” Sickle said as she stood.

As she walked with us, her armor clattering and clacking with each step, Dusty talked us through the plan.

We made our way around the next hill, reaching a shallow draw several minutes later. We slowed, crouching low as we moved. It felt silly to do so when Sickle’s crouched shuffle was about as tall as I stood normally, but we did so anyway. The quietness of our advance and the young night made Sickle’s armor sound all the louder in my ears.

Eventually, we reached a point where the draw faded away into the slope of the hill. We stopped at a pair of scraggly bushes Dusty had spotted before, while he pulled out his binoculars.

While we were much closer to the wall, and therefore the tower, I couldn’t make it out well in the darkness. I saw what looked to be one of the stallions’ heads, but I couldn’t be certain. We were below its level, and couldn’t see what lay below those walls.

Dusty lowered the binoculars again, trading it for his rifle. “I only see one of them, but his back’s to us. Star, you’re up.”

As he lay beside the bush, peering down the sights of his rifle at the tower, Starlight grinned. “Got it,” she said, and crouching low, scurried up to another bush, a third of the way to the wall. By the time she got there, she was just a silhouette in the darkness. That silhouette dropped to the ground, lying halfway behind the bush. A faint glow of magic brought her Lancer forward as she sighted on the tower, winking out a moment later.

“She’s in place,” I whispered.

“Good,” Dusty replied around his bit. “Whisper, go.”

As planned, I moved quick and low, my rifle’s grip held in my teeth. I passed right behind Starlight, who remained focused down her sight, and continued on. My eyes were locked on the tower, ready to throw myself prone the moment I saw any movement. None came, and finally the broken top of the wall blocked it from view. I sat beside the wall, looked back, and gave a little wave.

Sickle was uncomfortably conspicuous. Her metal armor stood out against the sandy ground, if only a little; a ghostly image when compared to the silhouettes of Dusty and Starlight blending seamlessly into the ground around them. As she moved, I could already hear the quiet jingling of her armor, though only faintly. It made for an agonizing wait as I sat there, worried that the raider would notice us at any moment.

Slowly, she drew closer, and closer, and I finally let out a sigh of relief as she reached the shadow of the wall behind me. Her armor rattled one more time as she made a rude gesture Dusty’s way. It wasn’t the wave Dusty had suggested, but it got the message across.

Dusty didn’t move. After several seconds, I gave a wave, but there was still no motion. I was starting to get very worried when his silhouette finally drew back and rose, shuffling quickly toward us.

When he arrived, he gave a quick wave to Starlight before whispering, “Damnit, Sickle, I said to stop and hide if he looked your way!”

“Fuck off, Dirt,” she rumbled, rather less quietly. “I didn’t see him do shit.”

“Quiet!” Dusty hissed. “Anyway, we’re lucky. I don’t think he saw anything, and he lost interest pretty quick. We should still be good.”

“Then quit your bitching and let’s go.”

Dusty’s jaw tightened, but I assume he recognized how arguing about it would only make things worse. He remained silent for a couple of seconds, until Starlight slipped in next to us, and then motioned for us to follow him.

We crept along the wall for a couple of minutes, until we reached a point Dusty had scouted out. Beside a pillar that had once housed an automated turret, the wall was cracked and partially crumbled. While most of the wall stretched a good ten feet over our heads, the crumbling gouge was only about five.

Starlight was up once more. With a nod from Dusty, she slung her Lancer and rushed forward; her hooves clattered only faintly against the wall as she sprung up along it, hooking her forehooves over the rim. She hauled herself up until her chest rested against it, and then went still, her hind legs dangling. She remained there for several long seconds before scrambling up all the way, perching atop the wall, and motioning for us to follow. Then she disappeared over the top.

Sickle grumbled a bit as she sat beside the wall, giving Dusty the opportunity to climb up atop her shoulders on his way up the wall. I followed as soon as he was over. I felt incredibly uncomfortable stepping on Sickle, my hooves clunking against the metal plate over her shoulder; that discomfort edged toward outright fear when I heard her growl beneath her breath. My scramble over the wall top was quick and not terribly graceful. Fortunately, I landed on my hooves.

Sickle merely rose up on her hind legs, grabbed the top of the gap, and hauled herself over. Her armor scraped noisily against the concrete and clattered loudly as she dropped to the dirt beyond. I heard a sharp, wincing exhale from Starlight at the sound.

The space beyond the wall was mostly dirt and dead vegetation, save for the large plazas behind each of the office buildings with their assortment of benches, fountains, and barren planters. We quickly followed Dusty to a mass of dead vegetation lying at the rear of one of the plazas and settled in, waiting. Dusty looked forward, scanning across the back lots, while Starlight watched back along the wall.

Satisfied that nopony was coming yet, Dusty scooted back. “Okay, from here on, we move in buddy teams. Star, Whisper, you two are basically inseparable anyway, keep that up. Sickle, you and I stick together. Never split up, watch out for your buddy, that sort of thing. Okay?”

We agreed, and he nodded. “Good. I’m thinking we hit the offices in order, unless anyone thinks differently?”

I leaned in, whispering. “Stable-Tec should be our first target. We need access to computers for this, and they did a lot of computer research. If we’re going to find anything that makes our job easier, it’ll be there.”

He nodded. “Sounds good. Which one is the Stable-Tec office?”

Starlight lowered her gaze to her PipBuck, flipping to the map. After a moment of searching, she raised a hoof. “That one, the second building.”

“Good,” Dusty nodded. “We move from cover to cover, short bounds. Move around the back of the plaza, then to the rear door of the building. Star, Whisper, lead us out.”

Adrenaline started to tickle at my hooves again as we rose, darting forward almost silently to another set of dead bushes. This time, though, it was more familiar. More exciting. I felt like I was in my element, sneaking about behind everyone’s back, searching for hidden information to steal without anypony being the wiser. It wasn’t too different from how it was during the war.

I tried to ignore the fact that it would probably be just as bad if I were caught, too. Maybe even worse.

We stopped at the bushes, looking out across the plazas. Still nothing.

Another quick bound, and we passed the first office’s plaza entirely, continuing on until we could hide behind a planter at the back corner of the next. We waited as Dusty and Sickle moved up to the corner we had just left. Dusty set up there, his rifle resting across a bench; he’d have a clear line of sight across the entire courtyard.

With him set, we moved again. Our advance wasn’t quite as silent as we moved across the paved square, our hooves clacking quietly on the cracked and uneven concrete. We moved from planter to fountain to bench, pausing as Dusty and Sickle moved up to the corner of the plaza, keeping the distance close.

Slowly, the dark, empty pits of the building’s broken windows drew closer.

Starlight and I halted at a low concrete wall just outside the rearmost doorways. The broad, full-length windows and glass doors had long since been smashed out, leaving a gaping, dark chasm inside the building.

Behind us, I heard the clacking of Sickle’s spiked shoes on the concrete as they moved up.

Then I heard a sharp clatter from between the two offices.

I lurched and quickly gestured with a hoof. I don’t know if Dusty reacted to my gesture or if he heard the sound himself, but he immediately dropped down beside a planter, and a moment later Sickle crouched as well.

Silence filled the air. Then it was broken by the clacking of hooves on concrete; the sound of a slow, walking gait.

A couple seconds later there was a missed hoofbeat, then another, and the sound stopped.

I glanced Dusty’s way. I could barely make him out in the shadows, but I saw him raise a hoof to gesture downward. I assumed he meant to stay put, and gave a tiny nod.

We crouched and waited, and soon I heard the faint sound of the dry earth crunching under-hoof; there was a pony drawing closer. The hoofsteps clacked louder as he stepped onto a paved walkway again. A moment later, I heard the pony, a stallion, start to hum a tune.

Moving slowly and smoothly, I lowered my rifle until it hung on its sling, released the bit, and drew my pistol; I took my time silently slipping off the safety, and leveled it at the edge of the wall.

The hoofsteps drew closer. Starlight edged backward, toward the far corner of our cover, as it became apparent the incoming pony was going to walk right between Dusty’s position and our own.

The raider came around the end of the wall, and I aligned my sights over the center of his chest.

I never fired. A loud clatter of metal on concrete interrupted us; the raider had just enough time to let out a startled, “Huh?” before Sickle slammed into him, her head lowered. Her armor’s horn jutted out of the raider’s side as she bore him back against the wall. I scrambled back as she reared up, lifting him atop her head, and then threw him down, his body slamming meatily into the concrete right in front of me.

He managed a single, wet gasp before one of her hooves pressed down on his throat. It was an almost gentle gesture, but that didn’t help the raider. I watched in horror as his hooves grappled and pressed at Sickle, clattering against her armor, while the sucking wound in his chest gurgled with his attempts to breathe.

Sickle lifted her other hoof, and he tried to shove it away as she lowered the leg-mounted blades to his chest. His efforts made no impact on the hoof’s slow descent, even as she slowly pressed the twin blades into him. He flailed and struggled, landing a couple good kicks against her chest, but she didn’t even flinch. It took only moments before his struggles started to lose coordination, ending with a few weak fumbles before his hooves stilled, slowly sliding down her legs.

Sickle lifted her hoof, and the raider gave a faint sigh as the last of his breath left him. One foreleg shifted a little, as if to curl up over his chest, but it never made it.

Sickle turned to me, flecks of blood glistening on her helm. “See?” she rumbled. “I can be quiet.”

I stared at the fresh corpse, breathing as hard as if I had been a part of that struggle myself. I recognized him: one of the raiders who had been in the watchtower. He was skinny and ragged, with a few scraps of leather worn as a crude vest. Fresh bite-marks adorned his neck and shoulder.

Mind you, my shocked reaction had nothing to do with the pony being dead. I had been fully prepared to end his life myself. What I had not been prepared for was the sheer violence of his demise.

Dusty hurried up beside us, his expression tight. “Get inside before someone comes looking!” he whispered. “And bring the body, we need to hide it!”

Sickle chuckled as she picked up the raider, throwing him limply across her back. I reengaged my pistol’s safety and slid it back into its holster, and we hurried toward the darkness of the building.

“Watch for glass,” Starlight hissed as we approached the doors, and we slowed, stepping carefully and nudging glass out of the way before putting any weight down; nopony wanted to catch a shard of glass in the frog. The exception was, naturally, Sickle, who simply walked right in, glass crunching harmlessly under her spiked shoes.

I could barely make out the details of the dark chamber. Several tables with attached benches filled the space, scattered about. A few were knocked askew or broken. Ceiling panels had fallen, leaving debris scattered across the floor and revealing the even darker void beyond the false ceiling. Sickle walked deeper into the room to a long counter; the room must have been a cafeteria.

We approached the counter, ducking behind it as Starlight floated up her PipBuck and turned the screen on again; while its light could give us away, we also needed it to see. It faintly illuminated the space, and gave just enough light to see the bits of paint that still remained on the walls. It looked like the walls had once held a woodland motif. Now, the cracked and faded remnants among the long expanses of worn gray seemed to mimic the wasteland that Equestria had become.

Sickle dumped the dead raider behind the counter, then paused, looking down at him. “Hey, I know this little fucktoy,” she rumbled, giving him a firm poke with her hoof. “Well, shit! This must be Gutrip’s gang. This little bitch was always sucking on Gut’s hooves.”

Starlight looked up from her PipBuck. “Gutrip? Well he sounds pleasant.”

“It’s just a stupid name,” Sickle said with a rumbling chuckle. “He’s just a big dumbass with a big gun. Some giant drum-fed piece of shit he calls “Chomper.” Something about the bolt; I don’t know. He’s way into that gun. Hell, I’m pretty sure he’s fucked the damn thing. About the only other thing that gets him up is gutting ponies.” She shrugged. “He likes to think he’s big and strong and nasty, but he’s just a little bitch. Lousy fuck, too.”

“This isn’t going to be a problem, is it?” Dusty asked.

I could only barely see the wicked grin Sickle gave under her muzzle. “Naw,” she said, raising a hoof to show off the bloodied blades. “I think I’ll have fun gutting him, just to see how much he likes it.”

“Great,” Dusty dryly replied. “Okay, let’s move. Somepony’s going to come looking for this guy eventually. We need to find their server. And be careful with that light, we don’t want to draw attention.”

“If speed is the issue, we need a map,” Starlight said, turning her PipBuck’s screen down until it gave only the faintest of glows. “Best bet would be a lobby or the like. Otherwise we might have to hunt around and check everywhere to find those servers.”

“Lobby it is, then,” Dusty said. “Lead on.”

The going was slow. Despite the spacious design of the building, it was pitch-black once we were away from the outer windows, forcing us to rely on the faint glow of Starlight’s PipBuck to pick our way through the debris and rubble.

Fortunately, the hall leading out from the cafeteria led straight to the main lobby. It was a towering open space ringed by the balconies of each level. During the day, before it had fallen into decay, it would have been a warm, pleasant space, with its glass wall and roof. Right then, it just felt exposed. We could see the flickering lights of the buildings across the central park.

We waited while Starlight slipped out to the cluster of counters and information displays. It was a couple of minutes of silence, with only the occasional clopping of hooves and rattle of debris being moved.

When she returned, she was carrying a thin object, a placard pried from one of the information displays. She led us back into a small interior room and turned up her light.

It was one of those typical “you are here” maps, with a directory listing what each room was. Starlight’s hoof ran down the list, eyes darting back and forth. “Security office is right across the hall, should definitely check that out first. And I’m seeing two computer-related sections. There’s ‘R&D’ on the top floor, and ‘Data Services’ here on the first.”

“Data Services sounds like the server area,” I said, looking at the map. After a moment, I placed the tip of a hoof down on the first-floor diagram. “In fact, that looks like it’s probably the server room itself.” I moved my hoof to the fifth floor. “But I’d like to check out that R&D, too.”

“I don’t want to get bogged down with side-trips,” Dusty said. “How long will it take to get what you need in R&D?”

“I’d be looking for hardware, mostly,” I replied. “An access tool would be ideal. Barring that, a portable terminal, debug cables, stuff like that. Should be pretty obvious. Maybe a couple minutes to do a quick sweep, plus however long it takes to get in there.”

Dusty cocked his head to the side, giving me a funny, questioning look. “You do a lot of hacking on your farm, huh?”

“Just an old terminal my mom found. Mostly I read a lot of computer science books.” After a moment of consideration, I quietly added, “And maybe a few spy novels, too.”

After all, looking competent was good; looking too competent was suspicious.

“There’s a stairway just around the corner,” Starlight said. “I’m more concerned about power, though. You can’t do anything with a server if it doesn’t have power.”

Dusty blinked in the darkness. “Shit.”

I looked to Starlight. “Do you think a server would have a backup power source?”

I already knew the answer, of course. She slowly nodded, thinking. “Yeah, I guess they usually do. Those kinds of things tend to last well, too. Okay! Security room, up to R&D, and back down for the server?”

We agreed--Sickle merely grunted--and stepped out of the room.

Our quest for the security room ended almost immediately. Starlight pulled on the handle, but it refused to budge. The keypad beside it was dark, and made no response to its buttons being pressed. The cracked dome of a security camera hung silently above it, reflecting the light of Starlight’s PipBuck.

“I could cut it open,” Starlight said, “but that’s not exactly subtle.”

Sickle snorted, clopping a hoof against the floor and grinding a small piece of fallen concrete into dust. “Or I could just kick it open.”

“Maybe it’ll power up with the server,” Dusty said. “Leave it, we can come back later.”

Starlight muttered under her breath, but led us back down the hallway. The stairway door was just before the cafeteria, and opened much more readily than the security office, impeded only by a small heap of debris on the floor.

Hoofsteps echoed throughout the stairway as we slowly made our way up, dominated by the deep, metallic clacking of Sickle’s shoes. There was less debris here, just bits of grit that had fallen from the bare and cracking concrete walls. There was also less light; no windows shone into this interior space, and even though Starlight turned her PipBuck up, it still left half the space cloaked in shadows.

Starlight turned down the light again once we reached the top level, and cautiously cracked open the door. We followed her out into the hall, decorated with crumbling murals of grassy fields and happy ponies. Another camera, minus its dome, hung from the ceiling.

The door to R&D had the same kind of keypad the security room had, but it didn’t matter; the door itself lay askew, hanging from a single hinge, with deep dents all around the handle where someone had rammed it. I followed Starlight through, while Dusty and Sickle remained outside. “Make it quick,” he said, crouching beside the wall and sighting down his rifle in the direction we had come.

Once we were inside, Starlight turned up the light again. I scanned across several desks. The grassland motif continued here as well, cracked and peeling. Dust covered everything. Four vending machines lay torn open against one wall, their cracked signs advertising Sparkle-Cola and Sunrise Sarsaparilla. Bottles lay discarded around the room.

A quick look over the desks revealed nothing interesting. Even the terminals were mostly smashed, save for one in the back corner. Without power, it was just as useless.

We moved on through the opposite door to sweep through the rest of the section, moving from room to room.

The place was trashed. Two hundred years of constant decay and sporadic scavenging had left the darkened offices in shambles. Desks and tables lay scattered about the rooms, many of them damaged or broken. The debris littering the floor was different; less broken ceiling panels and crumbling bits of concrete, more discarded electrical components and prototyping breadboards. If I spent a few hours collecting various bits and pieces and sorting out the ones that still work, I might be able to make something out of it; a crude radio or clock, for instance. Nothing worth the time spent in hostile territory.

A rack of cables, bolted to the wall under a chipped painting of a pair of ponies frollicking in a meadow, drew my attention. A few seconds of sorting through them left me disappointed. They were all standard terminal connectors, nothing special. I still tucked a set into my bags, just in case.

Shadows swept along the walls as we moved, industrial-grade blank gemstones and other electrical components crunching under-hoof. The sickly green light glinted off broken terminal screens as it struggled to illuminate the dark, cluttered spaces. In the poor light, I almost missed our first good find. I had to call Starlight back to shine her PipBuck under the broken desk to find what I had glimpsed.

Lying half-buried under a set of prototyped circuits and half an office chair was a thick case. It was a fair bit larger than the medical box I carried in my bags, and much heavier, but infinitely more valuable: a portable terminal, one of the old models that was crude in comparison to the later PipBuck portable terminals, but which still carried sufficient functionality for basic diagnostics. It would serve my purposes.

The case was badly cracked and dented, but not warped to the point I would expect internal damage. I wiped the dust off and opened the top panel to reveal its keyboard and a small screen, with a thin crack running through the top right corner.

I flipped the power switch. Nothing happened.

“Battery probably died,” Starlight whispered, her horn lighting up as she rooted around in her bag. “Pop open the case, let’s see what it uses.”

I closed the lid and turned it over to pry open the battery access panel. Once I had, Starlight pulled out the large battery. “Heck of a spark-pack on this thing,” she said, lifting it up to squint at the writing along its side. “Ah, good. This should work.”

She floated over a fresh battery to slide into its place, and I sealed up the panel again. I flipped it right-side up again, opened the screen, and flipped the switch.

This time, I was rewarded by the quiet whirring and clicking of the computer starting up, and characters started scrolling across the screen.

I set it atop the desk to finish booting and rooted through the debris below. After a few moments of searching, my hooves found a strap among the trash. Pulling on it rewarded me with a torn and ratty satchel, but it wasn’t the bag itself that interested me. What interested me was the contents, including a full set of debug cables and a small toolset specialized for computers and electronics. Sadly, the data-store inside the bag was badly damaged, with its case broken in half and bent. I doubted it would still work, but I kept it, just in case I was wrong.

The portable terminal had finished booting up. A quick check revealed what I had suspected; it was a very, very simple device, with practically no storage capacity and a spell-matrix gemset that was bordering on antiquated well before the megaspells dropped. Still, it was sufficient for my purposes. I turned it off again, closed the screen, and took its carrying handle in my teeth.

We continued on, quickly scanning through the rest of the place for anything obvious, but not wasting much time at it. Every minute we spent here was another minute spent in raider territory, and I for one did not want to drag it out longer than absolutely necessary.

The one place we did pause to search was a small PipBuck research office, but our hopes were low of finding anything useful. It was even more ransacked than the rest of the offices, to the point where the tool cabinet had been pried from the wall and carried away, leaving a blank spot of bare concrete in the crumbling imagery of sunny fields. Still, the PipBucks were one of the most advanced pieces of arcano-tech ever developed, so we spent a minute to scour the place.

We found nothing. No abandoned PipBucks, no diagnostic or access tools, nothing. Not even the specialized keys needed to unlock them.

When we slipped out of the office again, Dusty glanced my way, keeping his rifle fixed down the hallway. Seeing the case I was carrying, he asked, “Find what you were looking for?”

“Yes,” I said. “I should be able to get past any security the servers might have with this and a bit of time.”

“Good. Let’s get to it, then.”

We returned to the stairway, and by it, to the ground floor. From there, Starlight led us slowly through a couple halls, until we arrived at a door labeled “Data Services.”

Stepping through, we found ourselves in what looked to be a secretary’s office. Beyond that were more offices, and a single heavy, keypad-locked door labeled “Server Room,” watched over by another camera.

Dusty frowned before turning to me. “Any way you can use that thing to hack the lock, or whatever?”

“That’s not really the kind of electronic device that you ‘hack,’” I replied around the portable terminal’s handle. “Especially not without power.”

“Just shut the door to the hall,” Starlight said, pulling out her cutting torch and goggles. “It’s an interior space, no windows for anypony to see this.”

Dusty nodded, moving back to shut the door leading out to the rest of the offices.

We sat and waited while the cutting torch cast the place into sharp relief of light and shadow, and seared flashes of the room into our vision. When she finished, she slipped her implements back into her bag before pulling out a pry bar. “Hey, um… Sickle? Could you help catch this so it doesn’t make a bunch of noise? Please?”

Sickle gave a sharp snort within her muzzle. “Yeah, whatever.”

Once she had moved into place, Starlight wrenched on the pry bar. A moment later the door’s cut hinges slipped apart, and the bottom of the door settled to the ground with a thud. Sickle caught the top edge easily, and lowered it to the ground. Even dropped from just an inch above the ground, the door produced a deep thump on landing.

Sickle’s hoof clanked noisily atop the door. “You know, I don’t get nearly as much caps if this stays all quiet-like.”

Frowning, Starlight slid the pry bar back into her bags. “You don’t have to fight if it stays quiet, either.”

“Yeah,” Sickle replied, chuckling darkly. “‘Have to.’ That’s a good one.”

Dusty stepped in. “You want to be paid for the job, you have to do the job. Right now, the job is staying quiet. Got it?”

The huge, armored head slowly turned toward him--he backed up half a step--and fixed him with a stare that lasted a couple seconds. “Yeah. I got it, Dirt.”

She turned away again, leading the way into the server room.

The place was filled with a half-dozen large arrays. Arcano-tech gemstones glittered in the green light, nearly hidden behind the circuitry and mess of wires. The servers looked intact, if horribly dusty.

“This looks like what we want,” Starlight said, trotting to the back corner of the room. An array of spark batteries were mounted to the wall, just above a tiny spark generator. She searched around for a bit, finding the power switch for the generator. She reached for it, then paused. “I don’t know how obvious it will be, once I flip this. This thing shouldn’t put out much power, but it might turn on a few lights.”

I set down my newfound portable terminal, opening the screen and turning it on. “I’ll be as quick as I can, then we can shut the power down again.” Pulling out the collection of cables I had gathered, and looking over the ports of the server, I selected the correct one and plugged it in.

Dusty set Lady Amber’s data-store beside me, then returned to the doorway. He crouched, leveling his rifle down the hallway and out of my sight. Sickle sat behind him, unreadable beneath that helm.

When my terminal finished booting up, I nodded to Starlight. “Ready.”

She nodded back.

“Here we go.”

The spark generator whirred as she pressed the button. Red lights appeared above the spark batteries mounted above it, rapidly switching to green. The servers thrummed, crystals lighting up, and the servers’ boot-up text started scrolling across my terminal’s screen.

A small screen beside the spark-battery array lit up, as well. It was small, but the text was large enough for me to read.

A deep thump sounded faintly beneath us, and a vibration ran through the floor. A loud beep sounded, followed by the clunk of electrical switches engaging, and the room was suddenly bathed in light.

The small power-management screen blinked out a new message.

Dusty drew back from the doorway, blinking against the sudden brightness. “Every damn light in the building just turned on!” he hissed. “How long is that going to take, Whisper?”

“Unknown,” I said, squinting at the screen as the messages continued to scroll. Somewhere, in another room, a shrill tone sounded for a couple seconds, likely some form of alarm about the electrical system. “The servers are still booting, and I have no idea how much data we’ll need to transfer.”

Music had started playing from nearby, filling the air with energetic beats and electronic sound. It sounded much like the kinds of music DJ Pon3 had made; it was another flash of nostalgia for a world dead for centuries, even if I didn’t recognize the song itself. Not that I spent much time focusing on the tune, even before Starlight hurried over to turn off the player. I kept my focus on the screen of my terminal, waiting as the servers went through their laborious startup procedure.

The boot-up finished.

With another keypress, I attempted to connect to the server. A password request appeared on my screen. I hit another key, and watched over the flood of data that flowed through the servers’ spell matrix.

I was hunting through that data when the gunfire started. It was distant, faint pops echoing through the many hallways to barely reach our ears. A muffled explosion rumbled like distant thunder. I cast a glance to the doorway; Dusty was still crouched there, silent and unmoving as he peered down his sights. Sickle was still sitting beside the doorway. I caught her grin before she latched her muzzle back in place, slipping a pill bottle back into one of her armored saddlebags.

Dusty must have noticed my glance. “How much longer?”

“Just getting the login,” I said, eyes returning to my screen as I selected the relevant piece of data from within the spell matrix.

“Make it quick,” he said. “We’re backed into a corner, here.”

“Maybe not!” Starlight called out from the back corner of the room. I looked her way to see her standing by an open floor hatch, grinning. “Looks like this goes down to a service level. We might have another way out.”

“Good,” Dusty said, and I flashed her a smile before turning back to my screen. The servers had accepted my meddling and allowed me to log on.

I plugged the data-store in and typed a quick command. “Files are transferring.”

“How long?” Dusty quietly asked.

The gunfire had stopped

I looked at the list of files rapidly scrolling across my screen. “Hard to say,” I said, keeping my voice low. “It’s thousands of files.” I watched the text continuing to scroll again before I felt like hazarding a guess. “Should be only a couple of minutes.”

Path and file names started to slowly climb upwards through the alphabet as we waited.

We were nearing the end when, without a single word or sound of warning, Dusty opened fire.

I cringed, ducking halfway behind one of the server assemblies as he fired most of the magazine in a long string, before slowing and firing in shorter bursts. He ducked back, and I glanced down to my screen. I couldn’t be sure exactly how many more files were left, but it had to be getting close.

I looked up in time to see Dusty chuck something around the corner before calling out, “Down!”

The moment after I tucked myself against the base of the server, the grenade he had thrown went off. It wasn’t a deep, rumbling boom like in the radio plays. It was as sharp and sudden as a lightning bolt. I felt it in the floor, in the air. The lights all blinked and flickered, making my gut wrench with adrenaline, but a quick glance at my screen showed that the servers had continued on just fine.

“We’re running out of time!” Dusty shouted back as he slammed a new magazine home, cycled the weapon, and took up a firing stance once more; the hallway beyond him was much dimmer now.

“Almost there!” I replied, my words feeling mushy in my ears as I clutched my terminal.

The scrolling list of files stopped, leaving me at a command prompt.

“It’s done!” I called out, pulling the cable and data-store free to toss into my bags.

Dusty stepped back from the doorway. “Move!”

Starlight disappeared down the hole as I shut the screen of my portable terminal and picked it up in my teeth. When I got to the hatch, I cast a glance back at Dusty. He had stuck his muzzle into a large pouch. A moment later he pulled back, a metal disk clenched in his teeth. He hit something on the top with a hoof, then chucked it beside the door.

That’s a mine, I realized, and hurried down the open hatch.

I nearly fell in my haste, slipping on the short ladder, but made my way safely to the small, subterranean room. A single orange light dimly lit the space, with its bare pipes and electrical conduits. A door was set into one wall.

Dusty followed moments behind me, and finally Sickle squeezed her bulk down the hole, grumbling the whole way.

“Shoulda just fought them,” she growled as she reached the bottom, with all of her sharp metal protrusions making the small space seem even more claustrophobic. “Instead of all this chicken-shit running.”

“Patience,” Dusty said. “For now, we need to keep moving.”

“One sec,” Starlight said, somehow squeezing past Sickle and climbing up the ladder. She pulled the hatch shut--Sickle hadn’t bothered closing it--and jammed a piece of metal into the latch on the bottom.

She slid back down, hopping past Sickle. “Okay, now we can go,” she said, and took the lead once again. She opened the door and stepped out, while Dusty trailed close on her heels, rifle at the ready.

The pipes and conduits continued down the tunnel beyond the door. We walked, bits of rubble crunching under-hoof. The hum of generators grew louder.

We were halfway down the tunnel when a deep, muffled explosion shook the ground, casting down a soft hail of dust and dirt from the ceiling. Most of us stayed silent. Sickle gave a single dry chuckle.

The tunnel eventually ended with another heavy door. It opened onto a platform overlooking a much larger access tunnel, which stretched off to either side. Four spark generators were set in a row across from us, three of which were humming along happily. The sound of machinery thrummed from all directions. Most of the sound came from a door labeled “Utilities,” just beside the path we had emerged from.

When we reached the edge of the platform and the metal stairs leading down, we saw that the main tunnel was flooded.

Starlight halted and grimaced. “That’s… really not good.”

Dusty halted at the top of the stairs. “What? What’s wrong?”

“That,” she said, pointing to the water. “The water. You can’t see where you’re stepping.”

“We’ll just have to be careful, then,” he replied, but she gave a sharp shake of her head.

“Very careful,” Starlight said. “That’s got ‘infection’ written all over it. And who knows what you could step on under there. You know what tetanus does to a pony?”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Sickle growled as she shoved past Dusty and made her way down the stairs. “Move your asses already, I’m ready to be done with this shit.” She waded out, unconcerned about underwater obstacles with her heavy shoes. Then she paused. “...The fuck way are we going, anyway?”

“That way,” Starlight said, sighing as she gestured to our left, and reluctantly followed. She dipped her hoof gingerly into the water, only to jerk it back as if bit. “Holy shit this is cold,” she said as she slowly slid it in again. The water reached up to her knees.

I took a moment to fully power down my portable terminal before entering, and craned my head back to keep it lifted well clear of the water. Starlight was right; the water was icy. The dank, stagnant smell suggested it wasn’t very healthy, either.

Starlight muttered as we went. “We’re in the middle of a desert. Where did all this water come from?” She snorted, and immediately answered her own question. “It’s probably rainwater. At least that should mean there’s a way out.”

We waded through the muck, while the few working lights struggled to illuminate our path. The splashing of our movements echoed down the damp tunnel. I winced every time my hooves bumped into something with my shuffling steps. Some were rocks or other hard objects. Occasionally, it was squishy.

After a hundred yards of wading through the muck, we came to another set of stairs, leading up to another platform. We happily made our way to dry land, shaking off the cold water and stomping our hooves to shake off the muck that clung to them. I felt foul, and made a note to not touch my face until I’d gotten the chance to wash my hooves thoroughly. I idly wondered if Emerald stocked soap.

One door led out from the platform, locked with a keypad and festooned with warning signs. The most prominent declared the space beyond as property of Equestrian Robotics, warning that all unauthorized personnel would face not just potential prosecution for trespassing and possible espionage during a time of war, but also the lethal security systems intended to protect the facility, its workers, and the nation they served.

All in all, a fairly standard warning in wartime Equestria, as depressing as that is.

Unlike the keypads we had encountered before, this one was now powered. Starlight stepped up, her tools already floating before her. “Give me a minute, I got this.”

As she pried off the keypad’s case, Dusty looked to me. “Cover the rear. They might follow us, and if we can catch them knee-deep in water, all the better.”

I nodded, moving back to the top of the stairs to lie down, my rifle pointed off down the dimly lit tunnel. I stared off into the gloom, listening to the thrum of machinery and the clicking of Starlight’s tools.

A faint buzz sounded from the door. “Got it!” Starlight declared, followed by grinding as she pulled the door open.

In the next instant, there was an angry beep, a sharp yelp of surprise from Starlight, a clatter of hooves, and an ear-hammering blast of gunfire. I spun around to see chips of concrete flying as bullets sailed through the open doorway to blast chunks out of the concrete pad beyond.

“Turret!” Starlight called out as she scrambled away from the doorway and turned around. Her hind-leg nearly went out, and she turned again to look back at her flank. “Oh shit,” she said, her voice oddly calm. “It hit me.”

My heart lurched, blood running cold.

She turned in a circle, trying to get a better look at her flank, and staggering when her right hind leg barely supported her. I scrambled up as her flank came back into view. At first, she looked uninjured. It took me a moment to notice the wound, a tiny blemish just in front of her cutie mark. She lifted her hoof to continue the turn, the muscles of her thigh flexed, and blood flowed from the wound in a thick surge. “Oh shit,” she repeated, her hoof stepping down again, and she staggered again; this time, her leg gave out and she toppled over.

“I got shot,” she said, eyes wide and staring as Dusty and I hurried over to her. “It shot me. Oh shit, it shot me!”

The moment Dusty’s hoof touched her side, she jerked away. “Don’t touch it!” she shouted, horn lighting up to shove Dusty back; I had to give her credit, she could put a good amount of force into it. The shove sent him staggering back to fall on his rump. “You’ll get it infected! Oh shit, shit, shit…”

He was immediately up, hurrying back over, though he didn’t put a hoof on her just yet. “You’re bleeding,” he said, as I came skidding to a halt by Starlight’s head. She had rolled onto her side, wounded flank up; the wound was still for a moment, but then the blood flowed again, pulsing with her heartbeat. “You’re bleeding bad,” Dusty corrected. “Bleeding first, then infection.”

Starlight was already pulling open her bags, digging out medical supplies. “I can fix this. D-don’t touch it, you’ll get that m-muck in there.”

“Settle down,” Dusty said, pulling out a pouch of his own. “Calm down, stay still--”

“No, I need--fuck!” Starlight yelped and jerked as she tried to move her leg. Dusty placed a hoof on her thigh, below the injury, and she seemed too distracted by the pain to object.

“Settle down!” Dusty said. “You know the deal: combat time means listen to me. Now settle down.”

Starlight breathed through gritted teeth. Lacking anything more productive, I placed a hoof comfortingly on the side of her neck.

“We need to stop this bleeding,” Dusty said. “It’s bad enough I’m not going to trust anything short of a healing potion. You could take one now, but that’ll heal the bullet inside you; you’ll need surgery to get it out, and it won’t be pleasant. Or, I can try to get it out now. Which will it be?”

Starlight’s leg jerked again, making her cringe, and Dusty moved a hoof to put pressure directly on the wound, adding, “Make it quick, or I’m deciding for you.” Her response was a choked whine, and after a moment, her horn lit again, digging through her medical supplies to pull out a set of forceps, which trembled in her magic. Dusty caught its handle in his teeth and turned to her wound, while she pulled out a familiar pair of bottles, setting them beside her head, ready to use.

“Okay,” Dusty said around the forceps. “This is going to hurt, but I need you to stay as still as you can.”

He lowered his head, bringing the forceps toward the wound and moving his hoof away. Blood covered the underside of his hoof, flowing down the curve of Starlight’s thigh. She tensed beneath my hoof. Then she yelled out. “Wait!”

Dusty jerked, pulling back and placing his hoof over the wound again. He looked her way as her magic grabbed at her medical supplies again. This time she produced a sealed hypodermic needle. She pried the cap off the needle, the tip wavering as she brought it to her thigh.

“Let Whisper do that,” Dusty said around the forceps, his hoof still pressed to the wound.

The needle halted as she looked up to me. I didn’t need any more prompting; I leaned in, gripping the body of the needle in my teeth, then brought it to her thigh, several inches up from the wound. “Is here good?” I asked around it, and when she grunted and nodded, I leaned in further. The exposed inch of thin metal brushed past her fur and slid easily into her flesh, and I pressed a hoof to the thin plunger to deliver the dose. She hissed faintly, but otherwise remained still.

Finished, I slid the needle back out, taking the time to replace the cap before setting it aside.

Starlight sucked in several deep breaths while Dusty waited patiently. Finally, she nodded. “Okay. Do it.”

The hoof pulled back again, and Dusty lined up the forceps. She tensed, and I gave a gentle squeeze. Then the tip of the forceps slid into the wound, and she hissed, gritting her teeth. As they slid in further, that hiss turned into a low growl.

There was a sharp clunk of metal on concrete behind me, and Sickle snorted. I turned my head her way, momentarily losing any common sense as I shot a harsh glare at the brutish mare that could kill me with casual ease, but she wasn’t even looking at us. Instead, she was turning away and walking toward the door.

Just before she got there, she lowered her head, and her steel-shod hooves cracked against the concrete floor as she sprang into a full gallop, charging down the hall and out of sight.

The same angry beep sounded, followed immediately by the sound of gunfire. I jerked in surprise; somehow, Dusty did not. The gunfire was matched with the deep thunks and pings of bullets striking thick metal, until it was replaced with the tortured sound of metal tearing and a ratcheting sound, like gears grinding. That lasted only a second before there was a loud pop, and Sickle shouted, “Fuck!”

Dusty kept the forceps remarkably stable as he called out, “If you just got yourself shot, you’re going to have to wait your turn.”

Sickle’s reply echoed down the hall. “Fuck you too, Dirt.”

Focusing on his work, Dusty slid the forceps in deep enough that his muzzle was almost touching Starlight’s thigh. He bit down on the grips, and I actually heard metal scrap faintly on metal as Starlight cringed. He had to back out a bit, parting the grips once more, and tried again; this time, it clamped down on something.

Starlight growled louder as he pulled, finally blurting out, “That’s not the bullet!”

“It is,” Dusty assured her.

“It’s not--Gah!”

Dusty pulled free. Starlight’s growl of pain faded to deep breathing as she looked up at him.

Clasped in the forceps was the remains of a bullet. The front of it had been completely smashed in and flared out wider than the base, looking more like a mushroom than a bullet. It was also smeared in blood.

Dusty set the forceps down beside the other medical supplies, then pulled a small, sturdy vial from a pouch; a healing potion.

“Wait,” Starlight said, her attention finally pulling away from the bullet. Her magic grabbed one of her bottles, floating it in a shaky grip. “Gotta sterilize. Clean. No infection.”

Dusty took the bottle, then frowned. “You shouldn’t use this on open wounds,” he said, and after checking the other bottle, quickly swapped them. “This will do.”

He popped open the cap, squirting the fluid into the wound. Starlight hissed a little, but remained still. The fluid washed away most of the blood, and Dusty used a bit of gauze to wipe around the wound. Then he brought the healing potion out and removed the stopper. He poured a little of it into the wound, then passed it to me. “Have her drink that,” he said as he grabbed a magic-laced bandage, pressing it to the wound with a bloody hoof.

Starlight blinked a few times, having difficulty focusing on the potion I held out to her. I hoped it was the painkillers dulling her senses, rather than blood loss. Her horn lit, taking the vial, and she downed it.

After a minute of waiting, Dusty peeled back the bandage, washing away a little more blood to get a better look at the wound before pressing it back into place. “Okay. Bleeding’s stopped, or close to it.” He retrieved a roll of gauze before turning to me. “Lift her hind leg so I can wrap it.”

Starlight spoke up. “I can lift--ow!” She gritted her teeth again, her leg dropping again.

“And that’s why I asked Whisper to do it,” Dusty said, keeping his hoof on the bandage. Starlight grumbled something under her breath as I scooted down, gently sliding my forehooves under her thigh and knee to lift the leg up. I was met with the wet feeling of blood.

There was a lot of blood. Not an excessive amount, mind you. There was no spreading pool of it beneath her. It wasn’t enough that I worried for her life. Still, it was enough to be concerning. The entire front of her thigh was slick with blood, and it had run down her lower belly to her other leg. It seemed like so much blood for such a tiny hole.

I was relieved to see the corner of her mouth quirk upwards, despite all that. “Hey, Dusty?”

“Yeah?”

“Your bedside manner sucks.”

He paused in his wrapping. Then he laughed softly, his hooves resuming their task. “Hey, I thought I was being nice. I even gave you a say in your treatment. Medics don’t usually do that, you know.”

She chuckled a little, while he finished up. I gently set her leg down again, then wiped my bloody hooves against the ground. It didn’t do much good.

Sickle returned, grumbling as she wiped at her muzzle. I reflected that, with her blades washed clean by the flooded tunnel, the violent “ex raider” was possibly the least bloody of the group.

And we had only just started.

Dusty noted her return as well. “You okay over there?”

“No,” Sickle grumbled, snorting. “I’m going to be smelling burned hair for the rest of the day. Fucking spark battery blew up in my face.”

“Yeah,” Starlight murmured. “You got it so hard over there.”

Sickle snorted again, and I honestly couldn’t tell if it was annoyed or amused. “Fuck you. At least I’m not lying down to take a nap.”

“No taunting my patient,” Dusty chided, retrieving a bottle of water from his bags. He splashed a little of it on Starlight’s legs and belly before wiping at her coat, crudely cleaning her.

“Hey, watch the hooves,” Starlight mumbled, then blinking and refocusing on the water bottle as he set it in front of her.

“Drink the rest of that,” he said. “You’ll need to stay well hydrated, even with the healing magic doing its work.”

Once she had downed the remains of the bottle, he crouched beside her, moving in close. “Okay, let’s see if we can get you upright.”

It took surprisingly little effort to get Starlight on her hooves again. She was able to rise on her own, wobbling only slightly against Dusty’s side. Putting weight on her leg made her wince, but she weathered it. Her speech came slowly, as if she were thinking out each word. “Yeah... yeah, I think I’m good now.”

“You sure?” Dusty asked. “You’re sounding a little out of it.”

“Yeah,” she said, blinking several times. She gave an abrupt shake of her head, followed by a little stumble. “Those painkillers are really good. I’m fine, just… a little slow.”

Dusty frowned, but nodded. “And you can walk?”

Starlight took a deep breath, then moved one hoof forward. One after another, she walked, wincing only slightly when she stepped with the wounded leg. “Yeah. Yeah, I can walk. I’d just rather not go very fast.”

Dusty was frowning again. “We may not have that option. Can you hustle if needed?”

Starlight lifted her leg, slowly moving it back and forth, flexing it, and finally setting the hoof back on the ground. “I should be good, yeah. Might just be a little cranky afterwards.”

“Good enough,” Dusty said. “Keep a healing potion handy, and down it if the bleeding starts up again, or if you’re having trouble keeping up.”

She nodded.

Dusty slowly looked around at us, then nodded as well. “Okay, enough drama. We need to get moving. Keep an eye out for the raiders and any other turrets. Let’s get this done.”

The turret had been a ceiling-mounted model. After its encounter with Sickle, it had been reduced to torn shards of metal and scattered ammunition, and the air was filled with the smell of burnt electronics. Though they looked like the same caliber of round that my pistol fired, we didn’t pause to collect it.

Past the turret was a set of stairs, leading up to another door. Our little subterranean excursion had brought us to ground level again.

Dusty cracked open the door to peek out into the sparsely lit hall beyond. We could hear something sparking in the distance, and a once-pleasant tune echoed quietly through the halls, warped into something sinister by damaged speakers.

Once Dusty opened the door enough for me to see out, I found myself even more concerned. The place looked like a warzone. Most of the false ceiling had collapsed, with sections of the frame hanging at odd angles. Only a few of the ceiling lights still worked, often hanging in the partially collapsed frame and struggling to light the ruined spaces. Bullet holes and scorch marks riddled the walls. A broken robot, one of those creepy models with a biological brain, sparked and smoldered a short distance away. The scent of cordite and ozone hung thick in the air.

Somewhere, far in the distance, I could hear a short bout of shouting. I hoped that meant their attention would be elsewhere. It sounded like it came from a different building, though I couldn’t be sure.

Dusty pulled back. “We can’t go into the lobby to swipe another map. If it’s anything like Stable-Tec’s, they’d see us easy. We’re going to have to move quietly and search for the servers. Make sure you can’t be seen from any windows; we’re going to be pretty lit up here.”

We--Starlight and I, that is--nodded in agreement. Sickle merely grunted again.

Slipping out of the door, we moved slowly down the ruined hall, looking in every door. Every room we found was trashed. Desks were overturned or broken. Papers were scattered and burnt. In one office, the ceiling had completely given way, with twisted rebar barely holding the collapsed concrete together to form a crude, steep slope leading upstairs, and a heap of ruined desks and office dividers piled at its base. We passed it by, though I made note of it, just in case.

The hall led to a common area. Once, it might have been a pretty and restful location, with several benches and tables, all made of metal and concrete. The lone working light instead cast a gloom over the dust and debris-covered furniture.

We were halfway through the space when gunfire erupted, a series of sounds so rapid that they seemed to blend into one. I caught the light of the muzzle flash down a hall to our side as I threw myself to the ground behind a bench. My world became incredibly small for a moment. I was barely aware of Starlight dropping beside me. The gunshots hammered at my ears, echoing off the walls of the chamber. Chips of concrete flew through the air, peppering me.

The gunfire paused. My awareness expanded enough to become aware of Dusty behind the next bench, rising to bring his rifle up. Another burst of gunfire sent him ducking again as bullets tore chunks out of the concrete benches we hid behind, throwing dust and fragments through the air.

The instant the burst finished, Dusty rose, snapping off a short burst in reply, the sound pounding at my head. He immediately ducked down again as another blast of gunfire peppered our cover.

I had only just shaken off the shock and recognized that I was a part of the fight when my ears finally picked up the sound of an angry yell. A moment later the yell was above me; in the dim light, a silhouette loomed above me in mid-leap, a long piece of metal glinting as it came down at me.

Sickle surged forward, and the raider’s leap crashed to a halt in mid-air as his chest met her waiting blades. She swung him up, over her head, and threw him to the ground hard enough that he bounced, his body gone completely limp with the impact. Another burst of gunfire erupted from down the hall, producing deep thunks as it impacted Sickle’s armor; there were no sparks, as I had half expected, but even in the dim light I could make out a couple puffs as the bullets shattered on the metal plates. I felt something slap against my shoulder, jarring my attention back toward the fight.

I grabbed the bit of my rifle as Dusty fired another short burst. I rose just enough to get the weapon over the back of the bench when the return fire came; I saw the flash from down the hall, and suddenly all I could see was a spray of gray dust and flying bits of concrete. I jerked back, dropping behind cover again. The bullet had struck right in front of my face! If not for that bench, I would have died!

Something light slapped against my side again, and I looked back to see Sickle fastening her muzzle again. I looked down to see what had hit me. An old, faded inhaler lay on the ground beside me.

I had seen that sort of thing in Appleloosa, so long ago. The smuggling of zebra drugs through the town had been one of the more interesting aspects of my work, and had led to a fairly casual understanding of contraband pharmaceuticals. While at the time I couldn’t be certain exactly what the inhaler had contained, the most immediately obvious assumption was Dash.

As Starlight raised her Recharger to send wild shots in the general direction of the shooter, Dusty yelled back, his voice sounding oddly mushy in my ears. “Sickle! We need your help, here!”

“I am helping!” she bellowed in reply, while repeatedly stabbing the dead raider in the neck with her leg-blades and emitting a disturbingly un-ponylike snarl of gleeful rage.

With adrenaline coursing through my veins, I rose again. This time, I twisted to get my rifle over the back of the bench while exposing as little as possible. Aiming was impossible, but I reasoned that hardly made a difference; I’m not a terribly good shot to begin with. I made up for it by simply holding the trigger down, answering the incoming fire with the roar of my own.

The instant the bolt slammed shut on an empty chamber, another blast of gunfire peppered our position. Dusty fired off a short burst of his own, momentarily drowning out everything else, but was forced behind cover as a new gun opened up; the sound was deeper and slower, and the impacts chewed chunks out of the concrete bench, rapidly tearing away at Dusty’s cover.

I was halfway through swapping out magazines when Sickle stepped over me. “Fucking catch!” she roared, throwing the severed head of the dead raider, while bullets smacked into her armor.

I was informed later that she hit one of the shooters square in the face.

Then she leaped over the bench and charged, snarling like a wild animal.

And she sounded happy.

Dusty was up immediately, and Starlight and I followed his example. I was up just in time to see Sickle lunge through a doorway. There was a flash of light from within, a short, rapid burst of gunfire, and the gun fell silent. Dusty quickly moved forward with his smooth, gliding walk, rifle leveled unerringly down the hall.

A deeper gunshot sounded from around the next corner, the muzzle-flash bright in the dim space. It was answered with a bellow from Sickle. “Motherfucker!” The gun fired again, this time a long burst as the pony held the trigger down. The muzzle-flashes cast a strobe-light over the scene as Sickle barreled out past the end of the hallway to charge the shooter.

We reached the corner just two seconds later. Dusty snapped to a halt, aiming his rifle around the corner while hardly exposing himself. Myself, I skidded on the scattered grit and rubble, sliding out a bit further before halting my progress. I was just in time to see Sickle throw her head to the side, flinging a stallion off of her armor’s horn and into a wall.

Flashes lit up the hall past her as more ponies opened fire, and several more moved around. It was all a vague blur as I scrambled back behind cover. Behind the fusillade of fire, I could only barely hear Sickle’s answering roar.

Dusty pulled back. “Star! Take this corner, fall back if they push you. Whisper! On me!”

With that, he bolted back down the hall we had just come down, and I rushed after him.

The gallop slowed to a brisk trot as we entered the common room again and turned right. I understood his intention, then; he was moving around behind the group we had just seen.

A silhouette came running around the next corner of the dark hall, something long clasped in their teeth. Dusty’s rifle barked twice, and the pony’s run turned into a tumble. Dusty continued on, slowing for only a moment as he neared to point the muzzle at the scrawny mare’s head and fire once more, the muzzle-flash searing the image of her dazed expression into my eyes.

He slowed again as he reached the corner, dropping into that smooth, gliding walk as he turned into the next hall.

I heard the distinct pop of Starlight’s Lancer, and a red glow lit up the wall at the end of the hallway, slowly fading as whatever she hit burned away. It was followed by several quieter pops and flashes of blue.

Dusty broke out into a trot again, dodging around a broken table and another fallen robot. He halted at the corner, casting a glance back to make sure I was right behind him. Around the corner we could hear more sporadic gunfire, and another sharp Lancer discharge.

With just a nod for warning, Dusty raised his rifle and rounded the corner, and I followed.

He was firing before I had cleared the corner. Sharp, single shots rang out in rapid succession. I only got a vague impression of the space when I stepped out. Wide, tall, dimly lit, with many obstacles. Dusty had continued moving out, mostly perpendicular to the direction he was shooting, which left me with a clear line of fire.

I was not nearly as controlled and professional as Dusty. I saw a cluster of ponies, tongued the trigger, and didn’t release until the hammering retort of my rifle fell silent. For two seconds, the entire world was thunder and blinding light.

When the magazine ran dry, nearly sending me staggering as the pounding pressure suddenly ceased, I blinked against the spots in my vision. Past my dazzled vision, I could see Dusty advancing through the upturned tables the raiders had been hiding behind, pausing to put another round into one of the fallen ponies.

I numbly fumbled my way through reloading. I was on my last magazine.

The room looked to be another cafeteria, littered with broken tables and buffet lines. Several ponies lay scattered around the closest tables, near where the halls led into the open space. They might have been good cover from the direction Starlight had been, but it had left them completely unprotected from our attack.

A deep, powerful gunshot echoed from another room, louder than any gunshot I had heard before. It was immediately followed by loud crashes of metal. Dusty’s head snapped around, back toward where Starlight watched from a corner, and we quickly moved that way.

It wasn’t hard to tell which way Sickle had gone. Even through the devastation that gripped the entire building, the wake of fresh destruction was clear. A door led into a surprisingly well-lit kitchen, revealing another raider lying broken atop an old, crushed oven. Bones jutted out from a mangled leg, his muzzle flattened and bloody, his back and neck twisted at unnatural angles. Another raider lay beside a bent rebar spear, her hooves clutching her neck as she tried to stem the flow of blood pouring past her hooves and into the spreading puddle beneath her.

Dusty leveled his rifle at her head and fired. The mare’s whole body jerked, and her head seemed to deform in the most disturbing way as the round pulverized her skull.

Over the growing ringing in my ears, I heard Sickle bellow again, followed by another loud crash of metal.

We hurried to the far side of the kitchen and out the broken metal door to find Sickle grappling with a large white stallion. He wore a metal breastplate and a battle saddle with a huge, bulky gun on it, though I couldn’t make out many details as they rolled around.

As big as he was, it was clear he was no match for Sickle. She rolled over and smashed him into the side of a table, then rolled over on top of him to pin him to the ground. Her hoof raised up, slamming down into his face. He reeled, hooves punching at her side. She hit him again, smashing his muzzle in and slamming his head against the floor. Blood splattered across his pale coat, and his struggles subsided to merely clutching her in his weakening grip.

Evidently deciding she had things under control, Dusty moved past her to another table, setting up to look past it. We were at the edge of the building now, by a set of wide windows, and he aimed out of those. Lacking any better idea of what I should do, I figured I should follow his example.

The gurgling, angry cry from the stallion drew my attention back moments later. He was struggling again, but it wasn’t until I saw Sickle pull her hoof back that I saw why; blood dripped from her blades as they rose from his belly, entrails glistening from within the long, ragged gash.

She looked like a true horror, a monster. She stared face-to-face with him, blood smeared across and steadily dribbling from her helm as his struggles slowly weakened, hooves sliding on blood-slicked metal plates. His eyes fluttered as his head sank down again, legs slowly going limp as consciousness faded.

I simply stared, too numb to act.

The crunch of grit under hoof snapped my attention back to the world, and I spun around, only to halt myself as I saw Starlight approaching. She wobbled a little as she looked at Sickle, who sat panting over the downed raider, then back to us. “Did we get them all?”

Dusty spoke without turning from his position. “Star, smash those lights behind us, then set up watching toward those other buildings. If there are any others, they’re going to come running.” I turned back to the windows, squinting in the darkness. I could only just make out the silhouette of the Stable-Tec offices next door.

A moment later, the light behind us popped, lighting the area with a small shower of sparks before plunging us into darkness. Absent the surrounding light, I quickly started to pick out more details of the grounds outside. The hulk of a giant sentinel bot sat a short distance away. One of its legs was entirely removed from its hull, lying a short distance away.

“Holy fuck,” Starlight said behind us. “What the hell did you do to him?”

I cast a glance back to see Sickle wobbling as she rose; the raider beneath her was clearly dead now, his entrails slopped out of his thoroughly mauled belly. “I had some fun with him,” she said, her voice thick and wet. She coughed several times, and spit up a wad of bloody phlegm, which struck the bars of her muzzle and clung to them, dangling there. Blood continued to dribble from her chin. “Besides, serves him right. Fucker tried to shoot me in the ass.”

In the gloom, I caught the glint of light as Starlight’s eyes changed focus. “Uh, it kinda looks like he did shoot you in the ass.”

Sickle craned her head around, turning around as she tried unsuccessfully to look at her own rear. I got a much better view as she turned, seeing the blood glistening on the metal plate covering the inside of her thigh.

Unlike when Starlight was injured, I found myself completely unconcerned.

Sickle staggered, and flopped down on her side with a crash of metal. Sprawling out on her back, she finally got a better view. Her response was to laugh again. “Shit, he did. Hah! He shot me in the ass!”

Starlight frowned down at her, blinking. “There is something deeply wrong with you.”

“Shut up,” Dusty hissed. “There’s two more coming.”

We quickly took our places, peering out into the darkness. On the walking path that ran along the front of the towering offices, two dark shapes moved, bobbing in a slow trot. They were perhaps a hundred yards away.

Dusty took only a moment to appraise the situation. “I have the lead pony. Star, you have the second one. Whisper, keep an eye out for anypony else, suppress them if they try to engage us. Star, take the shot when you’re ready.”

The silence that followed lingered, dragging on. Then there was a flash, momentarily blinding me as the Lancer’s crimson beam tore through the air. The ponies were illuminated for an instant as the second one flared red, his chest burning away. Dusty fired on the other, the sharp gunshots echoing across the compound and off the walls of the other buildings in a rolling din as he put out five shots out at the lead pony. By the time he was done, the area was dark again; the pony’s silhouette lay unmoving on the dark path.

“Star, put a shot into that guy, just to be sure.”

She looked to him, a look of concern flashing across her face, but she turned back, raising her Lancer’s sight before her eyes once more. Several seconds later, there was another hissing pop and flash of red, and a spray of red embers rose from the fallen pony, burning away in the night.

There was a deep thump behind me, and I turned to see that Sickle had removed her helmet. Her face was bloodied, with a fresh gash covering her cheek; the blood that still dribbled from her chin was her own. She poked at the cut with a hoof, then chuckled. “Woo! Now that was fun,” she said, before choking and coughing again. This time, she spat up a much larger wad of congealing blood, and her hoof moved to press at the side of her armored but blood-smeared neck. “Shit, I think one of those fuckers got me in the throat.”

She didn’t engender the greatest show of sympathy or concern from any of us.

Starlight gave a questioning look. “So… do you need first aid or something?”

“Nah,” Sickle wetly rasped as she clumsily dug at one of her armored saddlebags. “It’ll take a lot more than getting shot in the neck to put me down. Just need to stop the bleeding.” She produced a vial, pulling the stopper out with her teeth and spitting it out--at Starlight, no less. Then she tipped her head back, downing the contents. I saw the words “extra strength” beneath a Ministry of Peace logo. As soon as she finished the vial, she tossed it aside, where it clattered and skidded under a table. The gash across her cheek narrowed as the flesh within knitted together.

Starlight stared at her, mouth opening to say something, but she stopped herself. She shook her head, turning away.

We remained there for a couple minutes, clustered together in the dark corner of the ruined cafeteria. Other than the quiet clanking any time Sickle moved, it remained silent.

Finally, Dusty drew back. “Okay, we may be good. Let’s check these bodies for valuables and make sure they’re dead, then get back to searching for the server.”

We slunk back into the shadows, with Sickle lingering behind, having donned her helm once again. She was a fair bit more sluggish than before, but it didn’t seem to hamper her mood.

If anything, the carnage of the fight had improved it. She seemed quite happy as she flipped the dead stallion over, cutting the straps that held his battle saddle in place and prying away his weapon. “Anyone want a big dumb gun?” she asked, hefting it up. The thing was thick and stubby, with a huge barrel. The bore looked bigger than a shotgun’s, and it was fed from a giant drum. The name “Chomper” was painted on the side, with teeth painted on either side of the large port, as if the massive bolt itself were a jaw.

“What the hell is that?” Dusty asked, which impressed upon me just how unusual the weapon must have been.

“I don’t know, some shitty fucking homemade shotgun.” Sickle shrugged, tossing it aside. “Didn’t help this fucker much!”

She then raised her hoof and jammed her leg-blades into his neck, sawing back and forth as she sliced through the flesh. I turned away, feeling sickened. It didn’t spare me from the wet sounds of flesh tearing and spine separating.

“There,” she said, followed by another cough and a spit. “Ugh. There. Just need something to carry the heads in.”

Dusty sighed, shook his head, and walked off. He kept his gun up and ready. Starlight followed him.

“Why do you even want his head?” I asked, even as I realized I may not want to know.

“‘Cause I want the bounty on these raiders, dumbass.”

“You only need the ear for that.”

“Oh, sure,” Sickle said, sneering. “Except Steel Shot’s being a little bitch and whining that some of them are the wrong ear, so he isn’t going to pay me for them. So fuck him, I’ll just bring the whole damn head, and he can have both.”

“Wouldn’t it just be simpler, and easier, to just bring the correct ear?”

“Sure,” she said, shrugging. “But I don’t know which one he wants.”

“He wants the right ear.”

“I know that,” she said, and something about her posture suggested she had just rolled her eyes. “I just don’t know which one that is.”

I had to stop and process that for a moment. The natural conclusion seemed absolutely ludicrous to me. “Do you mean to tell me you’re going to decapitate more than a dozen ponies and haul their heads around, all because you can’t tell your right hoof from your left?”

“Yeah,” she said, a growl entering her voice. “What of it?”

I had to resist the urge to sigh and walk away. Instead, I raised a hoof and pointed to the crumpled table beside her. “Could you hit that table with one of your forehooves, as hard as you possibly can?”

The bloodied helm tilted to the side. “What the fuck for?”

“Just humor me, please.”

She stared at me for a moment, then turned, reared up, and slammed her hoof into the table with a tremendous crash, flattening it against the ground.

When she looked back at me, no doubt glaring within her helmet, I nodded. “That’s your right hoof.” She looked down to her hoof, frowning, and I added, “Apparently, your right hoof is the right one for hitting things.”

She considered that for a moment, then dropped Gut’s head beside his body. She slowly placed her left forehoof on his armored chest, then raised her right hoof to press the blades into his torn belly, simply holding them there for a moment. Then she slowly smiled, drawing back. “That might actually work,” she mused.

Then she looked back down to the severed head lying on the ground, facing up at her. She gripped the head with one hoof as she raised the other to his ear. His left ear.

She had just started to cut in when she stopped. Then she turned his head around to face the same way as her. “Right,” she said, and cut away the correct ear. She smiled as she lifted it away, looking absolutely pleased with herself. After tossing it into the armored box at her side, she turned back to the severed head. “Guess I don’t need your ugly mug any more.”

With that, she stepped back and gave it a solid kick, sending the head sailing across the room to smack meatily into the opposite wall. While I winced and looked away, trying to ignore the grotesque absurdity of the whole scene, she merely chuckled.

She walked by me, pausing to give me a very solid pat on the back with her bloody, spiked hoof. “Thanks, Whimper.”

“Don’t mention it,” I mumbled.

We finished our excursion in Equestrian Robotics without further incident.

While looting the dead seemed like a stark reminder of how things had changed with the megaspells, I didn’t find it especially troubling. Sickle’s gleeful attitude as she handled the bodies was more unnerving, especially the ones that had died at her hooves. She was proud of the carnage she had caused, and I heard her chuckling a few times as she looted the corpses of the ponies she had killed.

Myself, I tried to avoid paying them too much attention. I hadn’t had the time to get a good look at any of them during the frantic moments of the fight. I preferred to keep it that way.

But there was one that caught my attention. I almost wish she hadn’t.

I had made my way to the room Sickle had first charged into when I found her. The raider mare lay there, the crude metal plates of her barding shifting quietly with her short, labored breaths. Her side was soaked with blood, flowing from the pair of deep gashes across her chest; Sickle’s blades had torn right through the road signs and serving trays that made up her armor, leaving ribs bare.

A foreleg twitched, and I kept my rifle leveled at her chest. A submachine gun lay beside her hoof, loaded with a large drum. Her half-lidded eyes wavered, not quite looking at me. She was too weak to do anything.

I stared down at her: crippled, barely conscious, slowly bleeding to death.

I was hungry.

A quick glance out the door showed that everypony else was still gathered around the entrance of the cafeteria. Nopony would witness me.

I moved around behind the mare. Her eyes wandered roughly in my direction, and she made a weak, gurgling moan as her hoof shifted, brushing against her dropped weapon. I moved up behind her, placing a hoof on her neck, pressing just enough to keep her pinned there. Her moan grew choked, quiet and angry. Her hooves moved more, trying to clutch her weapon, but I swatted it away.

I loomed over her, reached deep inside her, and pulled.

Nothing.

I pulled harder as she choked and squirmed weakly beneath my hooves, and I finally felt a trickle of life-sustaining energy leaking out of her. I fed, drawing for all I was worth.

The raider mare writhed, her scream of rage and anguish choked into a weak gurgle by my hoof and her own injury.

The trickle of energy suddenly ceased, her limbs going still as she succumbed to her injuries. Her contorted expression slowly softened, and I staggered back, shaken.

I had gotten so little from her. A nibble, at best, and I had to dig deep for even that.

This wasn’t a pony. She might look like it, but she was no more a pony than I was. Less, even. She was something else. Something wrong.

No pony could be so devoid of love.

With shaking hooves, I quickly grabbed what I could and left her.

Our looting turned up a good deal of crude barding, which we all ignored, and a wide variety of weapons. Roughly half were melee weapons, which we also ignored. Most of the rest were pipe guns of various types: a couple of pistols, some automatic rifles, and a single bolt-action long-rifle. None interested us. It did offer some replacement ammunition for my rifle, though, and several more magazines. I numbly picked those up, hoping to have Dusty check over them for quality when we were done there.

There were only a couple of more professionally made guns, with that raider mare’s submachine gun being the most notable. It fired the same caliber of ammunition as my pistol, and the pair of drums I had grabbed explained how she had been able to lay out such a constant stream of fire. Sadly, she had fired almost all of her ammunition, but we collected that and the gun. I considered keeping one of the drums for my pistol, as ridiculous as it would probably be; it looked like the two weapons were designed to use the same magazines.

There was also a pistol, in rather poor shape, and a bolt-action rifle with a sawn-off barrel. Neither were likely to be worth that much, but we took them anyway.

We also found a fair number of pharmaceuticals, which Sickle claimed, and a total of four unused healing potions which we split evenly. A hoofful of caps and some questionable-looking and immediately discarded meat rounded out our findings.

I felt like a vulture, picking over the remains of the dead. As much as I tried to focus on my training, to remain clear-minded and unemotional, I still felt distinctly uncomfortable. It was a scenario well beyond any I had expected to find myself in just a couple weeks earlier. Though I tried to avoid focusing on it, the carnage was still shocking.

That was also the first time I saw what Starlight’s Lancer could do to a pony.

She must have hit him in the head or neck. There was no trace of either, and most of his chest had been burnt away, severing one of his forelegs. A bit of spine and ribs had survived, scorched black by the heat. The flesh inside the gaping crater of a wound was charred to a crisp. Some parts still smoldered faintly, filling the air with the scent of burnt meat and hair.

The corpse lay near the others Dusty and I had come up behind. Curiously, there were two dead raiders lying against the wall several yards away, one of which was absolutely riddled with bullet holes. Both had been dragged there some time before our arrival, judging by the trail of blood leading up to them.

Once our looting was complete, we crept through the dim hallways until we found the server room. Without the time pressure I had faced in Stable-Tec, it was a much calmer and easier process, and a few minutes later, a full copy of the server’s contents resided on the supplied data-store.

As we exited the building to continue on, we saw another raider in front of the Stable-Tec building, lit by the light of the lobby. He was hobbling slowly away, back toward the buildings across the pond, and dragging one of his hind legs.

Dusty leveled his rifle, and after a couple seconds of aim, the deep crack of his shot echoed off the nearby buildings. The pony in the distance lurched to the side and fell to the ground. Then we were moving again.

Our path took us past the fallen raider. Once again, Dusty paused, putting a single round into his head before continuing on. Starlight looked sick to her stomach.

We found no more raiders. No more living ones, anyway; we went through the Stable-Tec building again to check on the security office, now that the keypad was powered, and swung by the server room to check on the raiders Dusty had fired on there. Two lay dead outside the server room, and another two lay among the ruined servers, killed when the mine had detonated. As had become the norm, we checked them over for loot, but the only thing of interest was a ridiculously short pump shotgun, with no stock and hardly any barrel. Dusty tucked it away, as well as a bandolier of shells.

Sadly, the security office was disappointing. Rather than the armory we had envisioned, it was instead merely a room for monitoring the security cameras around the building. Half of them were nonfunctional, their screens showing only static, and the ones that functioned showed nothing of interest. There were no racks of weapons, ammunition, and barding.

But there was the skeleton of a pony, clad in the tattered remains of a Stable-Tec Security uniform and lying crumpled in the one chair of the office. I wondered what circumstances had led to him dying there in a locked room, far from the balefire that had devastated Equestria.

Without opposition, the rest of our search went smoothly, even if it was still tense. We remained on-guard, worried that, at any moment, we’d run into some straggler, some raider who had avoided the earlier fighting. It never happened.

One by one, we cleared through the remaining buildings, finding their servers and pilfering their data. Our digital loot was the only prize to be found within those halls. The Ironshod Firearms office had been thoroughly stripped, leaving nothing of value; we even found places where heavy machinery had once been bolted to the floor, but those too had fallen prey to earlier scavengers. The Canterlot Medical Research Group and Crystal Life Technologies buildings were mostly research labs rather than practical medical facilities, and what little supplies they had held had been looted long ago, leaving only a few empty medical boxes and overturned carts.

Feeling shaken and filthy did lead to one course of looting that I likely wouldn’t have considered otherwise, as I checked the soap dispensers in each restroom we went by. By the time we finished, I had a good dozen bottles of antibacterial soap. As odd as it might have been, it was a comforting touch of normality. Luxury, even.

The only remaining item that drew any interest, at least from myself, was a white, egg-shaped pod in the CLT offices. Even then, it was simply mild curiosity. I was not as interested in their suspended animation technology as I was in how my hive had made use of that. If that information was there, it would be within their servers.

It took about an hour to thoroughly scour the ancient buildings. As we stepped out of the last office, we cast our eyes toward the buildings across the pond. Most of the lights had gone out, but a few remained. After a moment of consideration, Dusty spoke up. “We should probably check those out. They might have some loot worth hauling back.”

“Of course we should check it out,” Sickle said, trudging along behind us. “Dibs on the chems.”

We slowly circled around the pond, moving carefully among the picnic tables. Our eyes remained locked on the lit windows of the buildings ahead, our weapons ready. I tried my best to mimic Dusty’s gliding walk, keeping my rifle sighted in on the nearest building, but met with only limited success.

The closest building was the store, with the decaying pony hung from a pole like some profane raider flag. We cautiously circled around to approach from a side with few windows.

We shuffled quietly up to the wall, Dusty moved up to prepare to make entry, and Sickle simply ignored all of us to stroll in the front door.

When her entrance wasn’t immediately answered with angry yells and gunfire, we followed her in.

The store had been turned into some grisly shrine to death. All the shelves had been knocked over and shoved into the back to make way for the giant heap of bones that had taken their place. There must have been hundreds of skeletons there.

I understood then why we hadn’t found any bodies elsewhere within those old, dead offices. They had all been collected here.

More concerning, while I am by no means an expert in forensic science, some of those bones appeared to be quite fresh. A few still had bits of meat clinging to them, and the air was laced with a faint undercurrent of rot.

Behind the giant mound of bones, atop the piled up shelves, was a crude living space. A large mattress dominated the uneven platform, while a wide variety of melee weapons lined the back wall. A few dozen pony skulls were scattered around on either side of the platform, and a few ice chests were set along the back edge. A single spark-powered lantern hung over the space, casting shadows around the room.

It seemed extravagantly grotesque, yet I found myself unsurprised. I had encountered too much carnage, suffering, and vileness in too short of a time; this seemed merely more of the same. I could even appreciate the logic of how such a display could be a sign of power and accomplishment among such monstrous creatures.

The chests contained a large amount of chems, which Sickle took, and a large variety of snack cakes, which prompted a bit of a smile from Starlight, even if short lived. The bag of caps, probably about a pound, got tucked away in Dusty’s bags; we agreed to work out the exact split of everything once we were well away from that place.

I did snag one thing that seemed to escape my companion’s attention: a small, ragged notebook, well-used. A quick flip through the pages showed all manner of scribbled notes, with no coherent organization. I tucked it away for later consideration.

We looted the place quickly and moved on.

The windows of the restaurant were mostly boarded up, with only a faint, guttering light seeping through the gaps. We stepped in to see the meager remains of a cooking fire, struggling to light the space. The restaurant looked to have been converted to a dormitory, or perhaps a barracks. Many of the booths had been torn out, their benches cluttered with rough blankets and pillows. Boxes and chests of all sorts were scattered about.

The once-bright decor had long since faded, and the walls were covered with various forms of crude graffiti, most of which was pornographic, violent, or both.

The moment we stepped inside, I could hear a faint banging, echoing from the back of the restaurant. They were slow and irregular. Then, at the edge of my hearing, I caught a sob.

We followed the sound. What we found… troubles me.

In what had once been a walk-in freezer were two earth pony mares. One looked to be about Starlight’s age, if that. The other was probably around fifteen or twenty years older. Both had silvery gray coats and dark manes. They were dirty and bruised, their cheeks matted with dried tears.

The older mare was locked in a small, thick-barred cage that offered barely enough room to lie down. The banging we had heard was her kicking at the inside of the lock. She froze in the middle of winding up for another kick. I remember the look of horror as we stepped into the room, and the way it had turned to fearful, wary interest as she realized we were not her captors.

The younger mare was bound atop a sawhorse, with one hoof tied to each leg. A bit and bridle had been strapped onto her. Her tail had been cut down to a nub, and traces of dried blood and other substances stained the inside of her thighs.

“Oh, shit,” Starlight uttered under her breath, her eyes wide.

From the cage, the older mare spoke up, her voice trembling and cautious, but I couldn’t help but sense a bit of hope in there. “Who are you?”

Dusty was looking around, blinking. “We… we’re here to help.” He swallowed, then looked back. “Star, get that cage open.”

Star nodded, quickly digging out her cutter to work on the cage’s padlock. Dusty pulled out a knife, crouching down beside the younger mare to cut at the bindings around her hooves.

I stood back, feeling a bit useless.

Sickle stepped up, sticking her head through the doorway into the crowded room. The older mare jerked back in her cage with a gasp. I glanced back at Sickle, and it was only after a moment of consideration that I felt somewhat ashamed and uncomfortable that I did not share her reaction. Her armored, brutish head was slathered in dried blood, making her look every bit as vile as the raiders we had just killed. The same raiders that had held these two ponies captive.

Under the bloodstained muzzle of her helm, Sickle’s lips curled up in a grin as she snorted in amusement. “Ah, fun. I see we found their rec room.”

The padlock clattered to the ground behind me, and an instant later a dark-blue leg shot past me, a hoof striking Sickle in the face. Her helmeted head rocked to the side, though I think it was more from surprise than the force of the blow. It turned back, that sharp-horned, bloodstained, muzzled helm facing the pony that had just struck her.

Starlight seethed, glaring up at the monstrous mare. “Get! The fuck! Out!”

I looked between the two, eyes wide, and pulled the stock of my rifle in tight against my shoulder.

Sickle stared back at her, as if incredulous that this other pony had just struck her.

A slow, deep rumble built up within her, until her blood-flecked lips pulled up in a savage grin. She laughed. Then she raised a hoof. Starlight raised her own hoof to fend it off, but it did her no good. Sickle shoved her; the gesture looked completely casual on Sickle’s part, but it sent Starlight crashing back against the wall. Starlight staggered with the impact, her wounded leg wobbling, but she regained her footing. She stood firm, hooves spread, eyes narrowed.

Sickle laughed again, sneering down at the much smaller pony that stood against her. “Yeah, whatever you say, runt.” Her head drew back from the doorway, armor clattering against ancient kitchen appliances as she turned around to leave. “And learn how to fucking hit.”

The door of the cage clanged, and I looked back as the older mare scrambled over to the younger, practically falling onto her. “I’m here, baby,” she cooed, wrapping the other pony in a tight embrace. “It’s okay. It’s over. We’re safe now.”

The younger pony trembled, choking back a sob as she shakily raised her freed forelegs to clutch onto the other mare. Still clutching her tight, the older mare brought her hooves up to undo the bridle’s straps, sliding the assembly off and tossing it away.

The final binding parted under Dusty’s knife. The younger mare whimpered as she slid to the side, eased to the ground by the older one. She trembled, curling up in the older mare’s embrace, and finally broke down completely. Her whole body shook as she sobbed into the other mare’s chest.

Dusty rose, leaning down near the older mare’s head to whisper, “We’ll wait out front.”

The mare nodded, continuing to quietly murmur as she held the younger pony, rocking gently.

We shuffled out, leaving the two alone for the moment.

When we returned to the main room of the restaurant, we found Sickle sprawled out on her back across one of the empty booths, managing to occupy both benches at once. She was looking down at the wound she had received, right at the edge of her unarmored groin. The whole area was caked in dried blood. It seemed unfair to me; it looked to be about the same size of a wound as the one that had caused Starlight so much trouble, but Sickle seemed to regard the injury as a curiosity.

When we entered, Sickle looked up, leveling an unpleasant grin at Starlight before looking to Dusty. “Well, this was fun. We done here?”

“We’re going to wait for them,” he replied. “I’d like to talk with them before we head out, make sure they get home safe.”

“Uh-huh,” Sickle said, having already lost interest, and went back to prodding an armored hoof at her injury. “Let me know when you bitches are ready to get going.”

Starlight huffed and walked off, muttering something about salvage. I immediately followed her.

As soon as we stepped out of the room, I moved up close to her. “Are you okay?” I asked.

“I’m fine,” she replied, jaw tense as she continued on.

“Starlight,” I said, giving a pleading tone to my voice, and she hesitated mid-step. For a moment, her expression tightened. Then she sighed, her hoof lowering to the ground, her ears drooping.

“I’m tired, I’ve been shot, and my brain’s all fuzzy on painkillers. I got to see Sickle gut that stallion because she thought it was fun, and Dusty straight-up executed a wounded pony. And then there’s that,” she said, gesturing in the rough direction the raiders had held their captives. “And if all that weren’t enough, Sickle’s determined to be as nasty as she possibly can. It’s just annoying when she does it to us, but doing it in front of those two? After what they must have been through? That’s just fucking wrong.”

I nodded sympathetically.

“And I really want to kill her for it. I just want to take all that nasty shit she’s been saying and doing and turn it all on her. I think I’d be happy about it, even. All ‘ironic like,’ right?” She sighed, her head slumping. “And that scares me. Like… is that how raiders get started? Is that how she started?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe. But you’re not like that.”

“No, I’m not,” she replied, giving a quiet snort. “I just helped kill, what, fifteen? Twenty ponies? I’m not even bothered that I did. They’re raiders. They need to be put down. But I helped Sickle do all that nasty shit she did. And now I’m scared she’s going to keep doing that nasty shit to some ponies that have already gone through so much, and I don’t know what I might do if she does.”

“I was scared, too,” I said. “When you hit Sickle, I thought she was going to be pissed. I was scared she was going to try to kill you right in front of me, and that there wasn’t anything I could do about it. But instead… she backed down and did what you told her to do.”

Starlight blinked at me, then looked back the way we had come.

“And I was scared when you were shot. For a second, I thought you were going to die, and then there was all the blood.” I shuddered, shaking my head.

She looked back at me, a flash of worry crossing her expression before offering a weak smile; I could feel the sense of affection grow stronger as her attention turned to me. “Hey, don’t worry. It’s going to take a lot more than a bullet in the leg to stop me.”

Her expression held for about a second before suddenly falling flat. “Aw, shit. I just copied Sickle, didn’t I?”

I gave a weak, momentary smile. “Maybe a little.”

Starlight threw back her head, groaning loudly. “Fuuuuck.”

Dusty called out from the front of the restaurant. “What?”

“Nothing!” Starlight quickly replied. I’m pretty sure I heard Sickle snickering.

As Starlight huffed out a grumbling sigh, I reached out a hoof to lightly nudge her, and when I got her attention again, offered a soft smile. “Don’t worry too much about it,” I said, trying to sound gentle but confident. “You know you’re a good pony. You’re trying to protect ponies. That’s good. That’s why we’re here, right?”

She wavered, looking away. “...No. We just came here for money.”

“And if it were anypony other than raiders here, we wouldn’t have come,” I said, and met her eyes as she looked back to me. “We were willing to accept the job because, if it came down to a fight, we’d be fighting raiders that prey on other ponies. We made the Wasteland a little safer, today. And you know, even if I’d hoped to do this sneakily, without them ever knowing we were here…” I tilted my head, gesturing in the direction of the kitchen and the freezer beyond. “...I’m glad it turned out the way it did.”

She glanced that way, and sighed. “Yeah, I guess so.”

I reached up again, and this time she leaned in, wrapping her hooves around me as we hugged.

As her foreleg pressed against my left shoulder, I winced.

She quickly released her grip, looking alarmed. “You okay?” she asked, and followed my gaze to my own shoulder. “Oh, shit. You’re hurt!”

It looked like my coat was roughed up in a tiny patch, with bits of dried blood crusted into the hairs. Starlight brushed at it with a hoof, making me wince as she pushed back the hairs to look at the wound itself, and in the process, blocked my own view. “Shit, why didn’t you say anything, Whisper?”

“It didn’t hurt until somepony started jabbing their hoof in it!” I said, gritting my teeth as she prodded at my shoulder.

“It’s not a bullet wound,” she said, giving another press that made me hiss through my teeth. “Something stuck you, though, and it feels like there’s still something just under your skin. We should get this cleaned out.”

She quickly led me back to the main room of the restaurant, and right into an interesting conversation.

Sickle was still kicked back, but her helm’s muzzle hung freely, revealing her leering grin, an expression made even more disturbing by the dried blood matting her coat and the long, partially healed gash across her cheek. “Ah, it’d be just like good old times. Well, would have been even better an hour ago. Post-fight fucking is the best fucking.” She snickered, taking a deep swig from a bottle.

Dusty, meanwhile, had been glaring out the window, as if to ignore her. He noticed our arrival, wincing a little before replying to her. “There were no ‘old times,’ Sickle. It was once. And I wouldn’t call it good, either.”

Sickle snorted and coughed, lowering her bottle as she started to laugh. “Hah! Damn, Dirt, that almost hurts! Also, that’s brahminshit. I remember you getting really into it.”

Starlight was looking back and forth between them, and finally leveled a flat, disapproving look at Dusty. “Seriously? You slept with that?”

Dusty scowled, continuing to look away from everypony. “I’d been stuck putting up with her shit all day, so I got drunk as hell that night. I don’t remember anything after that. I just remember waking up with her lying on top of me.”

Sickle waved her bottle toward him. “Well shit, if all you need is some booze, I’ve got a few more in here. Want one?”

“No,” Dusty grumbled. “And can we not talk about this right now, with those two right in the next room?”

Sickle snickered and turned to us. “So, you two done fucking, already?”

Starlight leveled an unamused glare her way. “We weren’t having sex,” she said before turning away, seeming intent on ignoring Sickle as she pulled out her medical supplies.

As she started to clean my wound, Sickle snickered. “Oh! Star likes to play rough, does she?”

Through grit teeth, Starlight replied, “We weren’t playing at all.”

“We were talking,” I said, hoping to help, but it didn’t seem to dissuade Sickle at all.

“Yeah, sure. Two marefriends slip off in--”

“We’re not marefriends!” Starlight snapped, glaring at Sickle again. “Why the fuck does everypony think I’m a lesbian?”

“I don’t think you’re a lesbian,” Sickle said. “I bet you like getting cock just as much.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Starlight grumbled, turning back to my shoulder. After a moment, she added, “And just for reference, if you start talking about anything even remotely like this around either of those mares, I’m going to shoot you.”

“Yeah, sure thing, runt.”

Starlight flinched as Sickle reached out, only to stare in confusion at the bottle the huge mare was holding out. After a moment of silence, Sickle gave the bottle a little wiggle, to which Starlight hesitantly replied. “No thank you…”

“Suit yourself,” Sickle said, bringing the bottle back to her lips and downing the rest of the contents. The spent bottle ended up tossed back, clattering off a couple empty booths before hitting the ground and rolling to a stop.

Starlight continued to stare incredulously at Sickle, only to finally shake her head and return her attention to my injury.

The distraction had given me a better opportunity to look it over, myself. It was just a shallow cut, not even an inch long, but a gentle touch along the back edge of the cut had returned a sharp stab of pain.

After a few prods of her own, and accompanying winces of pain, the forceps came out again. I braced myself, but to my surprise, it wasn’t as painful as I expected. It still hurt, of course, but mostly, it just felt weird. I don’t know if I’ll ever get truly used to wearing a fleshy form. Feeling my outsides stretching and wiggling around can be nauseating if I focus on it too much.

In this particular case, however, I had to admit some advantage to it. Sure, my carapace might have protected me from the injury, but if it had failed to completely protect, it would have made the effort to extract the foreign object lodged inside me much more difficult. At least the flesh stretched to allow the object passage instead of trapping it in place.

I suppose there are some advantages to being a pony.

It took Starlight only a few moments, with only a mild jab of pain, and the forceps floated before me, clasped around a curved, jagged shard of metal.

“Bullet fragment,” Starlight said, dropping the piece into my hoof. It was so tiny.

She dribbled some liquid from one of her bottles over the cut, making me wince once more, and wrapped a non-magical bandage around my shoulder to keep it clean. I’m not even sure if it was necessary at that point; it was already feeling better.

It probably helped that I got a fair bit of affection from Starlight, finally taking a bit of the edge off my hunger.

With that, it was down to waiting. After a couple minutes, Starlight and I set out again to search the place, though we stayed away from the open freezer to leave the two mares some privacy. It wasn’t a terribly big place, and our search soon turned up their stockpile: a huge assortment of two-century-old food, all packaged up safely in cans and boxes, as well as several fuel-cans of water. It took us several trips to ferry all of it back to the main room, leaving us with a pile of food that probably weighed twice as much as I did. To the raiders, it probably represented a couple weeks worth of food. To our small group, it might last a couple months.

We started rooting through the various chests and boxes the raiders had kept their own belongings in. There were all sorts of things in them: a few crude melee weapons and pipe guns, spare ammo, loose caps, knick-knacks ranging from cards and pornography to bones and body parts, and a fair collection of drugs that Sickle promptly claimed. We even turned up a single super restoration potion, which ended up tucked into Starlight’s supplies.

What we were really looking for, however, were the various sacks, bags, and packs they had tucked away. Once we’d dug out enough bags, we started loading the food and loot into them.

We were almost done with that when Dusty, who was keeping a lookout, brought up his binoculars to peer at something that had caught his attention. I hardly even noticed, just some action on the periphery of my vision, of no particular importance.

What I did notice was him suddenly ducking down below the window, eyes wide as he stared off into space at the blank wall. “Oh shit.”

Naturally, that caught the attention of all of us. “What?” Starlight asked, being the quickest to voice the question that rose to all of our minds.

“Oh shit,” Dusty repeated. “We need to go.”

The last of Starlight’s cans lifted up in the glow of her magic to be dumped unceremoniously into a bag before hurrying over to Dusty. “What is it?” she said, drawing his attention barely in time for him to reach up and stop her from getting to the window.

“Stay down!” he hissed. “Don’t let it see you!”

“What is ‘it?’”

“There’s a fucking alicorn out there.”

“What?” Starlight asked, then shook free of his grip to slide up to the window, levitating her Lancer.

“Don’t shoot at it! You’ll just piss it off and tell it where we are!”

“I’m not going to shoot it,” Starlight said. “I just want to get a look at it.”

After a momentary pause, she asked, “Where is it?”

Dusty grunted out a short grumble, peeking up just enough to look out again before ducking down. “That little glow way out there, in the saddle.”

Starlight blinked and looked down at him. “Saddle?”

“The… the lower ridge between the two hilltops! It’s skylined there.”

“Oh,” Starlight said, turning back and aiming her Lancer that way. Having finished cramming the last of my own supply of cans into the waiting bags, I moved up to peer over her shoulder. The hills were probably a quarter mile away, and I could only just make out a faint purple light. Starlight hummed softly before speaking. “I wonder if that’s the same alicorn we ran into before?”

“You two ran into--” Dusty cut himself off, his hoof returning to rub at the bridge of his nose as he sighed. “Of course you ran into an alicorn. You two are fucking cursed or something.”

Starlight floated up the Lancer so I could look down the sight. I had to nudge it a bit to get it onto the correct point on the horizon again, but soon found what I was looking for.

She stood still on the ridgeline, faintly illuminated by the purple glow of her horn. The alicorn looked almost like a ghost, her coat barely standing out from the darkness around her. Her wings were spread beside her, her tail and mane slowly drifting in the still air.

I couldn’t tell if she was the same being we had encountered before, only that she had a similar coloration.

When I slid back, Dusty lowered his hoof. “You two done sightseeing, yet?”

“Yeah,” Starlight said, sliding back. “I’m done.”

“Good.” He moved over to one of the empty booths, grabbing at the bedding there. “Sickle, grab as many of those food bags as you can carry.”

“I ain’t your fucking pack mule,” she replied, though she rolled onto her hooves and lazily grabbed some bags as she said it.

“Whisper, go get those two mares. Get them up and moving, we need to get out of here.”

“On it,” I replied, and turned to head their way.

While I was confident in my abilities, it was not a conversation I was looking forward to. To tell the truth, I’d rather not be in that situation at all. But, I was there, and probably the best suited to get the job done, so I headed back to the walk-in freezer.

They were still sitting where we had left them, but now they sat there silently. The younger one was no longer crying, though she shook faintly with her long, deep breaths. The older one remained silent, slowly rocking, her forelegs wrapped protectively around the younger.

I hesitated only a moment before slowly approaching. The older mare twitched when she heard me, looking my way, and I did my best to put on a gentle, sympathetic expression. “I’m sorry, I don’t want to rush you, but we can’t stay here any longer. We need to go.”

She continued to look at me for a couple seconds with a look of mixed fear and determination. She finally swallowed, her voice slightly hoarse as she asked, “How soon?”

I gave a soft sigh, as if to show reluctance. “Now.”

Her ears drooped a bit, but she nodded, and turned back to the other mare. I stepped back to the door to wait.

“Honey?” she quietly murmured. “We need to go.”

She was met with a soft whimper, and leaned in to whisper quietly. After a few moments, the whimper stopped. The younger mare looked up, wavering a moment before a hint of the older mare’s determination was echoed in her expression, and she nodded.

“Let’s get you up, then. Easy, there.” Slowly, and with a good deal of help, the younger mare rose on shaky hooves. Her jaw was tight and breath shaky as she took her first step. She nearly fell, leaning heavily against the other mare for balance as her legs wobbled. Despite that, she forced herself onward.

“You’re doing fine,” the older mare cooed. She smiled, even as fresh tears started to roll down her cheek. “We’re getting out of here.”

Watching the poor mare’s slow and painful progress, I had to speak up. “We have a few spare healing potions, if you’d like a couple.”

The older mare blinked against the tears, and the look she gave me was full of caution. “...How much?”

I remember that one line more than anything else. After all the violence, all the carnage, all the vileness I had witnessed and learned of, I think that moment of simple, perfunctory cynicism hit the hardest. My eyes widened on hearing it, ears perking up. I stammered, entirely without intent. “N-no. For free. I couldn’t…”

She considered me for a moment before relaxing slightly, nodding. “Sorry. I’m just a little… wary of ponies, right now.”

“I understand,” I said, then opened my pack to produce the healing potion I had just recently acquired. She took it, giving a quiet murmur of thanks before turning to the pony resting against her.

“Here, baby,” she said, removing the stopper and offering the bottle to the other mare. “Drink this. You’ll feel better.”

She did, and after a few moments, was ready to move again. By the time we reached the main room of the restaurant, her pace was more sure, less laborious, though her head still hung low.

Sickle was heaving the last large bag of food onto her back as we returned. Both mares faltered upon seeing her. Fortunately, Dusty approached, a couple of new bundles strapped to his back. “I’m very sorry for having to rush you like this, ma’am, but we need to hurry out of here while we still can. My name’s Dusty Trails. What can I call you two?”

While Starlight quirked an eyebrow questioningly at me and silently mouthed Dusty’s full name, the older mare answered. “Silverline. And this is my daughter, Quicksilver.”

“Glad to meet you,” Dusty said. “The rest of the meet-and-greet will have to wait, I’m afraid. We’ve got something dangerous coming in, and I’d like to get out of here before it arrives. Are you good to move?”

Silverline swallowed, but nodded. “We are.”

“Good. Stay close, and we’ll get out of here. If there’s anything you need, if you need help with anything, just speak up and somepony will take care of it. Everypony else, don’t be afraid to ditch those bags if we have to move quickly; our lives are worth more than a few days of food. Now let’s go.”

We moved to the back door of the building, slipping out where the other buildings would mask our movement. Silverline kept glancing over at us. We’d crept by three houses before she quietly spoke up. “One of the raiders. A big one, white, with a big gun on--”

“He’s dead,” Sickle rumbled, her helm turning as she looked down at the smaller mare. She paused mid-step to lift a foreleg, brandishing the pair of bloodstained blades mounted there. “Gutted him myself.”

Silverline stared at Sickle for a long moment before giving a nod. She seemed satisfied with the answer, and continued on without any more sideways glances.

Our progress was slow, and not terribly quiet. The clinking and scraping of Sickle’s armor was matched by the collection of cans we carried, but slowly and surely, we made our way toward the wall of the compound, and the gate leading out, with its vague promise of uncertain safety.

Dusty covered from the edge of a house as we moved up, waiting until Starlight and I had gotten the gate open and had set ourselves in position to cover him before hurrying after us.

He was almost to the gate when the alicorn glided in over the pond. My heart lurched as Starlight and I both tracked this unknown threat. Fortunately, for whatever reason, she didn’t look our way, and Dusty scrambled behind me for cover.

We stayed very still, not daring to move any more than was required to keep the alicorn in our sights. She back-winged once, her hooves gracefully touching down to the ground as she transitioned into a walk. She moved slowly, with a casual confidence. From that distance, in that poor lighting, I couldn’t make out her expression, but her posture and movement gave the impression of a haughty disdain for the world around her.

It made me think of the most prideful of nobility or queens.

More concerningly, Starlight’s stories and Dusty’s fearful reaction made me worry that such a display of casual superiority might not be unfounded.

She came to a halt beside the body of a raider, the last one Dusty had shot in front of the Stable-Tec offices. Her horn lit, and a soft purple glow wrapped around the body, lifting it up to eye level as she peered down her snout at it. She slowly turned it over, looking at the bloody corpse. Then her magic twisted around it, and the dead raider’s torso tore open.

After all I’d seen that day, the gory display no longer drew the sense of revulsion it might have before. Despite that, I found myself very concerned about the motivation behind the alicorn’s actions, and very afraid of what might happen if she got her hooves on us. I stayed perfectly still, barely breathing despite the heartbeat hammering in my ears.

Organs pulled away, floating before the alicorn in a grotesque swarm of flesh. A leg tore open, as if the muscles burst within it, and then the head twisted until the skull cracked and split. A faint trace of revulsion started to rise in my gut. I’m thankful that I was far enough away to not hear the sounds that must have accompanied such a gruesome display.

The alicorn regarded her work impassively, occasionally floating a part closer for better inspection. One by one, parts were replaced within the cavities they had been removed from. Once they were all back in place, the wounds closed, knitting together in what struck me as an impressive display of magic. The torso closed up, the torn-open head sealed itself, and before long, the only sign of the raider’s injuries was the copious amount of blood staining his coat.

The alicorn’s magic turned and posed the raider’s corpse, slowly lowering it until the hooves touched the ground. Supported in her magic, it looked like the raider was simply standing there, as if Dusty had never shot him.

Then her magic winked out, and the corpse collapsed, limp and lifeless.

She stared down her snout at it for a second before looking away, toward the Equestrian Robotics offices. She resumed her slow, confident walk, stepping over the corpse as if it was once again beneath her notice.

As the alicorn walked further away, Starlight slid up beside me. “Can we go now?”

I nodded, and we crept back from the open gate. As we got further away, we picked up the pace, determined to put as much distance between us and that place as we could.

I silently followed along as we slipped away into the darkness, hoping I would never see Paradise Beach again.

Author's Notes:

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