Fallout Equestria: Homelands

By Somber

Chapter 9: Dissolution

The sight of the warship crawling up the middle of the river froze Scotch Tape in place. That explained it. The city was looking for attackers by land and air, but the Riptide could have been bringing in fighters to take over Carnico silently. The Atoli stripes were thinner and wavier than the longer, more contoured Carnilian, yet under so much body armor, it was easy to mistake the two. But that meant that Riptide, Mariana, and the Blood Legion were all working together. And if they were, who else might also be allied with them? How deep did this conspiracy go?

Thinking about that was almost taking her mind off the blood cooling on her face and chest. Almost. About the way the zebra had jerked as she’d worked the trigger franticly.

“Hey, Green?” a distant, familiar, urgent voice said as she wondered if the Orah were involved as well. “Hey, pony! We got to go,” that voice said louder, and sharper. What about the Syndicate? Doctor Z? The Iron Legion? It would– “We. Have. Got. To. Go!” Skylord yelled in her ear, and she turned to stare at him.

“I killed him,” she muttered, all those thoughts and attempts to compartmentalize falling away. She’d wept, but there was still something in her stuck on what she’d just done, like ragged thread on a rusty nail. “I know he was trying to kill me, but I didn’t mean to kill him!” she said at the flat-lidded griffon.

“Well, that explains why you put three rounds in him, on accident,” Skylord replied, and Scotch felt her eyes burn again. “Look. No time for this. We got that box thing, so we got to get out of here. Then you can cry your eyes out and talk about how horrible it is that you killed and blah blah blah.” He smacked her upside the head hard enough to sting. “So get your head together before his buddies take it off.”

“Don’t you ever hit me,” Scotch snarled at him.

“Good. You’ve moved to a useful emotion. Now grab that computer thingy you need and let’s get back–” He started towards the door, and Scotch saw two yellow bars on her E.F.S.

So the bullets were a real surprise. They tore through the wooden door, punching through barely an inch above their heads. Then the door was kicked in, smashing Skylord in the face and making him curl up, clutching his beak as he squawked in pain.

“You die–” Vicious began, pointing a gun at Scotch before blinking in shock. “Scotch? What are you doing in Mariana’s office? I was so sure that cunt would be in here!”

“You missed her,” Skylord said, working his beak.

Scotch wanted to snap at her for shooting at what had to be a yellow bar, but the unicorn looked like she’d been through the wringer. The swelling contusions and bandages were proof enough. “Are you okay?”

“I need to kill a lot more people to be okay. Mariana’s way up on that list,” she said, stepping in and looking around as if hoping that Mariana would appear just in time for her execution. “Why are you in here?” she asked. Tchernobog stepped in, staring at Scotch Tape gravely.

Scotch hefted the box. “Proof. Mariana and Carnico are up to something. There’s some kind of alliance between her, the Blood Legion, and Riptide. They call themselves the New Empire.”

Vicious spat. “Seriously? Any one of those is a pain in the tail. All three…” She didn’t finish, shaking her head. “We’ve got to find Vega. Cleaning up this shit is way above our paygrade.” Tchernobog said nothing but nodded once in agreement.

“He’s not with Cecilio?” Scotch asked.

“His office is empty. I don’t know if they’re dead, captured, or heading back to the cafe. I suspect that he would have left at the first sign of trouble,” Tchernobog rumbled, his brows furrowed.

“Well, we met someone who can help. Come on,” Scotch said, checking the hall. “By the way, these security are Atoli, not Blood Legion.”

“Explains why we haven’t run into any berserkers. Atoli are pussies if they’re not on a boat,” Vicious said with a sniff, following her. “I never would have imagined those three working together. Hell, I can’t imagine Blood Legion working with anyone like this! Blood Legion charging in screaming at the top of their lungs I can handle. Atoli causing trouble on the waves, I can handle. Carnico being backstabbing little pricks I can handle. All three? Fuck me.”

“And that assumes there aren’t others involved,” Tchernobog rumbled.

“Is the Syndicate?” Scotch asked, eying the pair.

“The Syndicate has a policy of disentanglement. We make deals and get what people want. That said.” Tchernobog paused, glancing at Skylord. “It’s possible, I admit. A year ago, I never would have imagined it possible. Now…” He shook his head.

They reached the communications room and found Gordo lying on his side, his tongue straining to reach the largest chunk of doughnut left behind. “Seriously?” Scotch Tape growled as she marched up and tried to shove him upright. “You know the food here is poisoned, right? Someone poisoned a whole lot of people, and it’s in the food.” Scotch and Tchernobog pushed him upright and untied him. “Besides, it’s been on the floor.” Mashed into the carpet, actually.

“Well, I’m hungry. And five second rule and stuff,” Gordo muttered.

“It’s been more than an hour,” Skylord said flatly.

“It must be hunger distorting my sense of time,” he whined.

“Really?” Vicious said with a blink. “It’s not in the doughnuts. There were a whole bunch of them set up in a conference room.” She pulled one out of her saddlebags, glazed in chocolate with pink sprinkles. “I took a few.”

“Ooooh,” Gordo cooed as he stretched out a hoof towards the floating treat. “It looks so delicious.”

She bit out a quarter, masticating furiously, before she answered with a smirk, “It is.” A kick to Gordo’s crotch couldn’t have been more painful to watch.

“I’m telling you, it was the punch,” Skylord said with a roll of his eyes.

Scotch shook her head in frustration. “Doctor Z?”

The main terminal flashed to life, and there was the neon-blue-striped zebra sitting in a smoking jacket, reclining back in a love seat, smoking a horn pipe with stacks of books all around him. “So that’s where their third CEO. ended up. You owe me twenty imperios or a tape from your fine antique erotica collection,” Doctor Z said before he looked up. “Oh, you’re back! I was totally sure you were dead, Greenie.” He rose, the accessories disappearing as he rubbed his hooves together. “Did you bring me dirt? I can always use more dirt.”

“Something wrong with the cameras?” Scotch asked.

“The Legion figured out the system’s compromised. They’re disabling them. Pulling plugs and stuff. Don’t think they’re smart enough, yet, to come in here and turn them all off at the source,” the zebra said, watching and salivating as Scotch pulled out the box. “Last I saw, your scaly friend was down in the labs with the ghoulie guy talking to one of their scientists, and the boss was being escorted out by security.”

“What about Vega?” Tchernobog asked.

“Who?” Doctor Z asked, blinking at the Starkatteri. Scotch’s mind kept working. Did Cecilio know about the guards? Were they Atoli or not? Was Vega alive? Why was Precious talking to a scientist? She plugged in the box, and it started to whirr. “Okay,” he murmured as windows started appearing on his screen, filled with chunks of text. “I knew you were too clean, Maribaby!”

“Did you find something?” Scotch asked.

“Grade-A fecal matter,” the animation replied. “She’s been in correspondence with the Blood Legion, the Atoli, and a bunch of other people. I’ve got all her final drafts right here,” he said, reaching into a window and pulling out a bunch of papers. “Apparently they start with some shaman. No name.” His eyes went immediately flat, and he growled, “I hate when they don’t use names.” Then he continued reading. “They put Mariana in touch with the Blood Legion first about two years ago. Apparently there was a deal worked out to infiltrate and take over Rice River without the other legions finding out about it. She’d rule Carnico and Rice River, and they’d get rid of all the elders.” The animation frowned. “Crap.”

“What?” Scotch asked.

“I don’t understand this,” he said, bringing up displays; Scotch knew just enough to identify them as molecules.

“I thought you were the zebra for information,” Skylord said.

“I’m the master of digging up dirt. I have no clue what all this is.” One of the printers ground to life, screeching as the head zipped back and forth. “Here. Have some hardcopy.” He reached over to another window and pulled out more papers, reading from them. “Apparently the Blood Legion wants food. Tons of food. Like, half the food Rice River produces. They’ve got the numbers but can’t feed them.”

“Hence all the raiding for supplies,” Skylord added. “If they had steady food, they’d sweep all of the northern lands from here to Bastion. They actually have the numbers to occupy that territory.”

“But it’s not like Rice River is swimming in food,” Scotch argued with a frown. “There were a lot of hungry people in town. I doubt they’d be happy if all that food went to the Blood Legion.” Part of her wanted to get out of here, but she had no idea when she’d be in contact with the strange doctor again.

“Actually, if you cut off the food tribute paid to the other legions, there’s more than enough. And there’s talk here about dealing with surplus population,” Doctor Z went on.

Scotch frowned as disturbing pieces came together. Even if the others were skeptical, she knew those poisonings were deliberate. “Is there any sign of this alliance?”

“Yup. Looks like Mariana was talking with people all over the Wasteland. I’ve got a few dozen… make that more than a hundred…” He furrowed his brow. “Only a few are talking about the New Empire,” Doctor Z said. “And they’re using code names. I hate code names. The Shaman. The Captain. The General. The Director. The Manager. The Banker. The Seer. The Pony.” He flipped through some more. “Apparently killing the Pony is priority one, but there’re lots of disagreements and arguments over the direction of the New Empire.”

“But what is that?” Scotch asked with growing frustration.

“No idea, but I really want to know,” Doctor Z. said, a cartoonishly malicious grin spreading wide across his face. “This smells like excellent dirt!”

“It’s probably just some upstarts thinking they can bring back the Empire,” Tchernobog rumbled. “You get those from time to time. They always fail. Always. Nothing gets torn down like some legion general with delusions of grandeur.”

Doctor Z went back to his papers, then looked off to the left of the screen. “What? Fine. Whatever,” he grumbled before looking at Scotch. “Here’re all the drafts she made. Maybe it’ll be useful. Just save me the broadcasting rights.”

Vicious had finished off all but the last bite of her doughnut, and the round zebra was on his knees before her, forehooves clasped together with his eyes huge and shimmering. She snorted and raised it above him. “You want it?” Gordo nodded his head. “You really want it?” she asked with a grin. Another more desperate nod.

The last bit swooped into her mouth, and she masticated with a smirk at the crushed stallion. “Mmmm… so good.”

Scotch grabbed the printouts and stuffed them in her saddlebags. “Okay. Let’s get to Precious and Xarius and get out of here.” She looked at Gordo. “Can you get us there?”

“I would have for a donut,” the zebra muttered. Vicious swallowed, then levitated a knife to his throat. “I can take you! I can take you! I’d be happy to take you!”

“Thanks, Doctor Z,” Scotch said with a smile.

“No problem. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to use Carnico’s bright and shiny transmitter on top of this building to tell the world all the things they’ve been up to! This will be a load of dirt par excellence!” he said, rubbing his hooves together.

Scotch frowned. “Wait–”

Doctor Z’s music started to play as he turned his back on her. “Helloooooooo Zebrinica! It’s me, to a T, your fine and free Doctor Z! Get ready for an exclusive, my striped brothers and sisters, straight from Carnico Incorporated! That’s right! I’ve got all the shit to share, and it’s going to be amazing! First–”

And that was when the building exploded.

Not the entire thing, but it felt as if a massive sledgehammer had been dropped on a cinder block full of china. Everyone was knocked to the floor. The room was instantly plunged into near darkness as several of the terminals and servers sparked and died. Ceiling tiles cascaded down upon them, and Scotch covered her ringing ears as they struck her. Only one emergency light over the door kept them from being plunged into complete darkness, the few live server lights in the smashed equipment flickering like embers in the shadows. Then the hammer fell again, and somewhere came a tearing, grinding noise as if a massive plate were tearing off the top of Carnico.

Scotch didn’t need an engineering cutie mark to know that they had to get out, now.

“What was that? What happened?” Gordo yelped.

“My guess? A one hundred and fifty millimeter artillery shell,” Skylord said as he pushed the tiles off him. “Either the Irons or the Riptide.” If it was the Irons, that meant they’d found out about the infiltration.

“We need to get out. This is a concrete structure, but if it starts to pancake, we’ll be jelly!” Scotch snapped, then broke into ragged coughing from the dust that swirled in the air. Tchernobog staggered to the exit and, with a hard yank of his powerful hooves, pulled the door open. Outside, fire alarms blared and flashed while sprinklers anemically tried to douse a blaze that had sprung up on the far side of the building. The hallway towards Mariana’s office opened up to open air, the entire corner of the building gone. “Stairs! Where are the stairs?!” Scotch asked as she staggered under the spray of one sprinkler where it cut the dust and pounding pain in her skull.

“That way!” Gordo whined, shuffling out of the communications room. Another detonation rolled through the wounded structure, this time from below her hooves, and the roof overhead let out a loud crack. Like most of Carnico, this place had been built to survive a pony attack, so the roof was heavy and reinforced, but a building was just a table. Knock out two walls supporting it and the plate would slide down, and possibly take the rest of the building with it when it went.

The stairs were intermittently lit by feeble emergency lights as they rushed down towards the ground floor. Another more muffled ‘krump’ reverberated, and the very walls around them gave a shriek as something overhead roared. They didn’t descend so much as fall down the steps as a rain of dust and rubble fell in atop them, and then everything shook with another powerful impact, and another, closer. Scotch tumbled onto a landing, the stairwell roaring with a crumbling noise, and simply pressed herself as tightly into a corner as she could while the world fell in upon her.

“Caesar’s bloody hoof!” Colonel Adolpha snapped as the boom of artillery rolled out over the city again and again. They’d commandeered an apartment complex on the heights on the east side of the river that afforded excellent visibility, and the mare immediately ducked, counted to five, and then rose as the distant thumps of impacts rolled out. Rising, she grabbed a pair of binoculars and rushed to a window. Keeping herself as out of sight as possible for potential snipers, she first verified that the Riptide’s bow cannon was aimed away from their position. Then she surveyed the damage.

The fact that only a single building was damaged spoke well of the ship’s gunners. The large central office cube had two immense bites taken out of it. Adolpha watched as the immense square cap slid diagonally, and then the building crumbled in seconds as the armored roof became the structure’s demise. It lay at an angle in a heap of dusty rubble and twisted rebar.

Adolpha rushed to the radio, shouldering the operator aside. “Iron Legion to the Riptide! What do you think you’re doing?” There was a delay as Adolpha gritted her teeth. Technically, the ship had as much right to be here as the legions: none. Adolpha had been convinced that dealing with the Bloods would be simple. The presence of the pirates set all that on its head. “Riptide! Respond!”

A mare’s lazy voice answered. “One of the perks of being a pirate is you don’t have to explain why you do anything. The answer is ‘pirate’.” There was a pause. “You know, if my little boat scares you so much, you can just leave. I certainly wouldn’t hold it against you.”

“What are you doing here?” Adolpha growled.

“Why, we’re attending the Bacchanalia, same as you,” the mare replied in a hurt voice. That was the excuse both legions had used. “We were firing off a few celebratory shots. You should have heard the cheers when we flattened that building.”

Adolpha didn’t dispute that. Everyone needed Carnico but had little love for the company. “Well, you better silence that gun, or you’ll taste our iron,” Adolpha warned. The river was too narrow for the Riptide to maneuver. Still, she’d much rather avoid trading artillery shells with a 150mm gun.

“You should relax. Go home. Retire,” the captain continued with a throaty chuckle. “Times are changing. Better learn to flex before you break.”

“You should listen to her,” a mare said behind the colonel. She clenched her teeth, whirling to look at the production manager sitting next to the CEO and Vega. “As long as you’re here, the Blood Legion will stay. Riptide has neither the numbers nor the interest for occupying the city. With you gone, the Blood Legion will leave as well, unless they want to cross her.”

Adolpha fought the urge to snap. “That is a painfully optimistic projection,” Vega answered for her. “With the Iron Legion gone, there’s nothing to stop the full occupation of the town and Carnico. Riptide could watch from the river eating popcorn, or join in the looting.”

“That’s preposterous,” Mariana spluttered.

“Why?” Cecilio asked her placidly, making her blink. “She just leveled our office for fun. Claiming that she’d stand in the way of this is baffling. I think we’re much better off letting the colonel handle this.”

“Fine,” Mariana muttered, walking for the door. “I’ll make sure supplies are sent to the Legion in the meantime,” she said sourly as she departed.

“Something is up with her,” Vega observed. “With one breath she wants us to go, and with the next she gets food so we can stay and fight. Is she always this erratic?”

“She is devoted to Carnico and the future of the zebra people,” Cecilio said. “I honestly find her more idealistic than most of my management.” He waved his hoof at the smoking building inside the industrial complex. “I think this may be outside her grasp, however.”

“Do you think it’s true? That report about Blood Legion infiltrating the factory by killing and replacing your security?” Vega asked.

“Well, none of the ones we checked were branded, so they must have been mistaken. Everyone checked in, and the head of security reported to Mariana and I that there were no disruptions after we left,” Cecilio said with a sigh. “Still, when all this is over, a significant audit will have to be conducted.”

“Could she replace you?” Adolpha asked.

Cecilio gave a hearty laugh. “I learned a long time ago how to limit those chances. Carnico functions due to a delicate balance of arrangements. Break them, and Carnico would go bankrupt in months. Our chemical and food products are just one part of the web. Deals with the Propoli for biological and chemical researchers. Contracts with the Atoli for fish waste and with dozens of other reliable sources for other organic wastes for fertilizer and nitrates. Export deals with half a dozen legions. Peripheral businesses ranging from cafes to the meat market to the produce market. And, of course, plenty of other arrangements. Someone might be able to set all those back up without me, but not without significant losses.”

“And if you choke on a stale pastry or slip in the bath?” Vega asked as Adolpha surveyed the map on the table before her. Cecilio gave a grim chuckle in reply.

Being an officer meant she had to keep tactical and strategic goals in mind. The tactical boiled down to simply eliminating the enemy with acceptable losses. Those were by far the easier to address. The eastern side of the city, not counting Carnico, was a quarter the size of the west side, with only the single bridge connecting the two. Ideally, she would have blown that at the first opportunity, but given that it was a nexus of spiritual activity, she didn’t want to explore that option just yet. The eastern side was more easily defended, with shorter supply lines, and, quite honestly, it was more valuable. She had a dozen machine guns in elevated positions covering the bridge for a hundred and forty degrees.

The strategic goals were far more difficult. She had to keep goodwill with Carnico and Rice River to keep up recruitment. Had to prevent the Iron Legion from losing face. Had to undermine the Blood Legion’s efforts to expand and secure their territory. Had to deny them access to resources like Carnico. The strategic game was far more frustrating because it was more important. What value was there in winning the battle only to not get what you wanted from it?

The biggest wildcard in both regards was the Riptide. Assuming it was hostile, why didn’t it continue to attack? Their artillery hadn’t arrived yet, and the ship could blow their positions apart just as easily as they’d leveled that building. Granted, most of the more valuable parts of the city would be lost, but right now they were getting nothing. At the very least, they could have pinned down Adolpha’s forces to let the Blood Legion cross and dig them out. What was going on now was subtle, and that word was not something she liked to apply to the Blood Legion.

“Colonel,” a soldier said behind her. “Communique repeating the accusation of Blood Legion infiltrating Carnico. Also, the White Legion was sighted ten kilometers east, roughly two brigades with two 40-tonne steam tanks and transportation, but stationary. Command also warns that the Gold Legion was sighted forty kilometers south, may be raiding, and could delay our artillery.”

“Great. Just what we need,” she said with a sigh. “If either of them contact us or approach, inform me immediately.”

“Trouble?” Vega asked.

“As if Blood and pirates weren’t enough, both the Gold and White Legions have been spotted in the area,” she said. The radio operator talked rapidly in the background, scribbling down a note.

“The Gold Legion can be rented without complications,” Vega answered immediately. “They’ll name their price, and the Syndicate will cover it. Of course, that doesn’t stop someone else giving them a better offer later. They always serve the highest bidder.”

“Yes, I could go on about the many reversals of their loyalty,” Adolpha growled. “Like when they mysteriously turned around and abandoned our stand at Broken Mountain.” The radio operator approached, note in her mouth, as Adolpha when on, “Or their ‘confusion’ at the Battle of Bitter River, when they shot my brigade in the back! We were nearly wiped out and forced to withdraw!” She took the note in her hoof, waving at Vega and Cecilio. “If it’s not the Iron Legion, they’re nothing but opportunistic bastards who will stab you in the back at any opportunity!” The radio operator kept making a cutting motion across her throat, jabbing a hoof at the note and trying to interrupt her calm discussion of the failings of all other legions.

“Are the White Legion a problem? A particular problem now, I mean?” Cecilio asked.

“Yes. Are we a problem?” a smooth stallion asked from the doorway. The zebra was nearly completely white with thin vertical dashed lines that gave the impression of falling snow. His long mane fell down halfway to his shoulders, bone white with pencil-thin black lines streaking it. His light combat armor shared his coloration, with a ruff of white fur around the collar. While he lacked a firearm, he carried a foldable shovel and a strange pick with a tapered point on one side and a flat mallet head on the other. The brand he wore resembled an asterisk or snowflake. “Captain Isfjell,” he said, bowing towards her.

“You have a guest, Colonel,” a guard behind him said, panting hard. “He’s fast!”

The radio operator gestured weakly at the note, her ears wilting as she said, “A White Legion officer is here to–”

The guard glared at the pale zebra. “He just pushed ahead.” Which meant he should have been shot full of holes. She’d address that slip in discipline later.

“It’s fine!” she snapped at both, mostly angry with herself for being careless. The general would not approve. “Who’s next? Fire Legion? Sand Legion?” she grumbled as she regarded him. “Return to your posts,” she said to the soldiers before finally addressing this newest distraction. “You’re a long way south, Sahaani. Did you run out of yaks to kill?”

“Oh, they’re keeping life interesting, that’s for certain,” he laughed. “But you can only deal with so many mindless charges before they become tedious. Actually, it’s the lava demons that offer the bulk of the entertainment. And that doesn’t even address the fun of snow wyrms, icestalkers, and the occasional mad yeti. Actually, we came for the Bacchanalia celebration, since we were already so far south. We never imagined we’d run into something so… interesting.” The congenial stallion smiled at her coolly.

“What’s your business in my combat theatre, Captain Isfjell?” Adolpha demanded.

“Trying to determine what our business is in your combat theatre. General Breen was livid when she heard that there were not just one but two legions violating our truce regarding Rice River. I think she almost swore. So she sent us ahead to figure out what was going on,” Isfjell said casually. “I understand there’re pirates involved too. How could we say no?”

“Easily. N. O. It’s a simple enough word,” she growled at him. “We’re here to restore the truce. Once the Blood Legion is driven out, we’ll withdraw back to Irontown.”

“Of course you will. Eventually. After you’ve set up a garrison, I’m sure. Secured the approaches. Negotiated a better deal for yourself. I imagine that leaving will be right at the top of your to-do list,” Isfjell said calmly, his pale blue eyes scanning the building as he walked over, tapping the wall with a hoof. “You should relocate. This concrete was subgrade.”

“Thank you, Sahaani. I will take that under advisement! Now, if you will excuse us, I’ve got a ship to manage and a Blood Legion to ambush, all in the middle of a Bacchanalia. The Iron Legion will greatly appreciate your withdrawal from this area,” she said as she turned to the map.

“Just a moment,” Cecilio said sharply, and Adolpha froze. “What he says is true. I know you claim to have no interests in occupying Rice River and Carnico, but all we have is your word on that, Colonel. I’d rather have something more substantial. Particularly if the Blood Legion and Riptide are working together.”

“Don’t even think of it,” she said, turning again to fix the elderly businessman with a glare. “If you invite the White Legion in, they will do what they always do: dig in. They’ll fortify and fortify and fortify until it will be all but impossible to dislodge them. Then they’ll extort as much as they can before withdrawing, if they ever do.”

“‘Extort’ is such a dirty word,” Isfjell laughed. “It’s right up there with threatening to blow a settlement off the map with artillery which may, or may not, be there. But the Irons have never threatened to do that, have they?”

“As a matter of fact, they’ve threatened to do precisely that,” Cecilio replied coolly.

“Only to keep it out of the hooves of the Blood Legion! I think we can all agree that that’s a higher priority,” she snapped, thrusting an accusing hoof at Isfjell. “You’re just itching for revenge after we forced you out of Granite Pass!” The captain didn’t answer, his smile steady.

“But assuming we win,” the old stallion said, “the subject is going to come up. At the moment, I think another two thousand allies would be helpful. The security of Carnico may have been compromised, so I can think of nothing better than for the White Legion to secure the premises.” His pale gaze shifted to Vega. “Given that the Syndicate contracted your participation in this, I think it only wise that Carnico have its own champion in this fight.”

“And when the Blood leave and the White refuse to withdraw?” Adolpha asked, with the captain adopting a mocking, hurt expression.

Without breaking his pleasant veneer, Cecilio answered calmly, “Then the White Legion will get to try out its fortifications against phosgene gas.” Adolpha felt a little bit of satisfaction that the answer wiped the smile off Isfjell’s face. Cecilio regarded the captain with his own too-pleasant smile. “Understood, Captain?”

“I suppose we can play nice,” Isfjell replied. “You are our hosts. It would be rude to rob you blind. We’ll have to work out numbers, of course.”

“Of course,” he said, walking for the door. “Let’s do that now, and inform Mariana of events and get you to liaise with our security forces.” He let out a laugh as the voices trailed off. “Mariana’s response should be quite interesting.”

Adolpha closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Well, that complicates matters,” Vega said. “I’d rather hoped our deal would have worked out with us in control of the city’s future.” He looked at the door. “I wonder if their being here is coincidence or if Cecilio asked them to come the second he realized you were here to defend us.”

It completely shattered her strategic plan. Now the best they could hope for was a mutual withdrawal. Carnico wouldn’t be indebted exclusively to the Iron Legion. Their plans for a garrison were smoke. The best case outcome of this was a return to status quo. The worst…

So many people were going to die.

She just had to make sure they were not hers.

“I hate this. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it!” Majina said for what felt like the hundred millionth time as she tightly wrapped up a bundle of dried food and dropped it into the Whiskey Express’s trailer. “We shouldn’t be here. We should have stayed with Scotch Tape and Precious.” And then they would have gotten into wacky hijinks together before a dramatic reveal and an escape by the skin of their teeth only to–

“You’re just mad because you feel like you’re not in the story anymore.” Pythia sat at the mouth of Xarius’s garage, staring at the Riptide. The smoke from the cannon shots had faded, but the gun still pointed ominously at the eastern half of the town.

“Yes!” Majina snapped. What good was a character who didn’t have a story to be in? Even if it was just a little story? “I just want to be useful. I don’t want to be the load or the damsel or–”

Pythia rolled her eyes a little. “Right. Well, life’s not a story, and you’re not a character in a book, so unless you want this story to end ‘And they all starved to death in the middle of nowhere,’ make sure that food is packed good and tight.”

“That’s a horrible ending to a story. There are enough horrible stories. We’re going to win and get everything we want and everyone’s going to be happy and wonderful. The end.” Majina crossed her forehooves and gave a hard nod of certainty, then paused at the sight of Pythia’s flat stare. “What! I just want a happy ending for once.”

“Zencori,” Pythia muttered under her breath. “Well, be glad we were able to buy enough for this trip to Roam.”

“You shouldn’t have robbed Xarius to pay for it,” she huffed as she tied down the bundle in the trailer. She had started to lecture Pythia about stealing things even if they didn’t have nearly enough imperios, seeds, and stuff to barter for it, but Pythia had said that Xarius might be dead anyway and that possession was nine tenths of the law or something. But if Xarius was dead then Scotch might be too! “You’re sure she’s–”

“She’s fine,” Pythia countered sourly. “She’s probably the safest one of all of us. Something is watching over her. She should have died at sea, but she didn’t. She should have died in the swamp, but she didn’t. I’m pretty sure that whatever is happening in Carnico, she’ll walk out one way or another.”

“Of course. If she died, then the story would be over,” Majina muttered.

“Nope. You’d take over, I’m sure,” Pythia said, staring at the ship, her map unrolled before her as she swung her pendant over it.

“You really mean it?” Majina asked. Gosh, did she really have the chops to be a main character? Her mom always told her that she had a great, happy story to tell, but every Zencori mom told her kids that. No one raised their kids saying that they had one or two nameless scenes in their future and–

“Oh, sure. You got ‘protagonist’ written all over you. Making up for your father’s wicked ways. Avenging your mom and brother. Brooding over how you failed Scotch Tape. You’ve got issues. Everyone knows the main character is the one with the most issues,” Pythia said as she watched the light play on the paper.

Could she? Dare she? She’d at least need an eyepatch or a scar or something to do it right. “What about–”

“Nope. You want to play lead role, go for it. I’m supporting cast at best,” Pythia answered.

“What about Precious?” Majina suggested. The look of horror she got made her giggle, and even Pythia cracked a little smile. “Yeah, she’s comic relief, I guess.”

“She’s a pain in the ass,” Pythia muttered as she looked back at her map. “Hopefully she died tragically saving Scotch Tape from getting squished.”

“That’s not a nice thing to say,” Majina said, all mirth gone.

“I’m not a nice person,” Pythia answered. “I’m the spooky, bitchy character no one likes, remember?”

“I think you could be nice.” Majina walked to Pythia and sat beside her.

“And I think you could be packing up the trailer,” Pythia retorted.

“It’s packed,” Majina said, and it was true… mostly. “What are you looking at? What do you see?”

Pythia’s face twisted in annoyance. “Darkness,” she answered. “There’s darkness all over the place. The future’s cut off more and more. That’s why I’m asking the stars for insight. I’m trying to get some clue as to what’s going to happen.” She stared back at Majina and said, “I’m getting spoilers.”

“Actually, I think that’s more like foreshadowing,” she said with a frown.

“No. They’re spoilers. Worse, different stars have different perceptions on what’s to come, so most of the spoilers disagree. They all agree it’s not pretty for us, though,” she said as she regarded the map. “They also agree that Scotch is special. I just wish they would tell me why.”

“You really don’t know?”

“She’s a pony! Every pony I’ve ever known was as spiritually aware as a stone. They just didn’t do it! Then she invoked the spirits right in front of everyone, and they responded! That’s not supposed to happen! I’d sooner expect a griffon or dragon to have that kind of spiritual clout than a pony.” She glowered at the paper. “Either she came in contact with a doozy of a spirit, or something is setting her up.”

“What?” Majina asked in alarm. “Who? How? Why?”

“You should be a reporter,” Pythia muttered. “I don’t know. When I fought her the first time we met, she was… annoyingly cute. Like a kitten. Since we left the Ponylands, though…” Pythia trailed off and shook her head. “But you tell me: how many stories end well when a shaman is the main character?”

Majina gushed, “Oh, there’s lots! There’s–” And then she blinked, thinking. “That one shaman who… no, he was stung to death by bees.” She then brightened. “What about…” Then drooped. “No, no. Any ending where you bury your whole family isn’t ‘ending well’.” She gritted her teeth, digging down through all the stories her mom had told her. “Maybe… no. Bears.” She slumped in defeat. “I guess I need to learn more interesting stories,” she finished lamely.

“That’s because shamans are negotiators. They’re the ones the heroes are supposed to go to for help. I only played a shaman once when Blackjack asked me to find help for her from the stars. And I did. And the terms of that deal were terrifying, but I made it anyway. We can’t ask things for ourselves or do things for ourselves, because once you start that, there’s no end. You’ll promise more and more, offer more and more, take more and more to keep it up because the spirits have no concept of ‘moderation’. Taken long enough and far enough, a shaman acting selfishly breaks the world, like my whole tribe almost did. Most spirits won’t even cut a selfish deal because they know it’ll end with much more than the obligatory ‘eating the shaman alive’ part. That’s why I am not a shaman.”

“You don’t think that’ll happen to Scotch, do you?”

“If she finds some cave to sit in, builds up a nice and comfy relationship with the local spirits, and gets some favors and discipline under her belt, she should be okay. That’s what shamans do if they want to stay safe and sane. But if something is playing her, or using her, like I think–” She cut off, swallowed hard, and shook her head. “Being a puppet of spirits is something I wouldn’t wish on anyone.”

Majina shook her head and then looked at the map. “Are they saying anything about what I could do to help?”

Pythia didn’t answer for almost a minute, swaying the amulet as she did her evil Starkatteri magic stuff that wasn’t evil because she was trying to be a good person so Majina’d have to be patient even if it was hard to keep quiet while worrying about Scotch Tape and wondering what was actually happening and if she was okay or hurt or dead because it would be a completely terrible way for her to end the story so– Wait, Pythia was talking to her? She was, wasn’t she? And here she hadn’t been paying attention when she had asked and now Pythia was just staring at her like she was stupid and she wasn’t and she was trying so hard to not be a burden and–

Pythia grabbed her face. “You need to find us a map,” she said, stressing each word individually.

“Oh, yeah. Sure! I can do that,” she said brightly, then frowned. “Wait. You’re not afraid something will happen to me? Did you see it, or do you really think I’ll be okay?” She gasped and grabbed the cloaked filly. “Don’t tell me you see me getting rescued! Please! I swear I won’t fall into the clutches of the enemy!” Pythia’s glare could have dissolved steel, and she rapidly let her go. “I’ll go find that map now.”

She started away and then spun to look at Pythia. “You’re not coming with me?”

“Nope. I’ll wait here for Gun-shy and Scalebutt, doing seery things. You go have fun. We’ll come and get you on our way out,” she said as she resumed staring at her map.

Majina nodded and rushed out of the shop. She had a mission! She had a plot! She had relevance! Now all she had to do was find a map. A map… map map map… map of something? Map of Roam? Map of the Empire? Road map? Train map? Star map, no, she had one of those. How did it work? Did it show the routes to the–

“Watch it!” a zebra snapped as she collided with him. A zebra in combat armor. With a gun and an iron cross branded on his brow. Scowling at her because she’d nearly walked right into him. Because he was standing next to a small barricade of sandbags and metal plates and a really big machine gun. She didn’t want to be here anymore with grim-faced zebras and the threat of war and killing and death and the crack of momma’s neck as it broke and the crack and the crack and the crack and the–

She managed to walk past the barricade, onto the bridge, before she broke. “Stop it!” she shouted, sitting down hard, grinding her hooves into her temples hard enough to make her eyes water. “Just stop!” But it didn’t stop. She could hear it as if it were happening right in front of her. She clenched her eyes shut and thought to Gāng’s teachings. He wouldn’t be crying and hitting himself. She sat out of the way and just breathed. In and out. Calm. Bit by bit, the crack faded away.

When she couldn’t hear it, she opened her eyes. “Okay, brain. Pythia says we need a map, and I’m going to find it. So stop thinking about that, okay? Think about what an awesome story this will be when we get back. So think about where we– that’s it!” She didn’t know where to get a map, but Galen would!

In spite of everything, the bridge connecting the two halves of the city was still packed, but the mood was subdued. No orgies this morning. The zebras clustered together, talking in low voices and staring to the east, at the warship to the north, or at the Bloods to the west. They ate because it was something to do. Some attempted fitful bursts of music or song to break through the mood, but it always withered in the air. Some slept curled up side by side while others offered prayers to the spirits to protect them. Definitely not the night before, with the wild celebration. Oddly, not a single legionnaire could be seen among the locals on the bridge.

When she reached the west shore, the Blood Legion were out in abundance. They stood around in groups of a dozen, laughing, shouting insults across the river, wrestling and sparring in groups that placed bets on the winner. There was none of the professionalism or grim discipline she saw on the other side. Yet they were letting people come and go without too much harassment. Some leered and jeered at the fearful zebras trying to get to the safety of the bridge, but others–

“Hey, you! Young mare!” snapped a mare in blood red armor as Majina started across for Galen’s clinic. The scarred zebra walked right in her path, the teardrop brand on her face like a third eye. “You look like you might be good enough for the Blood. Maybe. We all carry the same blood in our veins. You could be one of us, if you’re strong enough.”

Majina stared up at her. “If we all carry the same blood, then why are you so happy to spill it?” she asked, echoing one of Gāng’s proverbs. Her question wiped the grin off the mare’s face and gave Majina the chance to get past her. She’d go to Galen and get a map and–

“I don’t care what he says, it’s further than two hundred kilometers,” a stallion in pointier red armor snapped to a subordinate as they walked past her towards where the steam tractors were parked. “Check the map again!”

The map!

Of course! She shouldn’t be after some boring old map. Pythia and the stars wouldn’t have sent her for something so mundane as that! No, she needed to get the enemy’s map, which probably had all kinds of special secrets and stuff. She’d sneak after the pair and get it. No, she’d disguise herself as Blood Legion! No, even better! She’d get some black pajamas and a hood and take down all of the Blood guarding the map with Mr. Sleepytime! That’d show Pythia and Precious and everypony that she wasn’t the damsel in distress anymore!

Okay, she lacked a Blood Legion uniform or black pajamas, so she’d have to make do with Plan A. Majina glanced around to make sure no Blood Legion watched her and crept after the pair, darting under the steam tractors… no, not steam tractors. These were just gutted chassis sitting out in the open, many with holes corroded right the way through their boilers. Some zebra had painted ‘Don’t stand here’ on one of them. The pair walked to a doorway of an old hotel obscured by the tractors, where four guards stood watch. The map had to be in there, right?

Still, how to get in? Could she tag one with Mr. Sleepytime, run, sneak back when they gave up looking for her, and then pick them off one by one? That’d work, right? Mmm, maybe not. She examined the building. Stone, and when she went around behind it, there were even more Blood Legion lounging about by the back entrance. Then she spotted a ledge running along the outside of the building. There! An open window! It was narrow, and the gap between the end of the nearest steam tractor husk and the edge was a pretty far jump, but if she could make it… if she could…

She waited till the legionnaires’ attention was off the tractors and clambered up atop it. She’d have to take it at a run. Nothing to do about the noise, she’d need a run to clear the space! Gāng had taught her more than just how to fall. ‘There is a moment for fear, for decision, but afterwards there is only action.’ She took a deep breath, raced towards the end of the tractor where it was closest to the ledge, and jumped. Her hooves scrambled on the narrow ledge, and she barked her shoulder and cheek against the stone facade, but she’d made it! Someone below made a comment about a noise, and she walked as fast as she could to the open window, hopping in and moving behind thick maroon curtains.

This bedroom was empty. Fine red armor barding, edges outlined in gold, stood on stands awaiting its owner. Somewhat conspicuous as a disguise, and it wouldn’t fit anyway. She found a heavy, single-edged sword with a gold filigree mouthgrip. On the desk were some papers folded carefully into stacks, and Majina trotted over and looked at the one on top.

‘We shall kill them, my general! Kill them! Kill them all! Raise pyramids of skulls and wash the walls in their blood! Impale their corpses upon your spears and choke the river with their bodies! Let all think of the city as Blood River and let all who stand upon its shores weep for the fate of the people within! Let their spirits howl in despair at the bloody agony we will wreak! Your humble servant of slaughter, Haimon.’ Scribbled at the bottom was a crude answer. ‘Good. Kill many!’ Majina nearly gagged but then read the next.

‘To all captains: Moderation is key. Our strength is evident in our restraint. The chaff of Rice River is beyond salvation, but there is still wheat worth harvesting. No rape or slaughter of the citizens is to be permitted on penalty of flaying. Reward and commendation to those who demonstrate our strength and resolve and the superiority of our blood. Be a shining example, and be ready, for when this is completed, we shall move to wipe the remains of our opposition away. This city will be ours, and those wretches back at the Slaughterhouse will curse themselves that they were not here. Your major, Haimon.’ Underneath, a reply: ‘Discipline holds. We’ve rotated grumblers out back. Morale is high.’

Majina checked the first again, then the second. What game was he playing? She set them aside. The next few all shared that same duality. Some were nearly incoherent rants, and one had a bite taken out of the paper. The others were calm, rational, and urged restraint and service as an example of strength. Orders for punishment seemed to focus on either horrible execution or re-education and training.

One that baffled her: ‘Oh Bloody Haimon. It’s so cute what you’re trying to do. You’ll fail, but it’s still cute. Anyway, I brought the hostage. I wish I could be there when you force that little green annoyance to surrender. It would almost be worth the pain to be there in person. She’s as close to a friend as we could find, but I’m fairly sure she’ll trade herself for her. Spirits only know why. It was all I could do not to cut out her tongue during interrogation. She should be doped up enough to be manageable, though. Whatever you do, don’t remove her muzzle.

‘Do give “The Pony” all my love when you gut her like a fish. Ignore anyone who tells you not to. Trust me. Kill her ASAP.’ Scribbled at the bottom was a doodle of a boat and a pony being lowered on a rope into propeller blades.

Then she read the last. ‘Dearest Haimon, I know you she vexes you. I urge you patience. I know all that you have sacrificed for this. It is a sacrifice, I fear, that she can never understand. She lives in a world of facts and numbers, all calculated to place her on top. You are a stallion who has loved and given up all that you love for a cause few can believe in. When Rice River is secured, you’ll be in place to assume rightful and righteous command of a new legion. One that can execute the will of the Caesar as they were meant to. When the surplus population of Rice River is removed, you will be in a position to force her to release all their research on removing the razorgrass. You will break their horrible monopoly and set right the many wrongs in that place. Do not repeat the mistakes of Red Eye. You must be firm, but you must also be fair.

Also, a reminder. The Pony is in Rice River. When her friend's alicorns arrive, you must kill them all, and quickly, to draw the Pony out. Hopefully our assets in Carnico do not fail, but if they do, she must be killed. Eliminate her, and the single greatest threat to our goals is removed as well. The Captain is coming to assist you with the Iron Legion. Her infiltration of Carnico begins with Bacchanalia. Manage Desideria. Her pettiness nearly set back all our goals. Eliminate her only as a last resort, but remember that she is expendable.

With deepest respect and admiration, the Shaman.’

Majina looked at the stack of papers and decided that one missing wouldn’t be a bad thing. Besides, the Blood Legion were bad guys, so it was okay to take it without asking. She folded it up and slipped it into her saddlebag. There had to be some people interested in reading this! She’d started for the door when hoofsteps approached down the hall. Could she make it out– under the bed! She dove, sliding on her belly into the gap under one of the two just as a stallion walked in carrying a metal bucket and a large rolled-up paper. Majina watched him as closely as she dared as he tossed the paper onto the desk.

“What’s the point of being a major if you have to get your own bucket?” he asked with a little chuckle as he pulled back the curtains and set the bucket before the open window. Then he scooped up the papers and dumped a few into the container, and there was a click of a lighter and the smell of smoke. Fanning the papers with one of the letters, he burned them all carefully, the smoke being drawn out the open window. Once the fire was burning well, he tossed his fan in as well.

As they burned, she took him in. He wore plain city clothes, just a white collared shirt with the only decoration being a teardrop-shaped pendant. His broad, bold, horizontal stripes were Roamani, but there was a look in his red eyes of profound weariness. As the fire burned, he sat on the bed opposite Majina’s, manipulated the back of the pendant, and clicked it open. He gazed into it, lips curling ever so slightly as a tear ran down his cheek. He snapped it closed, raised it to his lips, and kissed the lid once before tucking it into his shirt and feeding the last of the papers to the flame. Then he rose, walked to the basin on the dresser, took the pitcher, and returned to douse the ashes.

There was a knock, and the tear was almost reflexively wiped away. “Enter,” he said, taking a deep breath.

A Blood Legion zebra stepped in, wearing all his spiky apparel. “Sir. We’ve got reports on the Iron Legion’s artillery. It’s on its way.”

“We should have paid the Golds more. I should demand my money back,” he said with a sigh, looking into the bucket. “Pity I burned the receipt. Ah well. Documents are like fresh fish. They stink if left too long and should be cooked as soon as possible.”

“Yes sir, though I don’t think General Sanguinus can read,” the legionnaire said with a nod and grin.

Haimon didn’t share that expression. “Never underestimate Sanguinus. I did. I got lucky. And you should billet that talk, even here. Not unless you want the entire Slaughterhouse coming after us.”

The grin disappeared immediately as Haimon went on, “The general is not stupid, he is simple. He sees things in black and white, bad and good, and kills by default. If he realizes what we are doing here, we may as well flee to the Ponylands or slit our own throats.”

“Yes, sir,” the soldier said with a salute. “Also, Desideria demands an audience with you, again.”

“Third one today. Probably over that idiotic cannon firing.” He groaned and rose. “I don’t know what that idiot was thinking. It nearly threw everything off.” He sighed, shed the white shirt, and pulled on the fancy armor with the legionnaire’s assistance. Once he was garbed in the spiked red armor, he pulled open a drawer, took out one of the maroon vials, popped the cap, and drizzled blood in his mane, then smeared it about. A few flecks on the face, and he tossed it in the bucket too. He examined his gore-speckled features in the mirror, and then suddenly his face split in a wide grin, pupils contracting. He repeated wild expressions one after the next, then sighed. “I can’t wait till we can drop this facade and silence her whining and complaining forever.”

“Yes, sir,” the soldier repeated, then steeled himself. Haimon smashed his hoof into the soldier’s face, sending blood trickling down it. “Ow, sir,” he muttered, one eye already swelling shut.

Haimon gave him a smile, then shouted at the top of his lungs. “What! How dare you interrupt my morning raping! You better make sure I have a foal to eat tonight, or it’ll be your ass!” He adopted a murderous glare and stomped almost comically out of the room with the injured legionnaire following him.

Majina crawled out and was rushing to the window when she spotted the rolled up paper still on the desk. Could she get lucky twice? She hurried to the desk and carefully unrolled it. It was actually a large, flat book. On the front was a bold title: ‘Atlas of Zebrinica’. She flipped it open and was met with the sight of great swaths of the country decorated and marked with all sorts of notes in pencil. ‘Coal’, ‘Oil’, ‘Medicine’, ‘Ammunition’, ‘Explosives’, ‘Minefield’, ‘Megaspell’, and countless others simply marked ‘Hazard’.

The map! The map of maps, and she’d found it! “Maybe I do have what it takes to be a protagonist,” she said in glee, giving a little victory dance– and kicking the bucket with her hindhoof. It clattered loudly, banging against the wall under the window.

Then footsteps hammered down the hall, and Majina pressed back against the wall as the door opened and another soldier stepped in. He immediately walked to the window, looked out, and then closed it. He pressed in a latch near the top and one at the bottom, then checked under one bed. Then under the other.

For his trouble he got a Sleepytime dart in the neck. His eyes widened in shock, then drooped, and he wobbled and fell over with a loud snore. Majina rushed over him and pulled the bottom latch, but no matter how she strained and stretched, the top latch remained out of reach. Worse, everyone outside could see her reaching for it! She hopped down and shoved the soldier under the bed, pushing him in as far as she could with her hindhooves before she jumped up and slipped out of the room. She crept along the balcony outside that overlooked a foyer filled with dozens of Blood Legion. She reached a door with raised voices on the other side, hoping she could find some way out with her treasures and her head.

“I brought you here to act! Why haven’t you acted yet? I want you to march across that bridge, kill the Iron Legion, and burn Carnico to the ground! Why is that so hard for you to understand?” Desideria screeched as Majina passed by.

Majina feared there were more soldiers on this floor, so she ascended to the third and away from the shouting. This floor sounded mostly empty, but there was one guard outside a door. Majina took careful aim and darted her as well. The mare swayed and fell over, and Majina barely suppressed her glee. Locked door. Locked door. Locked door. She checked the guard and extracted a key. “Let’s see what’s so valuable in here, shall we?” Majina said as she unlocked the door and opened it.

A second guard inside the room sat in a chair next to the single bed and lifted his head at the sound of the door opening. His face twisted in confusion, but not enough confusion to prevent him from blocking her dart with a pillow from the chair.

He inhaled deeply, and Majina raced at him, slamming both hooves into his shielding pillow and mashing it against his face. He shoved it out of the way only to receive a sharp whack of bamboo upside his head. “Hey! What! Ow! Stop it!” He managed to get both hooves around the bamboo and jerked it from her, hugging it to his chest. “Haha!” the guard laughed triumphantly.

Then he got whacked across the face with the rolled up atlas.

Eyes bulging, the guard swung wildly with the bamboo, his much deadlier sword lying forgotten on his belt as he struck, blocked, and parried her attacks with aplomb. “Haha! You’re mine!” he shouted, the end of the bamboo clutched in his hooves as he brought it down in an overhead blow that knocked her rolled up map away. “Too slow, kid!”

Majina slipped a dart into the end of the tube and shot it right into his face. She earned a momentarily baffled look, the dart sticking out of the blood drop on his brow, before his eyes rolled back and he collapsed into the chair. She gathered up Mr. Sleepytime and the map, then paused. “Oh, shoot! I really should have said something there, shouldn’t I?” She rubbed her chin at the guard. “Um… how about ‘Too dumb, guard’? or ‘Don’t call me kid’? Ugh…” She slumped. “I need some one liners ready.”

Things were getting noisy downstairs. Still, she was curious. Why two guards? The only other thing in the room was a sheet-covered lump on the bed. She paused, took a deep breath, and gripped the cloth, ready to give a gasp of shock no matter what! She yanked… pulled… grrr! What jerk had tied these stupid knots?

Because whoever the foal-sized person bundled up on the bed was deserved a gasp… though Majina wasn’t sure they’d have appreciate it. The small bound form responded to the tugging by just slurring something under their breath. Majina swallowed, knowing there was no way she could just leave them for the Bloods. But how could she get them out if she couldn’t get herself out? There were Blood Legion all over the lobby, and eventually someone would come up here. She didn’t dare try an elevator. She frowned, then blinked. This was a hotel. Hotels meant laundry. Laundry meant…

She rushed out into the hall and walked to a room marked ‘Housekeeping’. She tried the door, and to her relief it opened up. The inside was empty save for shelves full of supplies, a cart, and, in the back, a laundry chute. She checked the size… pretty big. It would have to be to handle wads of dirty bedding. She rushed to the room and heaved the bundled person onto her back. She carried them to the chute, then tied the ends of some clean sheets from the shelves together into a rope and lowered them down. This was perfect! Soon as they were down, Majina would tie the rope to the shelves and follow them. There had to be some way out down there, right? A delivery hatch or something?

Too bad Gāng hadn’t had her practicing knot tying as well.

With a shoomp, the bundle shot down the chute, disappearing with a soft ‘fumph’ that reverberated up the metal walls of the shaft. “Ow,” Majina muttered. “I hope they’re not mad.” Then she heard hooves on the stairs coming up, pulled off her saddlebags and Mr. Sleepytime, and let them drop. She thought she heard a loud groan far below before closing the lid to the laundry chute. She parked the cart in front of the hatch as zebras in the hall shouted and started kicking open doors. Majina grabbed a spray bottle as the door was kicked open.

“Ah. Housekeeping?” she asked with a shaky smile. “You need your room cleaned up?”

The pair of soldiers at the door looked at each other in bafflement. There was no way this was going to work, right? She smirked. Prince Hamapapan had nothing on the wily ways of Majina, the happy story! She grinned from ear to ear in complete confidence.

“Come here!” the pair shouted in unison. Majina shrieked, spraying one in the eyes with cleaner and sending him crashing blindly into a shelving unit as he tried to rub the irritating liquid away. Majina darted underneath the other and out into the hall. The zebra lunged, grabbing one of her hindlegs with a painful twist and dragging her back, but she kicked with the other hindleg once, twice, thrice! She got free and limped away as fast as she could.

“Sorry, all out of mints!” she called as she raced down the stairs, the legionnaire in close pursuit. She just had to lead them away. “Please contact management if you have a complaint!” she yelled, darting between two Bloods coming up the stairs. “Housekeeping! Toilet emergency! Coming through!” Her injured leg slipped out from under her, and she tumbled down the rest of the fights.

At least she knew how to fall right! She pulled in her limbs and shielded her head until she landed at the bottom of the flight. Pushing herself up, ignoring her aching back and sides, she grinned at the pair. “Overflowing toilet! Got to run!” She hurried down to the second floor. She was going to make it. She was actually going to make it. There was the foyer, and none of the Blood Legion seemed to realize what was going on. There was the front counter, unoccupied, and she guessed that there had to be some way down from there. It was all coming up perfect! Okay, there were some Blood chasing her, but what story didn’t benefit from a good chase! She reached the bottom of the stairs.

And left the ground. A paw as big as her head reached down, grabbed her shoulders, and lifted her right off her hooves as neatly as plucking a rice bun off a plate. The hand belonged to an equally huge and disturbingly familiar canine. “Don’t run on stairs,” the hound said as he lifted her and gave her a little shake. “Could fall and break something.”

“Yes, sir. Absolutely, sir! I promise I won’t–”

“What have you got there?” a male rumbled, and the centaur rose from the sitting area next to the stairs. One arm was a disturbing purple and seemed to move in a way contrary to normal muscle anatomy. The gargoyle perched in a loveseat, reading a mare’s magazine intently.

“Housekeeping!” Majina squeaked, covering her face in terror.

From up the stairs, the major’s voice rang out, “I don’t care! She’s got magic. She could have blinked out of here for all we know! That’s why she was supposed to be drugged!”

“Oi! Major!” the centaur said with a grin, reaching out with that horrible purple arm. It unwove into a dozen wormlike tentacles that curled around her like thick rubber, pulling her from the hound’s grasp. Haimon came around the corner, murder on his face as he glared at the centaur.

“What do you want, Krogax?” he asked. “I’m in no mood for–” He looked at Majina flatly. “Who’s that?”

“Housekeeping?” she offered weakly.

“She’s one of Scotch Tape’s little friends,” Krogax said as he waved the filly at him. “I’ve been wanting to get my hands on her all year, but she’s been a student of that Achu.”

Haimon’s wrath was replaced by satisfaction. “Well now. This saves me a whole bunch of trouble. Looks like the hostage plan is back on the table.”

Okay. So maybe Majina wasn’t quite at Prince Hamapapan level yet…

Pythia watched Majina leave with a sigh, staring into futures where Majina returned with a map, with reports of failure, or as a prisoner, but she didn’t see any that were grotesquely horrific. Not that that was much of a relief. With all the futures she could see, there were still those she couldn’t. A hundred bad futures she knew about weren’t nearly as worrying as one she didn’t. Shadows and fog constantly obscured the future, and being a seer was to try and steer things to a nice, safe future.

Pythia sat in the doorway of Xarius’s shop, staring at the ship in the river. Every future regarding it was a formless inky haze. What would it do? When would it fire again? Something was obscuring her sight, and the list of things that could do that was as short as it was terrifying. Fear and her were old friends, and no matter how she might wish to pretend otherwise, fear was the gnawing in the pit of her stomach that somehow everything would go horribly bad.

Like Majina’s face being bitten off if she stayed here.

The change was so subtle at first; most would have missed the spike in humidity and the tang of salt in the air. The sound of dripping water in the depths of the shop. The trickle falling from somewhere high above that one might assume was from a leaky pipe. But as she stared at the map before her, she watched one of the pinpricks of light, refracted through her dangling pendant, sudden swing sideways, towards the mouth of the constellation Draco. Danger.

“You sent your friend away,” came the filly’s voice from behind her. Pythia immediately folded up the map, staying cool as her chest hammered. She glanced behind her at the waterlogged filly standing in a puddle in the middle of the shop, briny water sheeting off her. The little filly pouted. “I was hungry.”

“Sorry,” Pythia said as she put the map in a pocket of her cloak and the purple pendant around her neck. “She had to go run an errand.”

“Liar,” the filly muttered as her dead black eyes gazed around the shop. “You’re not sorry.”

“True,” Pythia said with a smile, struggling not to be distracted by too many futures right now. She needed every ounce of attention on the waterlogged filly. “I never am.”

The sodden zebra took low, slow steps around the shop. There was a loud, metallic ping, and a hemisphere disappeared out of a metal workbench next to her. She continued walking, chewing slowly as she moved in a lazy circle around Pythia. “You’re a shaman, aren’t you?” Pythia asked.

“So are you,” she answered.

“Not anymore,” Pythia corrected. “I’m a seer now.”

“But you’re still one,” she said as she passed by a dangling block and chain holding a boiler. Another ping, and the boiler was sent rocking back and forth, a circle missing from its side. She chewed thoughtfully, then swallowed. “You never stop being one. Never stop hearing them. Feeling them.” Another ping, half the boiler now gone as she masticated idly. “Do they whisper in your ears? Do they nibble your spine? Crawl inside your skin?”

“I’m not a shaman,” Pythia repeated firmly, not taking her eyes off the disturbing filly, certain that if she did all the futures of her spurting blood from the stump of her neck would come true. The filly didn’t reply. She just stared at the Whiskey Express, trailer loaded with supplies. “What can I call you?” Pythia asked.

“Niuhi,” she said simply, giving her name. Pythia swallowed. Either she was an idiot, reckless, or certain she had nothing to fear. Niuhi eyed the Whiskey Express’s trailer. “I’m hungry.”

“What do you want?” Pythia said, taking a step towards the drenched filly.

Faster than Pythia could blink, the filly was before her, face inches from Pythia’s as her dead black eyes stared into hers. “I’m hungry.” So many futures and all of them ending with her bloody and screaming. Even if she saw it coming, she couldn’t move fast enough to avoid it.

Pythia swallowed, shoving her fear into lockers of scorn and bravado. “Why are you here?”

“Mother wants to know how you invoked the spirits but made it look like that pony did. She’s sure someone must have been doing it while that pony was on the stage,” she said, pulling back a few inches but doing nothing to put Pythia at ease. The number of futures where she left this room with her body intact was dropping one by one before her eyes.

Still, it was an idea. “Another shaman couldn’t have done that. When you invoke the spirits, you invoke them. You know that. Even if I were still a shaman, the spirits wouldn’t have listened to me. Or if they had, no one would have missed it.”

“But she’s a pony!” the filly snarled suddenly, her frustration breaking the mask of dead apathy. “She can’t do that! Ponies can’t! We speak to the spirits. Ponies do magic. That’s the difference!”

“Trust me,” Pythia replied, “it’s been driving me crazy, too.” She picked her words carefully. “There’s no doubt she’s spiritually sensitive, but she might not be a shaman. It might have just been the place and time.”

Niuhi sat down in her puddle of salt water. “What do you mean?” she asked, reaching out and giving the remainder of the dangling boiler a delicate shove, setting it swinging in little arcs. Another ping, another bite gone, and slow chewing as she stared at Pythia.

“The Bacchanalia’s supposed to be held now, right? Spirits appreciate patterns. Everyone was looking forward to it, and the spirits were probably anticipating it too. It’s held on that bridge every time, so it’s familiar to the spirits. Anyone with just a little bit of spiritual attunement might have set it off. It just happened to be Scotch.” She rubbed her chin. “Probably explains how Princess Celestia did it centuries ago, too. Not a lot of spiritual clout, just being in the right place and time and being daring enough to try it.”

Niuhi let out a grunt, pouting. “The spirits at the party thing is ruining everything. There weren’t supposed to be any spirits. That fat, juicy mare was supposed to ruin it and not invoke them, but they got invoked anyway. Now there’re all these spirits, and no one knows what’s going to happen when everyone dies.”

“You could just go. Wash your hooves of this,” Pythia suggested.

“That’s what I want Mommy to do!” she whined. “Why do we have to stay here where there’s so much dirt and everything’s dry? Mommy can’t walk on land anyway, so it’s dumb. But we have to because she says so.” She slumped, long, bedraggled hair swaying as water dribbled down upon her from the ceiling high above. “We need the spirits to go away. Can you make them go away?”

“I didn’t invoke them. I can’t revoke them. Can’t you?” she asked.

“Maybe. I can try and eat them,” Niuhi said, still slumped. “I’m hungry,” she whined softly.

“You’ll get censured,” Pythia answered. She couldn’t imagine the severity of the censure for such an infraction. Death would be preferable.

“I’ll eat that too,” she said as she held her stomach. “I’m not afraid of censure.”

And this was the dark, terrifying side of being a shaman. Of making the wrong deals. Of meddling in the wrong spirits’ affairs for the wrong reasons. Most shamans picked a nice, quiet place and lived the rest of their lives in seclusion. Whatever had happened to Niuhi, whether it was her fault or her mother’s, there was no denying the effects. A final ping, and the rest of the twenty gallon boiler disappeared. Then the chain. Then the stand as bite after bite was taken.

“I’m hungry,” she muttered plaintively.

“I can’t help you,” Pythia muttered. “I’m sorry.”

“You told the truth, that time,” the filly said as she rose to her hooves. “I should eat you now. You’re the pony’s friend. Mommy would want me to eat you.” Her dead eyes focused on Pythia, and the seer’s futures all filled with gnashing teeth.

“Except that I’m the only person who might get Scotch to revoke the spirits,” Pythia answered at once. “If she can at all.”

Niuhi trembled. “You have to. If they’re not revoked… the party can’t go on forever! It’ll blow up. Or go bad. Or go strange.” She shook her head hard. “Please.”

Funny, the enemy begging her for help. She’d laugh if she didn’t know for certain that it would literally get her head bitten off. That future was very clear. “I’ll try my best, but things tend to go wrong where ponies are concerned.”

Niuhi gave a sobbing guffaw that made Pythia’s hide crawl. “Everything’s been wrong since she came here. It was bad when she was just in the Ponylands, but the more she’s moved around, the worse things have gotten. I don’t even know why all of you came.”

Pythia frowned. She saw a plethora of futures where she plead ignorance or lied; most of them had rather horrid and short ends. The truth was a shadowy curtain made of smoke that she couldn’t see beyond. “I read a letter that ordered the Eye of the World be blinded.”

“The Eye? Of the World? Blinded,” Niuhi said slowly, as if trying to fit every word together. It was all Pythia could do to stay patient. “But the world can’t be blinded. It’s impossible,” she said as she furrowed her brows together.

So whatever was driving Riptide wasn’t related to the Eye. “As impossible as a pony invoking the spirits? As impossible as a pony who’s doing everything to mess up your plans purely by accident?” For the briefest moment, Niuhi’s eyes were more than flat, disinterested planes. A rusty sort of thoughtfulness chewed over Pythia’s words. “Scotch didn’t invoke the spirits to cross you. She just did it. Everywhere she goes she seems to set off one problem after another.”

“Mommy wouldn’t have shot at the Abalone if she hadn’t been on it. That started the mess with my tribe,” Niuhi muttered. “I should just eat her.”

“She’s cursed, Niuhi. I’ve only met one other person as cursed as she was, and she nearly blew up the world before she was done. I honestly don’t know if eating her would change anything,” Pythia warned. “It could make things worse.”

“She’s caused Mommy nothing but trouble and misery. Do you know how embarrassing it was for one pony filly to get away? The crew laughed about it when they didn’t think I was ready to eat them. She yelled about it for weeks,” she said, rubbing her face. “She was so mad I couldn’t find her in this city. So mad when she started moving again! And as soon as she did, the spirits were called here, and now things at the factory aren’t working right and there’s Iron Legion here and there shouldn’t be and it’s just all wrong. And it’s all her fault!”

Not all her fault; Pythia had suggested the Iron Legion to Vega… but she’d only done so because Scotch had insisted they stay for a year. So… point, crazy filly. And the more she thought about it, the more unnerved she felt. She’d been the reason Scotch had come to the zebra lands, right?

The single greatest threat to a shaman was being used by either people they trusted or by the spirits they had access to. Niuhi was a prime example. Pythia had seen what happened, and would happen, to a pony who had inexplicably gained the attention of powerful spirits. Now, was she seeing it repeat, and if so, what would stop her from meeting a similar end to that of Blackjack’s closest friends? Pythia’s eyes shifted to the Whiskey Express, contemplative and examining her future.

“I’m just going to wait here for her to show up,” Niuhi said as she reached over to a piece of pipe, which began to disappear inch by inch. “Then she’ll fix it, and then I’ll eat her.” She nodded once and added, “And you’re going to stay put, or I’m going to eat your legs till you do.” Another inch of pipe disappeared. “I’m so hungry,” she growled.

The number of futures where she was missing body parts started multiplying exponentially.

I’ve had a building dropped on me, was the first coherent thought that made it through the ‘huh’s, ‘ow’s, ‘ugh’s, and ‘ngggh’s that swarmed around in a daze within her head. She was still sitting wedged into the corner, but there was a firm slab behind her as well as a mound of hoof-sized rubble up to her waist. She coughed and hacked, spitting out grit. “Is anyone else alive?” she said, even if it sounded more like “Issanweoonesaliv?”

No answer. She carefully lifted her PipBuck, shook off the dust to see the stark display, and activated the light. Once her eyes adjusted to the sting of the bright screen, she found herself in a tiny pocket comprised of the two walls and a huge piece of another wall wedged in diagonally. A meter in any direction and she’d have been jelly. She kicked the scree and was relieved to see the debris clattering out through a gap towards the base of the pocket. Coughing and kicking, she pushed her way slowly into the void that had been the stairwell. Most of the stairs were shelves of rubble, and worse, no bars appeared on her E.F.S. Dust still swirled in the air, and she coughed and retched as she tried to pick out a path down through the hazy murk. Thankfully, she was able to slide down rather than having to climb up, and she carefully slipped and stumbled her way towards the bottom.

Her eyes burned and watered, her ears ached and thrummed, and she couldn’t seem to draw a deep breath without a hacking cough that just stirred up more dust. “Hello?” she croaked, her words sounding drowned to her damaged ears. She just wanted to lie down and rest. The dust was pretty soft. Everyone else was probably mashed to bits beneath those hunks of concrete. No more pain.

A dry chuckle whispered through the back of her mind.

No! She had to get out of here. Struggling to see with her watery eyes in the gloom, she spotted intact stairs leading below the ground floor. There were steps in the dust! She followed, swaying a little on abused hooves as she followed the dust downstairs to a metal door that had been ripped from its hinges. No light but her lamp, but that was enough to see the trail left by the others. She hurried to– she fell on her face, coughing and retching, then sat back up, clutching her chest. Why was it so hard to breathe?

Picking herself up, she followed, staggering along the dust trail left by the others. Her head throbbed with every step, and the side of her face was a sticky mat of crusty mud. She came across dead security guards, killed with a sword. Of course Vicious would survive. Big hoofsteps could be Gordo, and those drag marks… Tchernobog’s cloak maybe? Talon footsteps. Skylord. What about Doctor Z?

The tunnels led quite a ways, the dust thinning out more and more. Then, steps up. Voices, distant and muffled, but familiar? She stepped through a door into a hallway of stained yellow linoleum and white walls with more faded posters about safety. She walked towards the sound of the voices, fighting to breathe.

“–your fault! If you’d have gotten her out of here right away–”

“Xara! Please! We have to go back for her!”

“She’s dead!”

“She may not be. The spirits–”

“To hell with stupid zebra spirits! If he’d just–”

“Don’t blame me! She’s the one with the magic! She should have–”

“You have any idea how much magic I’ve done tonight? I’m glad to have any left at all! I sure couldn’t lift–”

“The Lightbringer could manage a boxcar! You can’t even manage that!”

“Shut it about that stupid pony!”

“We need to go back for Xara! I can’t lose her again! Not again!”

“Xara’s dead. Scotch is dead! They’re both dead, you idiot.”

“Don’t call him an idiot!”

“I’ll call anyone I like an idiot! I failed in my fucking mission. Again!”

Scotch walked to the door of a lab, looking in at everyone arguing. Vicious and Skylord were both filthy and covered in dust while Gordo washed in the shower and Tchernobog rubbed himself dry. Precious and Xarius stood with the others. A dozen empty healing potion bottles lay on one of the black lab tables. Fingers and hooves were being pointed. Tears were on many cheeks as everyone talked louder and louder. A trio of zebras in lab coats clustered together, watching a display with nervous wariness.

Scotch coughed.

Of course, they didn’t notice. “Who cares about your mission, you turkey?” Precious snarled.

“I do, you dumb lizard!” Skylord countered.

“Um,” Scotch croaked.

“Turkey!”

“Lizard!”

“Lunchmeat!”

“Handbag!”

“Shut up!” Tchernobog rumbled, then pointed straight at Scotch. “Look!”

Every eye stared at her. “Um… hi,” she muttered.

The animosity dissipated as they washed her off and struggled to find another healing potion or two. Her body was one big collection of contusions and lacerations, the worst being a prominent gash on the side of her head. Vicious persuaded the scientists to whip up a fresh batch of healing draught and made sure that Scotch drank the whole thing. While it helped her eyes, ears, pounding headache, and aching body, it did nothing for her cough and difficulty breathing.

“What’s wrong with her, doctor!?” Precious demanded of the trio. “Why isn’t the potion helping her breathe?”

“I’m not a medical doctor,” a stallion said sharply. “I’m a research chemist.”

“Same thing! Now what’s wrong with her? Why are her lips blue?” the dragonfilly asked with a growl.

“If I had to guess, severe dust inhalation. She was in there longer than the rest of you. She probably inhaled more, and it passed deeper into her chest. The powdered concrete would be bad enough, and who knows what else was in that stuff? Asbestos? Fiberglass? She was breathing it for an hour or two at least.” He nudged one of the empty purple healing potions. “Her lungs aren’t damaged. They’re full of garbage that will take its time to work its way out. If it works its way out.”

“And if she dies in the meantime?” Xarius demanded.

“Then her problems become academic,” the scientist said with a sniff.

“And so does your life! Help her!” Vicious demanded.

“No killing them!” Scotch demanded, coughing and retching but unable to bring anything up. “I’m fine. Just need to catch my breath.”

“Now that we’re regrouped, we need to get out of here,” Skylord said. “I need to check in with the colonel. Tell her I completed my assignment and get a new one ASAP.”

“Pussy,” Precious growled.

“Only half,” he countered.

“Chicken,” she snarled.

“The other half,” he said, unruffled. “No offense, but this pony brings way too much heat down on herself. I’d need a full squad to guard her effectively. Maybe a company, just to be sure.”

Xarius did the most helpful thing in bringing her water to drink; it also seemed to help her spit the crud out into the sink. “You’re fine, Xara. You’re just fine. Don’t scare Daddy like that again,” the ghoul rasped. “I can’t lose you again.”

“I’m gonna go get some snacks,” Gordo muttered. At their looks, he protested, “What? She looks hungry.”

“Fine, I’m coming with you,” Vicious muttered. “Don’t want you running off.”

“Break room is on the corner,” one of the scientists called as the pair departed. “Okay, that’s one crazy gone. Can I go for two?” he asked, staring at Precious.

“I’m not crazy. I just wanted you to tell me what I am,” Precious countered, eyes narrowed as her spines folded back a bit. “Not a hard question.”

“You’re some abomination of pony magic meddling, and since you can’t teach us how to do it, there’s really not that much to say,” the doctor replied.

“But how was I made? Who was I made from? Sanguine said I was just some lab sample. A freak experiment!” she said, her face screwing up in anguish. “Am I going to live as long as a dragon, or a pony? Can I have kids and junk?”

“All wonderful questions that would require months of trial and experimentation and are not just things I can answer at a glance!” the doctor said.

Scotch’s breathing was easing a little. All the healing potions had helped, but she couldn’t shake the feeling of a lump in her chest. She tuned out the pair arguing about ‘magical scientific answers’ and ‘scientists are smart so you should just know’. Then she caught Tchernobog staring at her, his face, as ever, that customary, impartial mask.

“I think I might be a shaman,” she said, her voice low.

“As mad as it sounds, you may be,” Tchernobog rumbled back.

“I’m seeing spirits. I think I am. I did that thing on the bridge. Doesn’t that make me a shaman?” Scotch asked.

“It means you’re spiritually sensitive. But a pony shaman…” He shook his head. “Were you a zebra, I’d send you to apprentice under a shaman of your tribe. They would initiate you into their traditions. Teach you how to speak and negotiate with spirits friendly to your tribe. It’s a process that takes years,” he said, keeping his eyes locked to hers. “But you have no tribe. If you are a shaman, and only the spirits can know for certain, then I do not know how to teach you. Indeed, it would be perilous for me to do so.”

“Why?” Scotch rasped, then coughed again.

“My tribe deals in spirits of corruption, malevolence, and decay. Are those the sorts of spirits ponies are associated with?” he asked, staring at her.

“I don’t understand,” Scotch said with a frown.

“Exactly. Atoli associate with spirits of wind and sea. Carnilia with spirits of birth, life, death, and fertility. Roamani with war and fighting. Our tribes shape our attitudes and the relationships we build with particular spirits. What spirits define ponies? What is the essence of a pony?” he asked gravely.

“I don’t know,” Scotch answered.

“Nor do I,” he said with a solemn shake of his head.

“What was your apprenticeship like?” she asked.

Tchernobog blinked at her a moment in surprise, as if no one had ever asked him this before. “It was to a mare named Atropos. Cold. Hard. Cruel. She took an angry colt and beat him with a stick. Every day.”

“That’s horrible!” Scotch said, then broke into coughs.

“That’s the point. She hurt me until I learned that pain did not equal anger. That insult did not mean I had to respond immediately. I had to be as cold and hard as she was if I was to deal with the spirits of the Starkatteri. When my anger was quenched, I could learn.” He gave a thin smile. “She was not a pleasant mare, but she was an excellent teacher. She introduced me to spirits old, powerful, and dangerous. She let me fail, hurting myself with poor deals, but never allowed me to corrupt myself. It was a brutal education.”

“I can’t imagine going through that myself,” Scotch admitted.

“Other tribes, I understand, are different. Yet another reason I could not make you a shaman. Tribes to not train the shamans of other tribes. It is… poaching. Were other ponies shamans, I would send you to them.”

“Do other races have shamans too?” Scotch asked.

“Of course,” said Skylord, listening in. “We have the Simurgh. A bunch of creepy old crones you visit for good fortune in battle or business. By the Egg, they’re expensive, though.”

“And the dragons have Nidhogg, the world serpent. He’s lived for thousands of years deep underground. I’ve not had the honor of meeting him myself,” Tchernobog rumbled.

“I’ve heard the yaks do too,” Xarius offered. “Something about the spirits of their ancestors or something.”

“If you want to call that shamanism. Many races have some shamanistic tradition. Only ponies seem to reject it entirely,” Tchernobog said slowly.

“Are you feeling better, Scotch?” Xarius asked with a little more lucidity.

“A bit. I think we can go back to your shop.” Even though it felt as if she had a chest full of cement.

Then there came a thudding of hooves as Vicious returned with Gordo, the latter staggering this way and that, mouth wide with a purple tongue hanging out and foam on his nostrils. “Something’s wrong! I think we were poisoned, but I’m not sure by what! We both ate the same stupid doughnuts!”

The scientists quickly conferred, and Scotch could only watch as they performed a tracheotomy with the help of Vicious’s knives. The zebra’s weight seemed to be slowing the swelling. He collapsed, but from the movement of his chest, he was breathing again. Vicious stared at him. “I ate it too! I swear, we both ate the same doughnuts. Why was his poisoned?”

Scotch pulled the chemical printouts from her bags and set them on one of the lab tables as Gordo lay there, struggling to breathe. “You. Chemical guy. What is this?”

He examined the pages. “Where did you get these! How did you break into my files!?”

“I got them from Plant Operations Manager Mariana,” Scotch said, wheezing a little. “Now talk. What happened to Gordo?”

“This,” he said as he tapped the pages, “is a new three-part pesticide and weed killer we’ve been working on for months. The actual name has twenty-two syllables. We call it Algogropro after the three stable parts. Each is mostly benign, colorless, odorless, and extremely stable. You can drink Algopalizyme and it won’t do anything. Same with the Gropropipomaldihyde. But add the Propomelzahydrate and you get Algogropro, shutting down cellular outtake and causing the cells to keep drawing in fluid until they swell and burst while crippling cell mitosis. It only affects localized tissues on contact, rather than dispersing throughout the system, keeping its concentration far longer than if it was simply metabolized. The application is highly selective. You can use any two parts safely. It’s only when all three are used together that it’s toxic. It was never meant to be used on animals, mind you. Just rigid cell structures. Still, it seems equally harmful to animal life too.”

“How long is he going to be like this?” Vicious demanded.

“The constituent chemicals can linger in the body for days, but once combined, the Algogropro is only active for a few minutes before it breaks down, but the disruption is fairly terminal to plants and most insect life. The effects will likely take hours to abate, but they should,” he said as he backed away.

“But I don’t get it. Why use this to poison people?” Xarius asked. “There’ve got to be faster ways to poison someone.”

“No. It’s a brilliant way to poison a lot of someones!” Vicious countered. “Say you poison some food at the party. If it’s slow acting, you might not know if you got everyone, but if it’s fast, then when one person gets sick, everyone stops eating. Also, if you’re poisoning people, it looks pretty suspicious if you’re not eating anything, but this gives you deniability. After all, you were eating too. It took him ten minutes before he started to feel like he couldn’t breathe. Ten minutes is one whole course of a meal. You could have dozens of people dead. Even hundreds before people realized it was too late!”

“But why was it in our breakroom?” the scientist demanded. “You don’t think…”

“If you have a perfect assassination poison, the first thing you do is kill all the other people who know what it is,” Vicious said grimly. “That way it’s a mystery.”

“Mystery my striped flank! Get those pastries in here,” he said to one of the subordinates. “Give me an hour and I’ll prove Algo, Gro, and Pro are in each one!”

Scotch didn’t want to hang around her a minute longer than she had to. “Someone is going to have to stick around here. If they want you dead, they’ll come when they realize you’re not taking the bait,” Scotch rasped.

“I will,” Vicious said. “In fact, I’m looking forward to meeting some more of these Atoli bastards,” she continued, glancing down at Gordo as he labored to breathe. “If it hadn’t been for him, I would have eaten all three.” Her voice was oddly subdued as she gazed at him. Then she looked at Tchernobog. “You’ll contact Vega, right?”

“Soon as I can,” Tchernobog said.

“Good. I’d hate to have to go looking for a new job before all this is over,” she answered, then looked to Scotch. “I really, really wish you’d stay.”

“Between the Blood Legion and the Riptide, I think it’s time to leave. Dodging some bounty hunters is exhausting enough. I don’t think I can evade all that too. But I’ll miss you,” Scotch admitted.

The striped pony sniffed and smiled, then turned her head to wipe away her tears before she answered, “Yeah, well… don’t die. Good roommates are hard to find.” Then she turned to the scientists and snapped, “Well, don’t just stand there! Get sciencing!”

With that, they departed. The scientists knew a service dock they could use to get out without going through the main entrance, and they crept away from the factory without incident. The city was muted and tense; more than half of the shops were closed, and those that were open were devoid of customers. Yet Scotch had to admit that she was relieved to put Carnico behind her. Once she was reunited with her friends, they could go and be safe. Okay, as safe as anything was in the Wasteland. Rice River had been an interesting experiment with life in the big city, but it wasn’t something she was eager to try again any time soon.

They reached the corner where Tchernobog had to depart back to the cafe. He had no teary farewells. He simply said, “Your debt is paid in full. Till we meet again,” and then walked off without a glance back at her.

“Yeah, technically it was Galen’s debt. He was the one who used the stuff,” Precious said with a roll of her eyes, then looked at Skylord. “You heading back to your Legion?”

“Not till I get orders. I’ll try to call in once we’re at the shop. Find out what she wants me to do. Till then…” He paused and added dramatically, “Constant vigilance!”

They walked the two blocks back to the shop in high spirits. The scientists would prove the food had been deliberately poisoned. Mariana would get canned. With the plot ruined, the Atoli would be driven from Carnico. Eventually the Blood Legion would have to go. Everything would get back to normal.

They trotted towards the front entrance of the shop. There was Pythia, waiting for her in the middle of the shop. Not scowling. Not insulting. Not looking at her map. Just looking at them.

“Something’s wrong,” Scotch muttered.

Then a filly slowly stepped into view. Not just a filly, though. Superimposed over her body was that of a powerful toothed fish. A… shark? It strained and struggled to pull free of the filly but remained stuck fast to her. The filly stepped behind Pythia, just staring as water trickled off her. The glowing shark worked its mouth, moving several times to bite at Pythia but always stopping short.

“That filly’s dangerous,” Scotch muttered.

“Seriously? I can take her,” Precious scoffed.

“I can just shoot her,” Skylord offered.

“No. She’s really dangerous,” Scotch said with a dry hack. Whatever was going on with this strange filly, it couldn’t be good. “She’s got a spirit thing inside her, I think.”

“I’m fucking sick of spirits,” Precious snarled. “What do you want me to do, then?” Xarius looked on in worry, attentive.

“You two get the Whiskey Express fired up. I have a feeling we might need to leave here in a hurry,” she said.

“We can do that, Xara,” Xarius said, tense. “Be careful.”

“You too,” she warned, slowly approaching the pair. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Pythia said levelly. “This is Niuhi. She’s here to kill you.”

“Oh,” Scotch Tape said, stopping five meters away from the spectral shark’s jaws. It kept lunging at Scotch, glowing teeth snapping in the air. “Please don’t.”

“You’ve caused too many problems for Mommy,” she said evenly as she stepped around Pythia. “You have to die.” As she advanced, Scotch gave ground. Niuhi’s face twisted in annoyance as Scotch kept retreating out of range of those gnashing jaws. “Stop backing up!” she growled. The glowing shark twisted, seizing a workbench in its jaws and biting off a mouthful. The waterlogged filly chewed furiously and swallowed. “If you don’t stop backing up, I’m going to eat your friends.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” Scotch replied as she skipped backwards in a circle, trying to remember what was behind her. The whole workshop reeked of sea salt as the water trickled down from the roof and sloshed around her hooves. “That’ll just make me run off again. Then you’ll have to find me and you won’t have any idea where I am, so don’t take your eyes off me!” Please don’t take your eyes off me! As soon as Scotch led Niuhi away, Pythia rushed to the other two working on the Whiskey Express.

Skylord, positioned where he’d have a clean field of fire, opened up. The bullets streaked towards the filly but then abruptly slowed as if travelling through water. Niuhi didn’t even acknowledge he was shooting at her. When his guns ran dry, he growled, “That’s not fair! Stupid shaman magic!” Yet he reloaded his guns with every intention to shoot some more.

“You’re horrible! You make Mommy so mad! If we were on the ocean, I’d feed you to every nasty spirit I could!” she spat, making a sudden lunge forward, but Scotch turned and leapt over a workbench. Three bites disappeared from it in a shower of splinters, flinging half-eaten tools all over the place. “Stop running and let me eat you!”

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen,” Scotch stated flatly. She had a year or two on Niuhi and could keep her distance for now, but the longer she evaded, the more labored her breathing grew. “You’re a shaman?” she asked.

“That’s right. My fishie friends are going to help me eat you up. Nom nom nom,” Niuhi snickered. It might have been cute if each nom hadn’t been accompanied by that glowing shark eating pieces of the shop around her. Niuhi broke into a trot, the seawater sloshing about her hooves as she ran towards Scotch. Scotch led her out into the yard, and the water poured out in a fan as Niuhi followed her. “Stop running!” she cried out, her hooves getting bogged down in the mud. “Stupid dirt! Go away!” The shark bit down into the ground again and again, removing huge muddy clods, but all she was doing was creating a muddy pit. Seawater was pouring out of the junked tractors and bubbling up through the ground. Scotch was finding it hard to put distance between herself and the corrupted filly as her hooves began to sink into the sudden quagmire.

Then the shark flexed, and all that seawater started to surge towards Niuhi, who was already submerged up to her eyes in muddy saltwater. Scotch struggled to pull herself away, but the water kept pulling her in closer and deeper. Worse, she couldn’t seem to draw a decent breath as she flailed.

A red can flew out at the zebra filly, clanging against her protruding head. The surge abated as she cried out, holding her head. “Owwie!” she yelped as the shark reached down and bit down on the five liter can. Black fluid poured out, coating the filly in thick dirty oil.

Instantly, Niuhi screamed and thrashed, trying to get away from the black sludge spreading across her puddle. The contact seemed to make the glowing shark crumple in pain. Xarius stood in the doorway with a metal bucket. “You’re not going to hurt my Xara!” he declared as he tossed some glowing green fluid at the filly. Instantly, Scotch’s PipBuck started ticking, and Niuhi screamed again, thrashing and splashing wildly.

“No! No no no! It’s not fair! I need to help, Mommy!” she cried as the shark jerked and pulled at where they were stuck together. She lunged towards the ghoul, struggling out of the mire, but he reached behind him for a blowtorch and cranked it fully open. A tongue of flame jetted forth, licking at the oily filly and lighting her ablaze.

“Don’t you dare touch my little girl!” he roared, driving her back into the pool. She disappeared completely under the salty muck in front of the shop.

Xarius looked across the spreading sludge and asked, “Are you okay, Xara?”

“Yeah, but watch out. I don’t think she’s gone,” Scotch warned as he kept the flame directed at the bubbling water.

“It’s okay, sweetie. Daddy will protect–” The pool exploded as Niuhi, her mouth a horrifying wide gape, lunged at the old ghoul. Time seemed to slow as Xarius, without hesitation, reached back and thrust the acetylene tank in her path. The top half of the tank disappeared in a cloud of vaporizing liquid, and then the cloud touched the dying flame of the torch.

The mouth of the workshop exploded in a fireball, throwing the filly over Scotch’s head and smashing her into a scrapped tractor. The filly’s hide appeared seared, bloody patches and charred meat visible. Scotch pulled herself out of the mud and stared at the glowing spirit flesh superimposed over the wounds. Bit by bit, they rapidly regenerated.

Then Niuhi grinned, her mouth spreading across her face in a nightmarish leer. Three rows of jagged teeth gleamed, her white hide now a more mottled gray and her tail resembling a shark’s fin. “Teeth!” Scotch blurted, turning immediately as Niuhi raced around the polluted pool towards her.

When in doubt, run, and she had a lot of doubt. As much as she wanted to take in the horror of seeing Xarius die, she couldn’t let that thing get any more of her friends. She had to lead it away. Oil and radiation had weakened it. Where could she find oil and radiation? She needed time to think! Whatever Niuhi was turning into was a whole lot faster than she’d been as a filly, and Scotch was already past her diminished athletic limit, coughing with spit running down her cheeks. There was the bridge up ahead! Skylord was winging his way to one of the machine gun nests! They were swinging the gun over! The machine gun opened up, spraying the shark creature.

Niuhi simply opened her mouth, and the glowing spirit chomped down over and over again in a blur of frenzied eating. As Scotch ran onto the bridge, Niuhi leapt over the barricade and bit down on the gun, then the gunner, then his mate. Skylord was barely able to get clear. At least sharks couldn’t fly! Scotch pushed herself as fast as she could to gain some distance as she raced towards the middle of the bridge, but the more she ran about, the more her breath came in gasps and hard coughs.

And then she collapsed. She just couldn’t breathe. No matter how she coughed, it didn’t get any better. Nothing was coming up! All around her was a cloud of tiny golden spirits. Some resembled butterflies, and others were flowers. There were even tiny glowing bunnies rushing about here and there. Strange flames bobbed around like wisps over their heads. Several of these spirits rushed up to Scotch, and when they touched her, some of the pain in her chest abated.

She rose to her feet as Niuhi advanced. The transformation had progressed even further. Her hide was now gray with black stripes, her tail a thick fin with a dorsal fin protruding from her back. She reached out, biting one of the rabbit spirits, and the glowing form disappeared between her teeth, the spiritual vapors seeping into her body. As Scotch watched, the fin on her back grew inch by inch, and webbing appeared along the backs of her limbs.

Scotch struggled to take a deep breath. “You need to stop, right now!” she gasped. The spirits and onlookers backed away in horror and fear.

“I need to eat you! When I eat you, Mommy won’t be mad anymore!” Niuhi snapped.

“No! Look at yourself! You’re turning into a monster!” Scotch begged as Niuhi ate a few more of the spirits, the rest growing more and more frenetic and agitated. “Please! Your mommy doesn’t want you like this! Please, turn back!” The glowing shark had almost merged completely into her. When it had…

Another bite. “I…” Another bite. “Want.” Another. “To.” Another, and then she gagged, swaying. Her mouth moved silently, teeth gleaming in the air as her eyes bulged. Choking sounds emanated from that void. She swayed and collapsed, mouth wide, struggling for air.

“Fish have gills,” Scotch, struggling for air herself, muttered, wondering if this would make her turn back. If she could turn back.

Either way, she wasn’t.

Scotch stared, watching her enemy die, her own breathing easing a little as she calmed. An enemy who had killed her friend, a zebra who had been like an uncle to her. Letting her die… no one could blame her. Yet, as she stared into those black eyes, Scotch could only feel pity. She could understand loving your parent so much that you were willing to do anything for them. She couldn’t believe that Niuhi had wanted to die like this. She glanced around and saw that all the spirits were still, watching her with their silent, golden eyes. The crowd too. What would she do?

Scotch stared at the struggling filly, then sighed and approached her warily, making sure that she was too weak to instantly bite her head off, and heaved the suffocating creature up onto her back, carrying her to the railing. “I’m sorry about your mom, despite everything,” Scotch said, not sure if Niuhi could understand or even hear her anymore. Then she gave a heave and tossed Niuhi into the river.

She leaned out, watching the ripples spread. A moment later, a dark gray head emerged, looking up at her with those solid black eyes. The head dipped back underwater, and she watched the dorsal fin and tail swim towards the bow of the Riptide.

“That was a very merciful thing you did,” Aleta said behind her. She turned, looking at Galen and Aleta standing together, their stripes vivid red and blue. “Although I can’t imagine how life is going to be for her from now on.”

“I had to. I couldn’t just…” She knew how Vicious would mock her if she knew she’d just spared an enemy. Tears welled up in her eyes. “She killed Xarius. I should have… I could have…” She sniffed again, bowing her head. “He treated me like I was his daughter.”

Aleta knelt, embracing her. “I’m sorry, Scotch.”

“Why can’t I keep my family?” Scotch blubbered. “Why are they always dying?”

Galen knelt and held her too. As she cried, she heard the spirits singing softly. They hovered about Scotch, invisible to everyone but her, moving like luminous golden shapes.

Till they turned inside out.

Before her eyes, one of the rabbits quivered and was reversed as quickly and easily as a sock puppet. The black shape convulsed, oozing a dark ichor-like blood over the bridge. Then, just as quickly, it returned to normal. The golden light made the dark stain evaporate before the spirit scampered away. Scotch stared in fascination at the sight. Other spirits were inverting as well. They’d change for one horrible moment, and then change back again. The fiery wisps became dark pits sucking in light and dripping that horrible ichor. The closer they were to Scotch, the faster they changed.

She closed her eyes and gave Aleta a squeeze before pulling away and regarding the spirits. Was this something she was causing? Was it Niuhi? She shook her head and extended a hoof towards them, and the spirits seemed to stabilize. “I’m fine,” she said as she sniffed and rubbed her eyes. The pair of zebras stared at her in confusion, and she shook her head. “I’m seeing spirits. And yes, I know it’s impossible, but I am.”

“That’s–” Galen began, then coughed. “I see. Is everything okay?”

“No. I think that they’re upset that the party isn’t going as planned,” she said as she looked around. “They keep turning black and icky, and then back to normal.”

“Yeah, no one is having fun. People should be having games, sex, and food,” Aleta said. “But with the Legions here, everyone is worried.”

“That is because a pony invoked them!” snorted a familiar voice. Desideria approached with her escort of stallions, her eyes narrowed in her pudgy face as she rattled her hoofbeads at Scotch Tape. “Or, more likely, your cursed friend did so while you pranced about on stage. You ruined Bacchanalia!”

Scotch faced the mare, thrusting a hoof back. “This is more important than your stupid celebration! Carnico’s getting taken over by pirates. The Blood Legion’s working with them and Mariana to take over this city. And you brought them here. If the spirits weren’t here in peace, then nothing would stand in their way.”

“You are raving,” she sniffed dismissively. “All ponies are mad, but you seem particularly disturbed.”

“Shaman Desideria, even you have to admit that this is dangerous,” Aleta insisted. “There’re two legions facing each other, and we need Carnico. They are vital to the production of our food. The razorgrass will devour what few fields you have left without them.”

“We do not need Carnico’s food or their poison!” she hissed. “We only need to return to our traditional roots! The old ways are more than sufficient to restore our tribe to greatness.”

But Scotch stopped listening at the word poison. She stared at the booths offering sweets and snacks; the one thing zebras were still doing was eating. And as she did, she heard Maximillian’s voice echoing in her head. ‘Carnico is glad to sponsor this Bacchanalia, and to provide food’ The vast majority of the attendees were poor zebras taking advantage of the free food provided. They weren’t vital workers. They were surplus population, unhealthy and ill-suited for fighting. All they had were numbers. If the Blood Legion occupied Rice River, they’d need to remove that population. That meant…

“It’s poisoned,” she muttered.

“What?” Desideria muttered flatly.

“The food is poisoned!” Scotch said, pointing a hoof at the booths. “In Carnico, Mariana used a three-part poison to wipe out the security staff. Eat one or even two parts and nothing happens, but when all three are eaten it kills the eater. Is there something traditional that’s eaten at the end of Bacchanalia? Only on the third day? Some symbolic something or other?” she asked the baffled Desideria.

“Yes. It’s a special honey cake that symbolizes a rebirth of the–”

“Does everyone eat it at the same time?” Scotch said.

“After the spirits depart, yes.” Desideria furrowed her brows. “Why?”

“And is this ‘honey’ used in anything else?” Scotch asked, her brow also furrowing.

“It’s far too precious. We would never have had enough for this celebration if…” She paused, her eyes widening.

“Has anyone cooking these honey cakes died recently?” Scotch demanded, and now doubt was creeping in on the mare’s doughy face. Then Desideria nodded slowly. “Mariana worked out a deal with the Blood Legion. They get the west side of Rice River, but you’re already dealing with too many mouths to feed. So–” She broke a moment, coughing and taking several breaths before she could go on. “So, Mariana put a special poison in the food. You have to eat all three parts, but once you do, you choke to death. It wouldn’t wipe out everyone, and it wouldn’t surprise me if she told some people not to eat the honey cakes at the end, but enough people would die that the Blood Legion could just hole up here.”

“And Cecilio knew this?” Desideria hissed. The running and talking was really making her chest tight.

“I doubt it. He and Vega brought in the Iron Legion. Plus, Riptide helped Mariana infiltrate and kill Carnico’s security. If Cecilio was in on it, he wouldn’t need to poison his own security. Most of the evidence got blown up when the Riptide shelled that office building,” Scotch said with a wheeze. “I should know. I was inside.”

“I find it hard to believe he knew nothing of this,” Desideria hissed, eyes narrowed.

“Whatever,” Scotch said with a shake of her head. “We need to cancel the Bacchanalia.”

“Cancel!” she gasped, then glared at her. “You idiotic pony, the spirits are here! Some shaman in the crowd invoked them, and they’re expecting two more days of love and joy before departing. They will not be content with one!”

“And once they realize the poisoning plot isn’t going to work, the Blood Legion is going to try to take the city by force. They’re not going to give the Iron Legion two days to get fortified. They’re going to move now! What are the spirits going to do if zebras start killing other zebras on this bridge?” Scotch asked, pointing her hoof at one will-o’-the-wisp that inverted before her eyes. “Look at what they’re doing already!”

“You can see…” Desideria began, then she shook her head hard. “It will never come to that. Haimon assured me that his forces will withdraw when the Irons do. It will never come to violence during Bacchanalia. It can’t!”

“It’s about to,” Scotch said. “What will happen to Rice River if all these spirits are here and everyone starts fighting?”

Desideria tugged at her wooden beads. “The only zebra I know of who dared break the Bacchanalia peace was incinerated where he stood. He burned so fiercely that the ground beneath him melted to glass. A dozen others died with him, including my mother.”

“You want that all over Rice River?” Scotch shook her head. “I know everyone says I’m not supposed to see spirits, but I do. I talked to them. Invited them. I don’t know how I did it, but I did. I don’t want…” she swallowed, fighting the surge of emotion threatening to choke her as her chest started burning again, “I don’t want my actions to kill a lot of people. I don’t want Rice River to burn.”

Desideria stared down at her, as if she were a particularly horrifying and yet fascinating bug in a pony skin. “You don’t? You’re a pony, after all.”

“I’ve got nothing against Rice River,” Scotch declared, grimacing as she rubbed her chest, taking a deep breath and breaking into a hacking cough. Was it her imagination, or was there a hint of concern on Desideria’s face? “There’re some good people here. Sure, you’ve got problems, and some real jerks.” She glowered at the heavy mare, hoping she realized which category she fell into. “But compared to a lot of other places, you’ve got some good things here.” True, she didn’t feel like she fit here anymore, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t home for others. “I don’t want people to die if I can help it, but I’m pretty sure that a lot of people dying is someone else’s plan!”

As Desideria stared at her, Maximillian pushed his way forward. “Desi! What’s going on?” the weedy stallion asked as he pushed back his rabbit mask. “I heard there was a fish monster attacking someone on the bridge.”

“We’re canceling Bacchanalia,” Desideria informed him. “You need to get everyone off the bridge, in case the spirits react with wrath. Then we’ll need to test all the food given to us by Carnico for poison.”

“Poison!” Maximillian yelped. “Cancel? Desi, I know things are tense right now, but really?”

“I need to talk to Haimon. You go talk to Cecilio and whoever is running the Irons once the bridge is cleared. Rice River is neutral. They both need to leave,” she said, pursing her lips together. “When they’re both gone, we’ll see to cleaning our own house.”

Maximillian let out a feeble laugh. “Sure. I’ll just tell everyone they have to go home,” he muttered. “No sweat. I’ll probably need you with me. There won’t be nearly as much argument if you’re there.”

The pair walked towards the stage. Scotch stared at the spirits flickering back and forth.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Scotch Tape?” a mare asked behind her. Errukine approached with a somber expression, her stripes glittering in the dawn’s early light.

“What do you mean?” Scotch asked with a frown.

“Rice River is sick. A sickness that runs straight to its root. Its hypocrisy and intolerance have festered for generations. One half exploits the other. The spirits are feared, not respected. Now each side has invited murderers into their city, throwing away whatever vestiges of neutrality they once professed to have. Censure is precisely what they deserve.”

“How can you say that?” gasped Galen.

“Whatever our problems, we don’t–” Aleta said at the same time.

“A doctor must always be honest,” Errukine said as if explaining harsh realities to children. “Rice River’s problems are too tangled and convoluted to be unwound. An example must be made, not just to the Carnilia who have become twisted and have lost their way, but to others as well. They forced you to take the red, my student, just to practice needed medicine,” she said, gesturing at Galen. Then she turned to Aleta. “And you bleed and suffer and are ignored, tilling your soil naturally while the others use poisons and toxins. How fitting that someone now seeks to poison them. An example must be made.”

Scotch gaped at her. “So you want to just let the spirits explode and censure Rice River?” she asked.

“Of course not,” Errukine said with a shake of her head. “But if a zebra insists on thrusting her hoof into a beehive, she has no one to blame but herself when she is rightly stung.”

“This isn’t a bee sting, and most of these zebras aren’t doing the thrusting. If I can do something, I’m going to help people!” Scotch said, glowering at her. The zebras were starting to leave, with most of the food left behind. A few snatched up what hadn’t been eaten, but most simply left it where it was. “It’s what Blackjack would have done.”

“Indeed?” Errukine said with clear disappointment in her golden eyes. “Well, best remember how she ended up.” She looked at the spirits swirling around them. “I do hope you can explain this to the spirits. It should be quite interesting, but I hope you’ll forgive me if I withdraw before you try. I’m not sure they understand Pony.” She tapped her cheek and smiled. “Then again, if you really want to be like your Blackjack, you can simply accept the blame for everything. Then, the censure will only affect you. Truly self-sacrificing. Very noble.”

“That’s insane!” Aleta gasped.

“What’s happened to you, teacher?” Galen asked with a frown.

“A doctor is always honest and gives all the options for care. She can decide her own course of action,” she said with a nod to Scotch. “Will she perform surgery on an unstable patient or let the disease run its course? I’ll be fascinated to learn the results, from afar.”

Errukine departed towards the east. Galen and Aleta stayed with Scotch as Desideria and Maximillian returned. Scotch just gazed at all the spirits around her. Now that the crowd was departing, they appeared more agitated than ever. Desideria stared at the swarm as if it were a hive of bees. “What should I say?” Scotch asked.

“Why do you ask me?” Desideria asked, eyes narrowing in suspicion.

“You’re a real shaman. I didn’t even know what I was doing!” Scotch said.

“Many a shaman’s first and last words,” Desideria stated with poorly concealed pomposity, then looked up. “I have never tried to undo the invocation of a major ritual personally, but I know the principle. It is a delicate renegotiation of contract, where the anger of the spirits must be appeased or redirected. Ideally, the one who invoked them should be the one to break the invocation and to suffer their wrath.”

“So, no mistakes,” Scotch muttered. “Great.”

“It is like one of your pony megaspells, but with passion. A deal will be broken. Censure is the inevitable result. Who is censured is what matters.”

“But I don’t want anyone to be censured!” Scotch insisted.

“Someone must be,” Desideria replied. “If that poisoning had occurred at the end of the festival, when the spiritual energy was at its highest, I fear all Carnilians everywhere would have felt it. We would be as cursed as the Starkatteri.”

The pockety pock of the Whiskey Express announced its arrival as the vehicle pulled up, Precious at the controls. Pythia looked over from the trailer. “My ears were burning,” she said as she smirked at Desideria.

“Where’s Majina?” Scotch asked.

“Odds are she’s with her teacher guy. If not…” Pythia shrugged. “We’ll run into her one way or another.”

“So, what are we doing?” Precious asked the green pony.

Scotch looked at the spirits, then at Pythia as a plan started to come together. “I have an idea.”

Wind whistled through the abandoned booths, tugging at the crepe paper and hanging lanterns. Uneaten food dried in the rising sun as Scotch stood on the stage in the middle of the bridge, alone. She took in the sounds amidst the eerie calm. The creak of the wood under her hooves. The gurgle of the water below her. The crackle and pop of the bonfires. All around her was the melody of the spirits, their strange music strained as they whirled, every now and then inverting and sounding a harsh, sour note before returning to their beautiful golden state.

The Blood Legion were coming. They marched down the middle of the bridge, flanking one of their enormous steam tanks. To Scotch’s right, the Riptide floated. Had Niuhi reached her mother yet? Would she even remember what that was? At the front of the column of a hundred zebras walked Haimon, proud and confident. Beside him, far less certain, was Desideria.

Behind her approached the Iron Legion and the White Legion, and she was glad to see Vicious and Tchernobog with them. Cecilio and Vega followed safely behind. The rooftops of the eastern shore glittered with gun emplacements. The Iron Legion might be outnumbered, but they refused to be outgunned.

At twenty feet, Haimon raised a hoof, and the soldiers stopped. His dark eyes locked with Scotch’s. “You’re the pony who’s been causing me so much trouble.”

Scotch swallowed, looking at the tank’s cannon and all its spikes. “Don’t you mean ‘us’? I know you’re working with Mariana and Riptide.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, his face advertising the exact opposite.

“I want both of you to go. Your plan’s been ruined, Haimon. You leave. The Iron Legion and others leave. The poison plot is over. Desideria and Cecilio can clean house. Nobody loses. Everyone wins. And you stop chasing me.” Scotch stared at him.

Haimon glanced behind her at Adolpha. “You really think the Iron Legion will just go? Just like that?”

“They’d better,” Cecilio said calmly as he regarded the branded mare.

“As long as Carnico remains out of any other Legion’s control, we’ll withdraw,” she said, eying the handsome stallion on the other side of the CEO.

“So that’s it. You go. Bacchanalia finishes. Everyone lives. You can fight somewhere else later. Sounds pretty good to me,” Scotch Tape said, trying to keep her voice steady as the tightness increased in her chest.

“Ah. I have one wrinkle,” Haimon said, and that was when the centaur stepped forward with Majina. The filly was held up by a squirming mass of tentacles that sprouted from the centaur’s shoulder. “If I go, I can’t guarantee what happens to her. My soldiers will be quite upset they couldn’t take part in the festivities.” He closed his eyes. “My counteroffer: you come with us. We let her go. Sounds pretty good to me. We can deal with Rice River another time.”

Majina struggled against one tendril that looped around her muzzle, glaring at the centaur holding her.

Scotch swallowed at the sight of the filly and then looked at Haimon. “Taking my friend hostage?”

“The best kind of hostage,” Haimon answered with a frown. “What do you say, Miss Scotch?”

Scotch took a deep breath, then looked at Majina. “I think that you should try to break free!” she said in Pony. Haimon scowled at her in bafflement. “Struggle. Shake. Hard as you can.”

Majina cocked a brow but then started to thrash against the centaur’s grip. “Knock it off!” he snapped, giving her a tight squeeze and a smack with his normal hand.

That was enough. The golden light coalesced around his hand and tentacles and burst into brilliant flame. He let out a roar of pain, flinging Majina hard away from himself. The filly rolled several times before springing to her feet. “Woo! And so our heroine broke free from her captors, just as the two armies came to a head!” she declared as she rushed to Scotch’s side. “Oh, I can just feel the tension rising!” Scotch stared at her a moment, and the filly asked, “What?” Scotch shook her head, returning her focus to those who’d planned on killing her.

“The bridge is still peacebonded!” Desideria snapped at him. “Bacchanalia’s still in effect!”

“So, that’s why you lured us here, but what about them?” he asked, nodding back behind him at the others.

“Because I want everyone to stop killing,” she said, then looked up at all the agitated spirits. Pythia and Desideria had walked her through the basics, but now was the time to actually do it. She closed her eyes and beseeched, “Spirits, your time here is done. Our festival is ended. For the people of Rice River, I implore, spread your peacebond across the city of Rice River. Let there be a doom curse on every–” Her throat tickled; she froze for a moment, images of what could happen if she coughed and wheezed right now in her head, and rushed to finish. “–zebra and pony who dares violate the peace.”

“What?” Haimon gasped.

“What are you doing?” shouted Adolpha.

“Oh, come on, really?” Vicious snapped.

She opened her eyes to watch the spirits whirl faster and faster, dissolving into a golden fog that spread ever further. Then, with a flash of golden light, the cloud swept out into the east and west halves of the city. The dust fell on everyone, and given that Haimon was looking at the dust settling on himself, it was visible to everyone that she’d done something. When the glow faded, the air was clear, the spirits gone.

“You,” Haimon breathed. “He was right about you. You are a meddler.”

“Who was right about me?” Scotch asked. “Whoever gave you that stupid prophecy?”

“Clearly we’re going to have to track you down elsewhere, but you’re quite mistaken if you think we’re leaving.” His eyes fixed on Adolpha. “Eventually this effect will fade, or be broken. When it is, we’ll finish this once and for all.”

“Also,” the centaur rumbled as he drew his rifle from behind his back. “I’m not a pony.”

“Oh, horseapples!” Scotch gasped as she turned to run, but purple tentacles shot out, seizing her hoof and reeling her back towards him.

“Glad to see I didn’t go all shiny!” he said, grabbing her by the hindhoof and pulling her back towards him. Vicious lunged at him, swords drawn, but as she raised them to strike, a golden aura gripped her; she convulsed, lightning rolling over her body. No one could help her! One mistake. One tiny misspeak. He pulled her close and pointed the gun at her face. “Finally!”

Bullets rained down on them as Skylord dove out of the sun towards the pair. “Guess who else isn’t a pony!” he shrieked, driving the centaur back. One or two rounds bit into his flank, but they seemed fairly superficial. Scotch hooked her hooves on a booth and held on, forcing the centaur to drag it along with her as Skylord banked around, strafing him. He released her, raising his gun to track the wheeling griffon as Scotch struggled to get away.

Then the Riptide fired.

It was the second time she’d been shelled that day, and the impact sent everyone running and shouting in a mass bedlam. The explosion rained down chunks of masonry upon them as the Riptide’s gun wreaked havoc on the bridge. One of the massive statues collapsed into the water with a colossal splash.

Then the bridge started to come apart.

Both sides fled in their appropriate directions, the Blood west and Iron east as the cannon roared again and again, blasting the thick stone buttresses and arches. Scotch started to run, but a mass of purple tentacles snatched her hooves out from under her, hauling her back towards the vengeful bounty hunter.

But then Gāng made an appearance. The massive zebra emerged from one of the booths faster than a stallion of his bulk should have been able to move and interposed himself between Scotch and the centaur. The bounty hunter’s weapon barked, but Gāng simply grunted as he picked up Scotch with one leg, holding her close, and began to race west. The centaur, still holding Scotch, was dragged along helplessly. Any Blood Legion member in his path was bowled over with a mumbled, “Excuse me.” Two more cannon shots, this time towards the east half of the bridge, detonated, and the central span collapsed into the muddy water.

“Excuse. Excuse,” Gāng repeated as the cobbles threatened to give way, with Majina running beside him echoing his chant and stepping on the purple tentacles. The ground fell out under the centaur, and his tentacles finally slipped free, dropping him into the river with a shout. Gāng carried her all the way to the west plaza, where chaos reigned. The steam tank squealed as the bridge gave way, flipping it backwards into the water.

Then the river erupted in a fountain of its own. Distant booms followed the impact as, beyond the city limits, the Iron Legion’s rail artillery returned fire. The shells came crashing down closer and closer to the ship as the guns refined their aim. Then the turret erupted in flame and smoke as it was hit. Alarms whooped from loudspeakers on the boat, and the water behind it thrashed as it pulled backwards away from the chaos of the bridge.

Gāng got her behind Galen’s building before he finally collapsed. “Teacher!” Majina cried out, tears shimmering in her eyes as she rushed to him. “No! You can’t die! You can’t… I mean, I totally expected you would, because this always happens to your archetype, but I hoped we’d have a few more training montages together!” She fell upon him. “You still need to tell me I’m like the daughter you never had, so I can promise to take over your dojo and teach your sacred martial art techniques and–”

“I’m not dead,” Gāng grumbled, his back bloody. “I’ve just been shot,” he snapped, brows furrowing. “And the dojo’s rented!” he added, irritably.

“Oh. Okay. Sorry. Jumping the gun. But I was right about the like a daughter thing, right? Maybe you have a few more secret techniques or something to teach me?” she asked sheepishly as Galen examined the wound.

“That might be premature,” the doctor said gravely. “We’re going to need to get this treated. That round penetrated deep.”

Majina’s eyes went round. “Oh. Well… goodbye, Teacher. Don’t die. Unless you’re about to give a dramatic farewell sure to leave the audience in tears.” She clasped her hooves together, biting her bottom lip a second before blurting, “Actually, no, don’t die anyway!”

“Zencori,” Gāng muttered, but he gave a small smile. “You handled that fall very well.” Majina stared for a moment, then beamed almost luminously before lunging in and hugging him. “Ow,” he muttered.

Then he was being escorted away by Galen and Aleta. “We should go,” Pythia said. “It won’t be long before the Legion are after us.”

They all climbed into the Whiskey Express’s trailer, and with a pockety pock they were on their way out of town. As they crossed over the bridge they’d entered on, there was a golden flash. Then a shadow passed overhead, and Skylord landed next to them.

“What are you doing here?” Scotch asked. “I thought your assignment was over?”

“The colonel thinks that you’re a valuable asset, so she wants me to keep being your bodyguard,” he said with a groan. “The things you do for loyalty.” With a sigh, he flopped back against a sack.

“Get off of me!” the sack screamed.

With alarm, he got off and then carefully cut the sack open. A yellow unicorn’s head with a tangled blue mane and bloodshot eyes popped out. They locked on Scotch, then narrowed with a gasp. “You!”

“Charity?!” Scotch gasped. “I didn’t do it! I didn’t do it!”

Charity lunged at Scotch, and they collapsed on top of the supplies. “I’m gonna sue you! Those zebras! Everyone!” she bellowed as she tried to throttle Scotch.

Majina turned to Precious and said brightly, “Look, the gang’s all here! We can have ourselves a proper adventure now!”

Author's Notes:

I'm sorry for the extreme lateness of this chapter. Between Bronycon in July and constant little errors and problems and horrid temp work assignments (I had a supervisor yelling at me all week in spanish because I was the one non-latino in the factory, and he didn't feel like translating.) it's just been really hard, but with working more, it's harder to write. If folks are willing and able to support via my patreon, or give a donation to [email protected] via paypal gift, that'd be hugely helpful right now. Hopefully I'll get some sub work, which doesn't involve yelling in spanish.

I'd like to thank the editors, who gave up six weekends for this to make it better, Hinds, Bro, Swicked, and Icyshake. I really appreciate all they do to make my stories better. Thanks to Kkat for writing FoE. Thanks for everyone who reads me, and special thanks to those that support me. I really can't do this without you. (Well I can, but I'll never finish a story within human lifetime without help.)

Thank you again for reading.