His frame was battered, bent and marred by the congealed remains of the hooligans he’d been forced to deal with. Security had never shown, and the poor ponies he’d been taking through a tour had run away in fear for their lives. He’d made sure to file an incident report to management, making sure to indicate that if Security had been doing their job, he’d have been able to properly do his. He’d also been putting in requests with maintenance for a long overdue cleaning and repair session, but nopony had come yet. It was as if everypony had simply given up on their jobs. The tour guide turned slowly as invisible alarms alerted him to ponies entering the museum. “I’m terribly sorry,” he called out, “but the museum has closed for the time being. You’ll have to come back another t-”

The robot’s words were lost as bullets ripped into him from all sides. Metal shredded and sparks flew before its smoking chassis dropped to the floor with a clatter. The haze of gunfire drifted through the air, the pungent aroma of gunpowder and smoldering electronics. Zero stepped through the smoke, emerging like the dread spector he was to so many. He glanced down at the robot and then around the atrium. Backbreaker and a dozen other slavers were arrayed around him, awaiting his command.

“Our quarry have been here,” he said flatly. “Pair up. Search the building. Maintain radio contact. Backbreaker, you are with me.” The slavers dispersed, and Zero turned to face the large unicorn as he approached.

“What makes you think they were here?” Backbreaker asked.

“There are signs, if you know where to look and what it is you are looking for,” Zero answered cryptically. Backbreaker sneered and kicked over the remains of the robot.

“Finding a headless corpse isn’t a sign,” he growled. “It was sheer luck that we were able to figure out it was one of ours at all.”

“Oh no? It seemed to point us very clearly in the right direction,” Zero replied coolly as he approached a shut door. He tried the knob, finding it locked. “Besides, this is the nearest building in this direction. It stands to reason that, at some point, our wayward tools have been here. We need only another sign.”

Backbreaker opened his mouth to speak when his radio crackled angrily. “Boss. Ripper and Edge here. We got dead ferals. A lot. Looks like something the stripe would want to know about.”

“We’re on our way,” Backbreaker growled. He glared at Zero and then jabbed a hoof in his direction. “Not a word.”

“It had to be you…” Lash muttered, her head low as she moved down a bone strewn corridor. She dragged her hooves through the tangle of rotted limbs, kicking them out of her way as she moved. “Ten other Minders and I get stuck with your ass.” Chains glared at her back as he followed her, one eye a mosaic of black and blue. “I’d have taken a week old feral corpse over you…”

“It’s your fault,” he croaked, his throat still sore from Zero’s hoof. “You pissed off the zebra!”

Lash’s eye twitched and she whipped around to face the stupid sand-colored stallion.

“My fault!?” she practically shrieked. “I’m not the one who picked a fight. I’m not the one who got lippy and made into a bitch in front of the entire canteen!”

“It shoulda been you!” Chains spat, getting right up in Lash’s face. His breath stank of a mixture of rotten teeth and alcohol.

“What is your problem with me? Huh? What-” she said, shoving him away a step to free herself of the stench, “-is your fucking problem?”

“I’m not the problem here,” he hissed at her as he shoved past her. Lash bit her lip, struggling to keep her anger in check. Why couldn’t Zero have just killed him and spared her this suffering. She angrily kicked at a skull, sending it skittering down the corridor with a hollow thunking noise.

“This is fucking pointless!” Chains spat as he trampled the brittle remains of a foal and its teddy bear. “What’re we doing out here? Couldn’t we just get new slaves?”

“Feel free to voice your concerns to Zero. I’d love to see you get smacked down like a bitch again,” Lash quipped. Chains sneered and he absently rubbed at his throat.

“Nah… just seems… stupid is all,” he muttered.

“It is. But it’s what Fortune wants. Now c’mon,” she said, speeding up and passing him. “The sooner we search this place the sooner we can keep moving.”

And the sooner I can find my favorite slave… she thought.

“I got blood here,” Roughshod called. Stone Cold ambled over, and stared down at the deep brown stain on the floor. Next to it, a cork with teeth marks and an empty healing potion bottle.

“That looks fresh… ish,” he said. Roughshod’s eyes scanned across the floor to the stairwell. The door stood open, the lock twisted and rent. He nodded his head at the door, and kicked his back leg to load his battle saddle.

“C’mon we better check it out,” he said, sounding quite unsure. The blood left a very noticeable trail all the way to the basement before disappearing. The basement lights flickered and sparked, causing shadows to shift and move. The whole place creaked and groaned, as if it was struggling to remain overhead and after a few steps the sickly sweet stench of decay began to grow heavier and more cloying. Stone moved slowly, the barrels of his guns trained ahead of him as he kept his head on a swivel. He didn’t want to be down here, every rational part of his brain was screaming at him to leave. But he kept putting one foot in front of the other and rounded the corner.

At the end of the hall, the doors had been ripped from the walls, and been flung, twisted and bent, several meters away. He could smell the room beyond from here. Bodies. Rotting bodies. Lots of them.

“Go check it out,” Roughshod said, pressing his hoof into Stone’s back. “I’ll cover you.”

Stone shook his head slowly. “Fuck you. You check it out,” he replied, but still he began to creep forward. With each step his stomach threatened to revolt, the stench growing worse and worse. He gagged as he stepped through the twisted frame, struggling between the need to take a breath and the want to not have any of this taste in his mouth. Putrid corpses laid up against either side of the room, rotting into the floor. The room was more or less a large rectangle, save for the sloping pit in the center of the room that angled down to some kind of stone entryway, the center of which was open, leading into deep darkness. Slumped at his feet, up against the edge of the pit was a neatly bisected corpse.

“Ho-lee fuck…” Roughshod muttered as he came up behind Stone Cold. “What the hell happened in here?”

“Bad news all around,” Stone muttered. He reached out a hoof and pointed at one of the grimey corpses. “That looks like our armor. Can’t tell who was wearin’ it though.”

“Cutty’s crew?” Roughshod asked. Stone shrugged. “Shit… We should probably report this to the stripe, right?” Stone opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came. His eyes widened as he stared into the black portal set in ancient stone in the center of the room. The yawning opening seemed infinitely dark, as the flickering lights set into the ceiling did nothing to illuminate the interior. Curious, he kicked a bit of debris toward the opening. It cracked off the angled floor and disappeared into the darkness, clacking and thumping for a few seconds before going silent.

Nothing.

A thought was forming in his head. The thought that the zebra would absolutely want to know about this. He glanced down at his radio and as he glanced back his gaze locked with a pair of faintly glowing eyes, large and unblinking. They peered out of the void and directly into his soul. He backed up a step, grabbing at Roughshod’s armor and pointing wordlessly. “What? What the fuck are....” Stone grasped Roughshod’s face and deliberately turned his head toward the spectral eyes as they winked out of view. “...what the fuck was that?”

“Bad news…” Stone croaked. “Let’s get the fuck gone.”

Roughshod nodded as the duo backed out of the room and then turned and ran. Maybe the stripe didn’t need to know about this.

Backbreaker peered down at the mess at his hooves with disinterest. “Yeah… that’s Bruiser alright. Vain prick loved that armor more than anything. Someone sure did a number on him.”

“A number… He’s got no fucking head!” Lash said, as she sneered down at the pulverized remains of the former slaver’s head. Lash had seen some grisly things in The Dig, but it had always been fresh. Bruiser’s body had been here for days. Rotting. The smell was horrific and Lash took several measured steps back before her constitution failed and she vomited onto the floor, much to Chains’ amusement.

“Yes, quite tragic really,” Zero said flatly as he glanced around the room. “How many ponies were a part of Bruiser’s team?”

“He had a ten slaves and two minders,” Backbreaker answered.

“The stuttering junkie and the living ghoul, yeah?” Chains commented.

“Did we find any trace of the other minders in his team?” Zero asked, ignoring Chains’ comment. The various slavers around him shook their heads. “What about the bookish colt that was assigned to him by Master Fortune? Or any of Cutthroat’s group? Or anything ELSE of note.” Roughshod swallowed hard, but kept his mouth shut. Stone simply pretended he hadn’t heard anything.

“Notes? I thought we was lookin’ for slaves...” sompony muttered. Zero sighed loudly, pressing a hoof between his eyes.

“I am surrounded by idiots…” Zero muttered as he slid his hoof down his face. “What’s the nearest settlement?”

“Rust Rail. The trade hub.” Backbreaker said.

“We will head there next. Gather anything of use here and let us be off,” Zero said as he stepped over Bruiser’s corpse.

“What’s Rust Rail’s stance on us?” Lash asked aloud.

“Depends on if we’re there to spend caps or to try and drag ponies off in chains,” Ripper answered. “Lotta nice weapon shops there.”

“Plenty of eyes that might’ve seen something as well,” Backbreaker said. “C’mon. Everyone back to the rig. If you see something worth a damn, snag it. May as well get some use out of this place.” The slavers began to file out one by one. As Lash went to follow she kicked her hoof through a bundle of moldy packing straw that had spilled like entrails from a smashed crate. There was a sharp clang and she winced, lifting her hoof from the straw and waving it around.

“What the…?” she muttered as she wrapped her magic around a bundle of straw and tossed it aside.

Laying on the cracked cement floor, was a small, silver disc. The edges were shaped like twisting vines and Lash could see her own reflection in its polished surface. She smiled weakly, lifted the mirror with her magic, and tucked it into her saddlebag. It never hurts to grab a little something for yourself, she thought as she hurried after the group.

The rusty cart squeaked and squealed in protest as the trio of armored ponies pushed it down an empty, dead-end alley. At its end, sat a rust red door.

“Hurry up!” one of them, a maroon stallion, barked. “I don’t wanna be here any longer than I have to.”

“Then put your back into it! The damn cart’s nearly rusted solid!” another griped.

The cart inched to a stop just shy of the metal door. A gray mare scooted around the edge of it and up to the door. She lifted a hoof and hesitated, glancing back at her compatriots, both of whom looked around nervously. Swallowing her trepidation, she banged her hoof on the door three times. The view slit slid open and a pair of bloodshot eyes surrounded by glistening, slick muscle stared out at her.

“What’s this? Little raiders come to play? Or come to pray?” the figure behind the door grunted.

“W-we bring your share,” she said nervously, gesturing at the cage. The eyes darted to the cage’s slumbering occupants a moment and then back to the mare who was already backing up. Never blinking.

“Excellent…” the voice croaked as the slit snapped shut. The mare immediately turned tail and ran back to her allies as a series of locks loudly undid themselves. She turned back as the door began to creak open. It swung wide, stopping just short of banging into the bricks it was set in. Those two eyes stared out of the darkness inside. The cart began to groan as dripping red magic gripped the front of it and pulled it slowly into the building. “Tell Gorgon not to forget the deal. I want the same next month,” the hidden figure called as the wagon disappeared through the door, which slammed shut abruptly behind it. The three raiders exhaled slowly and began to leave when the slot snapped open again and the bloodshot eyes peered out. “Oh! Before you go,” the voice called, causing the raiders to turn back slowly. The door opened a crack and a small jar surrounded in that putrid, dripping red magic floated over to the trio. “I heard about Gorgon’s… ironic… injury. Give him these to make him feel better.” The mare nodded and held out her hooves as the magical field popped in a warm, red mist and deposited the jar in them. Floating inside some kind of pink liquid were a mismatched pair of eyes. “They’re from my personal collection. Just, pop them in and all will be… what is it you say? Good as new? Yes, good as new.” The view slit suddenly shut, and the trio could hear the locks being set again. This time, they didn’t wait. They turned tail and ran.

Author's Notes:

If you spot any spelling or grammar errors, please let me know. :)