Fallout Equestria: Homelands

By Somber

Chapter 11: What we deserve.

Some things never changed. They’d been out less than a week and already they were in trouble. Scotch’s lungs had cost them their weapons, barding, and half the food and coal. Precious had even parted with her gold imperios, which had made her particularly sulky. Only Skylord had refused to sell his weapons, but that was fair as he was the only one that used them anyway. That led to just one conclusion.

“We need salvage,” Charity said bluntly as she lay in the trailer, wedged in tight with Scotch and Precious as Majina tried her hoof at steering down the concrete road due south, away from the camp. The green weather balloon that marked the camp was still visible behind them, dangling a flashing green lamp. Hopefully they didn’t move before Scotch’s friends found something.

“Are you sure this is a good spot?” Scotch asked.

“No, I’m not sure,” she snapped. “Because this isn’t the Hoof, or even Equestria! There, I could tell you if there was likely anything good to scrounge up. Here, it’s tricky. I don’t know spots that have been picked over.”

“Well, what about those?” Precious asked, pointing off to the side at factories. They rose like enormous anvils from the plains, the machinery within their strange concave walls protected from aerial bombardment by thick slabs of concrete overhanging the roof. Scotch could imagine Raptors diving out of the clouds, trying to get low enough to shoot under the rims. Some had collapsed beneath the weight of their shields, the slabs tilted drunkenly atop the metal stumps.

My friends are going through all of this because of me, Scotch thought. “What’s the worst case scenario?”

Charity pulled a clipboard out of her saddlebags. “We’re good on water. We’ve got ten ‘kilograms’ of coal... kilograms...” she said the word as if it were bitter in her mouth. “Honestly, what’s wrong with Equestrian pounds?” She shook her head and went on brusquely, “Anyway, we’ve only two days of food without cutting back. Four, maybe five if we do.”

“Two days?” Scotch gaped at her, and looked at the boxes wedged in the trailer. “This is just two days?”

“Yeah, I saved the boxed stuff. Most of what you bought was regular food anyway,” Charity said as she thumped the packages with a hoof. “And you packed for four mouths, not six. Add to that that we only have one trailer and it’s carrying four of us and we have to haul coal as well and it’s no surprise.” She twisted her lips as she tapped her hoof against the parcels. “Honestly, we need another trailer. A second tractor would be better.”

Scotch sighed, looking out at the ruined buildings poking up through the razorgrass covered plains like tombstones. “I doubt we’ll just stumble across another one.”

“We stumbled across the Whiskey Express, remember?” Pythia pointed out. She gazed out to the south, her eyes unfocused.

“Of course she did,” Charity muttered, then went on, “We’re lucky the water in the irrigation ditches isn’t radioactive. If that changes then things are going to get really ugly. If we’re going as far as we are, we’re going to need salvage, and lots of it.”

“Can we even haul salvage?” Precious asked with a frown. “I am not pulling a cart!”

“Like I said, ideally, we need a second tractor. At the minimum, we need another trailer. I think Whiskey Wench can handle one more,” Charity said as she turned to the next page. “The list is pretty straightforward. Food. Medical supplies. Coal. After that, we need workable technology, guns, and ammo. Stuff that we can unload without too much trouble. Bobby pins too. Bottled water. After that, it’s whatever is valuable. If all you see are coffee cups, we need to move somewhere else.”

Pythia shared a look with Scotch. “You’re pretty experienced at looting, aren’t you?” the marked filly asked.

“I’ve been doing it since I could walk and talk. Being small enough to crawl through air vents and into locked rooms in the Hoof is a pretty big advantage.” Charity pressed her lips pressed together a moment and shrugged. “Anyway, if we’re smart, quick, and quiet, we should be able to sweep one of these factories in an hour or two.”

Scotch sighed and coughed as Pythia stretched forward and told Majina to take a side road towards one of the hulking factories. Skylord flew ahead and did a circuit of the structure, but nothing immediately started shooting at him or the tractor. They pulled up in front of the massive, anvil-shaped building. ‘Sunflower Processing #11934.’ could barely be read through the rust. As they sat there in the shade of the gargantuan slab of concrete sitting atop the factory, the structure let out occasional groans of metal fatigue.

“Don’t suppose you see futures of us making it big, huh?” Scotch asked Pythia.

“I’ve got a few hundred ranging from we come out of this laughing to we’re all dead. I’m not even sure what it is that kills us. Too much smoke and haze in the future for a thing like this.” She stared at the loading dock door. “I’m pretty likely to survive though,” she added, but the way she frowned at the building, that was little consolation for what she saw.

Charity surveyed the ruin and nodded. “Okay, looks like those doors are sealed up tight. That’s a good sign. Everypony pick a partner,” she said, standing next to Scotch. Majina walked up next to Pythia, who frowned at Majina and moved away next to Precious. Majina’s ears drooped before Skylord landed next to her. “Okay, rules for looting. If you encounter anything hazardous, back away and find the others. The Whiskey Wino is our safe spot, where we fall back to if you hear shooting or trouble. Places to focus on are janitor closets, kitchen pantries, and any maintenance systems. If there’s any power, watch out for turrets and robots. If you hear a ghoul scream, drop everything and get out as quick as you can. Most of us are small enough to use vents to get around. Be cautious because it makes a heck of a racket, and if you get stuck there’s probably no way we can get you out. Come back here in one hour. Team that brings back the best stuff without alarming anything gets their pick of the salvage as a reward. Any questions?”

Skylord raised a wing. “Can you repeat whatever you just said in Zebra?”

“She said stay in pairs and don’t get dead. Oh, and a treat for whomever finds the best stuff,” Precious translated.

“Don’t worry about it,” Scotch said to the scowling Charity. “He’s got the idea.”

“Let’s go,” Charity said with a nod of her head. They found their entrance through a damaged fire door. Someone had taken a blowtorch to it, but had given up halfway around the door latch. A few blasts of flame from Precious, a bit of banging and prying with a crowbar, and the door popped open. Immediately Scotch coughed from the dust that rolled out. She tied a cloth over her mouth. Her lungs were bad enough already. To her surprise, Charity did the same. “What?” she asked, defensively. “There’s all kinds of mold spores and worse in places like this.” After that announcement, everyone else besides Precious did the same.

They were in some kind of large canning facility. Conveyors with tin cans sat still and silent on their belts. A quick examination of the hoppers revealed a white crust. The labels on the can said it was corn starch. She had no idea what that was. Something made from corn? Still, it didn’t sound toxic, and most of the dust was just errant dirt, not the explosive grain dust. “Okay, no tracks. If we’re super lucky, we’re the first ones in here in two centuries. Hopefully people just turned off the machines, turned out the lights, and went home.” She pointed a hoof at Majina. “You two, second floor.” Then to Pythia.

“Check the front. Got it. I think I see us finding some good stuff,” she said, making Charity blink in bafflement.

“Oooh, shiny, golden stuff?” Precious asked with a grin.

“Maybe. Something in the future is sticky, though. Be careful.”

Charity rolled her eyes. “Right. Be on the lookout for sticky futures. And you’ll only get shiny, golden stuff if you bring back the best stuff. Remember. You’re salvaging for the team, not yourselves. Don’t get greedy,” Charity admonished, getting an eye roll from Precious but no argument.

They fanned out, and Scotch walked alongside Charity as they moved through the work area, past the machines. No red bars so far. Charity’s horn cast a wan green light to show them the way. A few filthy windows up high let in a little light, but not enough to highlight anything valuable. “That was pretty impressive,” Scotch said, getting a questioning look. “The whole how to loot thing. You really have it down to a science.”

“Yeah, well, guess you forgot but I used to run the Crusaders. Salvage was our thing, and we lost too many members to stupid,” she said as she went over some shelves that held boxes of empty containers. Not exactly prime salvage.

“You don’t any more?” Scotch asked with a frown.

“We were orphans, remember? Not as many orphans in the Wasteland anymore. After all the fighting, some decided they didn’t want to live in Chapel anymore. Some decided they were too grown up for us and wandered off. Some even got adopted. Chapel was our town, but now it’s just another settlement in the Hoof.” She gave a sigh. “I still have my shop, at least. Or I’d better,” she added with a growl, glowering off at some distant, unsupervised employees halfway around the world before she sighed. “Odds are by the time I get back I’ll have to start over again from scratch.” She levitated a box and opened it, examining the contents, then scratched a large X in it with a nail. “Which is why I wanted to get on a boat and get back now. The ponies I hired will wait a few months, but possession is nine tenths of the law. I don’t trust anyone older than I am past what I pay them.”

“That’s… pretty stark,” Scotch said as they moved towards a door in the back of the production plant.

“I wouldn’t expect you to understand. You’re a stable pony, after all,” she said as they walked into an office. She stretched up, scanning the room, then peeked around for several seconds before she relaxed.

“What’s that got to do with anything?” Scotch asked, her chest already starting to ache from simply walking around.

“Don’t worry about it.” Charity frowned at the contents of the shelves. “How do I make a profit on rolls of two century old corn starch labels?” she muttered to herself.

But Scotch did worry about it. She stepped in Charity’s path. “No, I want to know. What does me being a stablepony have to do with anything?” She got static for being a pony, for being a pony shaman, but what problem could she have with her being from a stable?

Charity set her jaw a moment, “Fine? You really want to know what’s wrong with that?” She tapped Scotch in the chest. “Everything was given to you.”

“What?” Scotch said, scowling at her. “What are you talking about? You don’t know what life was like in Stable 99!”

“You had clean food and water, right?”

“Well, yeah, but–”

“A safe place to sleep at night, right?”

“Sure, but–”

“Rules and ponies enforcing them, right? Clothes to wear? A job? Ponies to associate with?”

“You’re missing out on the Overmare being a total psycho and killing my mom!” Scotch snapped.

Charity sat back, adopting a shocked expression. “Oh my goodness, no. I suppose the instant she died you had to struggle and scrounge for food to survive!” Her eyes went flat. “You’re a stable pony. You don’t understand what it’s like not having a safe place to live. Not to know when you’re going to eat next. Wondering if drinking from that puddle’s going to give you radiation or taint or whatever. Trying to find clothes that fit. Trying to keep yourself safe from other ponies that want to use, hurt, or eat you. You don’t know because you’re a stable pony.”

She stepped around Scotch, continuing to talk as her eyes scanned the factory floor. “Everything I ever had, I earned. Wanted to eat? I had to find it. Wanted to sleep safe? I had to find it. Wanted to stay safe? I had to fight for it. I earned my shop. Earned my town. Earned everything. And when it was taken from me, I earned it back.”

She found a locked door and levitated out a screwdriver and bobby pin. “You, on the other hoof, were given everything you needed to survive, in the stable and out of it. Wanted to eat? Blackjack fed you. Got hurt? Glory healed you. Someone threatened you? Arloste popped them like a zit. You were given a PipBuck that could tell friend from foe and if water was contaminated. You wanted a father, and eventually you got that too. And after Blackjack bought it, you were still taken care of, because you were the companion of Blackjack that didn’t die. Maybe not a celebrity, but it’s not like you were digging through trash bins for your next meal. Heck, you were given Star House, weren’t you?”

“Yeah, my life is so blessed, I’ve got a zebra pirate out to kill me!” Scotch snapped.

“Which you didn’t earn either,” Charity said as the lock popped open and she opened the door a crack, peeked through the crack, then opened it all the way. “Jackpot,” she said as she looked into a utility storage room. As she walked in she added, “Or did you go out of your way to piss him off? Were you trying to rid the world of pirates or something?”

“Her, and no. I guess there’s a stupid prophecy or something and I’m the one they have to kill, or something,” she said as she followed her in. The shelves were full of junk, but there were things here and there that would be useful. An unopened tube of Wonderglue, which was virtually identical to the pony version, just with Zebra glyphs on the container rather than Pony letters. Abronco cleanser, an oil can, two rolls of duct tape, some power relay coils, and light bulbs lay amid larger mechanical pieces for the factory equipment behind them.

“So even your enemies were given to you. Actually, from what I understand it, this entire quest you’re on… the whole eye of the world thing… was given to you as well by Pythia. And everything from then to now has just been people helping you along. Sure, you’ve hit some snags along the way, but when was the last time you really had to work for something?” she said, carefully levitating each of the items into her saddlebag. “I might not have liked Blackjack, but at least she worked her ass off. Your whole life has just been being carried along by others. Even now. Need a protector? Have a griffon. Need to know the future? Have a seer.” She bristled, eyes narrowing as she pointed her horn at Scotch. “Do you know what I could have accomplished if I had half your assets and resources? I’d be Queen Charity, and I would have earned it.”

Denial was her only refuge, even as her words burned her insides like she’d swallowed the Abronco cleanser. She refused to cry. “I do not have everything just handed to me,” she countered.

“Not from me. I guarantee it,” she said as she walked over to a workbench in the corner and stripped it of the tools set on the walls. Scotch extended her hoof towards an adjustable wrench, and Charity smacked her leg. “When you pick the lock, you get first pick of the loot,” she said as she took the wrench with her magic, and then the rest of the tools.

“I could have picked it. You just picked it first,” Scotch sputtered as Charity strode out, then broke into a fit of coughing. “Everything’s not just handed to me,” she retched between spasms.

But was it? Her dad and Blackjack. Glory. Rampage. Thrush and the Atoli Captain. Granny. Galen. Even Vega and Vicious. She had a long list of people who, for one reason or another, had helped her along. Even right now, she had four people helping her. She was the one who was sick. The one who was trouble. If she left, it would be a whole lot easier for Pythia and the others to find the Eye of the World. It wasn’t her quest, after all.

She sat down hard, her chest throbbing as she grit her teeth. Charity was wrong. She had to be.

Maybe she had it better in the stable than Charity out in the Wasteland, but that hadn’t been her fault. Maybe she had just been Blackjack’s tagalong filly. It hadn’t been like Blackjack needed her except towards the end. She could have just gone back to 99, if she could have found some way to get the stench of chlorine out of her head. Back to the room she’d shared with Mom before she’d died. She bowed her head as she sniffed.

Had she done anything of value with her life at all?

Rice River. As messy as it had been, that was the first time she’d done something on her own. They’d paid off Galen’s debt. She’d worked for Xarius. Fixed the talisman at Carnico. Foiled a mass murder scheme. She took a deep breath, coughed hard, and took a shallower one. She might have had help, but that was something she’d accomplished. She gave a nod, opening her eyes, ready to go tell Charity exactly that!

Red bar.

She turned her head, trying to locate it, but there was nothing there but wall. Slowly she moved back, and the bar quickly began to move as well. She froze. The bar froze. She moved. It moved. Fast. She called over her shoulder as loud as she dared, keeping her eyes on the bar on her E.F.S., “Charity. Trouble.”

The filly immediately lifted a wrench with her telekinesis, her gold eyes scanning the factory floor. “Where is it?” she asked, “What is it?”

“I don’t know,” Scotch said as she kept a hoof pointed towards the bar. It was now moving again, and Scotch heard a little whirr. Where was it? Was it invisible? “It’s moving,” she breathed.

“So it might be stalking us,” Charity muttered. “Great.” And she continued ahead into another section of the factory. Huge equipment stood silently, their tops lost in the gloom. The floor was covered in a orangey-red, rusty crust. The bottoms of the machines had rusted out completely, and dripped yellowish red tapers like tallow candles. Still, the air was clear.

“You’re still going? We should find the others,” Scotch said.

“Just keep an eye out for that red bar,” Charity replied. “First aid kit. Perfect,” she said as she trotted over to where one was mounted on the wall. She didn’t open it right away, instead examining it from three sides before pressing herself against a wall and flipping it open. She caught Scotch staring at her. “Some people put mines in these things.”

“How’d you know it was a first aid, kit?” Scotch asked. “Did you learn to read Zebra?” Scotch wasn’t sure she could read ‘first aid kit’.

“Why else would you put a white, enameled box all by itself at head height? It’s a factory. People are going to have accidents,” she said as she peered around the dim space. “Unless you believe all the pre-war propaganda of zebras taking all the ponies’ property and working people to death on conveyor belts.” She cleared out the healing potions within. “I love no Enervation,” she murmured, levitating out the bottles inside and stowing them in her saddle bags. She didn’t close the box, leaving it open.

“How’d you learn all this stuff?”

Charity stared at her a moment, eyes flat, before she continued down the wall, slipping quietly between the ruined machinery. “There’s a mare named Bottlecap. She had them. They were just in a box in an office, all about rich ponies before the war and the big business ponies. Priest taught me how to read off those magazines.” She passed by a work table that had partially assembled pieces of equipment, and carefully hoisted each one, as if trying to calculate their value per kilogram.

“So you want to be rich?” Scotch asked, feeling like it was a stupid question. Didn’t everypony?

“I want to be self-sufficient,” was the reply. “I hate charity. Oh, it’s better than a kick in the teeth. It keeps some people alive, but it doesn’t do anything to make a pony able to take care of themselves. Above all, that’s what I wanted for the Crusaders: us taking care of ourselves without needing handouts.”

“And you want the same for us now?” Scotch asked. “I thought you were all about going home.”

“I am, but whining, threatening, and reason didn’t work. I’m stuck on this ride, so I may as well live through it,” Charity said, and then her eyes lit up. “There it is!” she blurted, and rushed ahead towards a door with a large lightning bolt on it, followed by a pair of small glyphs reading ‘Electrical Room’. She checked the door and pushed it open, exposing a dark room that reeked of acid and ozone. Charity’s horn illuminated a space with rusting electrical equipment. Old batteries leaked fluid, rivulets of corrosion streaking down their sides. Yet some seemed intact. More amazing for Scotch was that some of the indicator lights were still on!

Zebras knew their batteries. When she inspected it, her PipBuck started to click, so Scotch didn’t linger too long. Magic? Spirits? Something else? Who knew? There was no hum. The generators appeared dead and she doubted they were coming to life soon. Still, she remembered the swamp. “Don’t turn on the power.”

“I’m not turning on the power. What kind of moron would do that? I’m just after the fuel,” Charity said as she trotted around the banks of batteries to a huge hopper built into the wall, rising thirty or forty feet to the ceiling. She levitated up her wrench and undid some nuts on a hatch. A bang, and black coal began to trickle out. “Go get a bag or a box or something,” she said with excitement, rubbing the hopper. “Oh, if this was back in Equestria, I’d be rolling in the caps. A hundred pounds to Stalliongrad, traded for vodka sold in Tenpony for medicine sold to those Follower nuts.”

Scotch rolled her eyes but stepped out to the production floor and found a plastic bin, tapped out the contents, and returned. “If she’s gonna treat me like her employee, she’d better pay me like one,” she muttered, returning. “Here’s your–” The power room was dark, no sign of her magic. A steady stream of coal hissed softly from the opened panel.

Oh crap. She swung the light of her PipBuck in every corner of the dark room, but there was nothing but a single door rusted shut. There wasn’t even a mark in the grime of the floor that betrayed where she could have gone. Only one trail leading from the hopper to the door. Her spine prickled as she started back towards packaging. There were a number of yellow bars on her E.F.S., but which was was hers? If she could find Pythia…

“Hey, Scotch! Come and see this,” called out Majina above, making Scotch jump in her tracks and cover her racing heart. Then she blinked and hissed out in the loudest stage whisper in the zebralands, “It’s so cool!”

She found some metal stairs leading up to the second floor, and followed her into some offices. “What did you find? Medicine? Weapons?” Then she frowned. “Where’s Skylord?”

“He’s right outside in the hall,” she said as they walked through dusty cubicles. An emergency light over the door gave weak illumination to the offices. It looked as if everyone had packed up and never come back for the next shift. Scotch’s engineer’s eyes noted a curious metal strip along the ceiling. Decoration, or something else? “He found a spot outside where someone was fighting a million years ago and was more interested in that than…” she paused and rounded a corner. “This!” she said, gesturing at the wall.

At a poster.

The poster was three feet by four, and showed a number of zebras all posed dramatically at the scene of some battle against a horde of faceless red, brown, blue, and purple ponies. A half dozen zebras faced off against the mass, with the silhouette of a maniacally grinning, scarred Rainbow Dash in the upper left, and a giant, helmeted red stallion beneath hers which she guessed was Big Macintosh… he was red, right? In the upper right was a regal looking zebra in a crown surrounded by a golden corona that oozed gravitas, as if he was the sun itself driving away the darkness. Scotch narrowed her eyes and, sure enough, there was a shadowy alicorn head behind the maniacal Dash.

Of the six figures, one was all muscle and stoic determination, his eyes locked with the glowing green slits in ‘Big Macintosh’s’ helmet as he flexed dramatically before the horde. Right behind him was a mare with broad Roamani stripes, her eyes glowing with blue light. “See it?” Majina asked with a grin. Scotch pursed her lips, trying to figure out what she referred to. The third was a thin zebra with a rifle clasped between his hooves, pointing it at the mob and grinning a carefree smirk. A very handsome zebra stallion seemed to be winking at the viewer as he held a shotgun by the barrel, the stock hidden somewhere about his haunches. A stallion wearing some kind of goggles was directing strange ball shaped robots with beam guns at the pony horde in the background. And then in the back…

“No way,” Scotch breathed as she stared at the zebra in the back, a mare with bright red stripes.

“Yes way. She looks exactly like Pythia, doesn’t she?” Majina said, dancing on her hooves. An older, more mature Pythia, definitely. One that had the crimson stripes of a Proditor.

“Who are they?”

“Uh, hello? The Magnificent Twelve!” Majina said with a scoff.

Scotch blinked. “The Magnificent Twelve? But there’s only six.”

“Well, duh. That’s only half the team! I mean, it’d really crowd the picture if they showed all twelve all the time.” Scotch just stared at her as she stated this matter-of-factly and she huffed, “We were in Rice River for a year and you never watched the show?”

“Uh, no offense, but I kinda got bored of all the sex, you know?” Scotch said as she stared at the poster, wondering what the big deal was.

“There were other shows than the sex ones,” Majina insisted. “The Magnificent Twelve were zebra heroes through the war. See?” She pointed at glyphs on the periphery. “They fight for the people,” she said as she pointed at the left side, and then on the right. “They fight for you.”

“And this was a television show?” Scotch asked with a frown.

“No. Well yes. There was a television show based on them, but they were real too,” Majina said. “Anyway, doesn’t she look just like Pythia?”

Scotch sighed, about to dismiss it as a coincidence, but then she paused. The zebra mare had the same yellow eyes, short, chopped mane, and the Starkatteri marks on her face. The more she stared, the more she realized they weren’t just Starkatteri marks. They were the same. She even wore a cloak. The only difference was she had a sword clenched in her jaw, she was a few years older and her stripes were bright red. Otherwise… “It really does,” she admitted. “Anyway, look... I was away from Charity for a second and something in here–”

Suddenly, from somewhere in the factory, came a long peal of gunfire. It echoed sharply in the corridors, and then, just as quickly, went silent. Scotch felt a momentary stab in her gut, telling her to go hide under a desk or something, but she couldn’t. Mentally kicking herself, she darted to the door and stuck her head out. There was the red bar, but she couldn’t see anything in the hallway. The reek of cordite filled the air, the smoke still lingering. Somewhere, she heard the faint whirr.

“We need to find the others,” she muttered as she turned back into the office. “Majina?”

Nothing.

Scotch spun around, seeing a second red bar moving in her vision. But where? Her eyes turned this way and that as she tried to stay perfectly still. Then, an instinctive sense told her to move, and she was running, racing back the way she came. Somewhere behind her she could hear the soft whirring noise. Something was in here. After her!

Unfortunately, she didn’t make it to packaging before she collapsed, coughing and wheezing as she lay on the filthy floor. She turned to look behind her at whatever monster was picking off her friends and…

Nothing.

Lying in the cavernous processing space, her chest burning, she could hear whirring echoing in the dark. She forced herself to her hooves and staggered towards the door to processing. Any second, whatever had gotten the others would get her too. She could hear it somewhere behind her, and resisted the urge to look back.

Then the doors to packaging burst open and there were Pythia and Precious. “What’s going on? Who’s shooting?” Precious asked as Scotch collapsed, her chest on fire as she struggled to tell them about the others. Precious carried a large sack on her back that clunked together as she moved.

Pythia’s eyes glazed over. “Uh oh…” she murmured. “We’re in trouble.”

“We need… to find… others…” Scotch gasped.

“You need to breathe. Honestly, we’re not paying for more healing,” Precious said as she set down the bag. “We found the cafeteria. Snagged a few cans. Now who was shooting? Was it Skylord?”

“Shadows in the future. Come on… think. What is it?” Pythia said as she turned her head. “I am not starving to death in a pit,” she said as her glazed eyes gazed at things Scotch couldn’t imagine. “What is it? What gets me?” she demanded. “Are you telling me I never see it coming? Not in any future?” She hissed in annoyance.

“Is she actually talking to anyone?” Precious asked as she looked at the zebra.

“I dunno,” Scotch panted, her chest throbbing. “We have to find the others.”

“They’re in a room full of dead things. Trapped. We’ll all starve there,” Pythia said, staring straight ahead. “If we flee right now… but you won’t. Damn it. If I go alone… they get me. Damn it!” she hissed. “The future’s walling us in. There’s this great big shadow and it’s getting bigger.” She started to breathe fast as well. “There’s no way out for me,” she said as her eyes widened.

“Okay, enough future,” Precious said, reaching out to smack her head. Of course, Pythia evaded, but it made her eyes focus on the dragonfilly.

“You don’t understand. We’re in great danger. Whatever it is, it gets us. All three of us. We starve to death in a metal room, or you eat us,” she said, glaring at Precious and wiping off the dragonfilly’s smirk. “If we leave right now, we get out…”

“But I’m not leaving our friends to die in a metal room,” Scotch Tape pointed out. On her E.F.S. she could see three yellow bars together, and guessed that must be the direction of the room, but which floor?

Pythia took a deep breath. “Okay. Then there’s one future where you save us. I can barely see it though, but you save us, Scotch. You open the door. I can’t see past that though.” She exhaled softly through her teeth. “You say… I think… ‘I had to come back.’”

“You know, this whole seeing the future thing of yours is really over rated,” Precious commented.

“Shut up!” Pythia snapped at her. “If I were just doing it for myself…” She cut off, her face twisted. “It was so much easier when the future was just a puzzle I was working out. When the others protected me. Now everything’s all twisted up and the future is full of shadows, smoke, and really nasty death.” She turned away. “But it’s all I have. Without my sight, I have nothing.”

“That’s not true, Pythia,” Scotch said softly, the ache in her chest relenting a little. “You have us.”

“You?” Pythia started to say scornfully, her yellow eyes flashing with another cutting remark. Then her expression softened, her eyes sliding down to the floor and she didn’t say any more.

Precious shook her head. “Anyway, what should we do?” she asked Scotch. For a moment, Scotch just blinked back at her, before realizing that she was in charge.

Scotch pointed her hoof in the direction of the yellow bars. “They’re alive that way. We can go back where Majina and Skylord were taken and see if we can find where they were taken to.” It didn’t hurt that it was the same direction as the bars. The red ones were still moving, but she couldn’t hear that strange whirring noise. “Besides, I want to show you something, Pythia.”

Pythia didn’t answer, just grunting softly as she kept her eyes unfocused, looking at futures again, muttering about being caught if she ran, if she hid, or if she fought, and not even seeing whatever it was that would catch her. They walked back through the office, this time with her eyes ready for any trouble. Again, she saw that metal strip in the ceiling and wondered what it was for. It led to a large round vent hole, the cover of which was missing. Scotch stared up at it for several seconds, feeling her mane prickle in apprehension. Was something up there?

“This is where Majina disappeared?” Precious asked.

“Yeah. She didn’t make a noise. There was shooting and I went out to see, but Skylord was gone too,” she said, and then paused. “Oh, you should look at that poster over there, Pythia. Majina said one of the characters looks like you.” She’d hoped that a little levity would cut the tension coursing through her. The filly stared at the poster and sat down, studying it.

Scotch thought she’d take a second or two, to give it her usual disdainful snort, but something in the poster seemed to captivate her, her hood falling back as she stared at an older, Proditor version of herself. Precious kept looking around, her brows furrowed. “Yeah, yeah. That one looks just like you with red stripes. Can we go?”

“Pythia?” Scotch asked as she leaned in towards the zebra, who was making strange noises in the back of her throat. A strangled sort of mewling noise that she’d never heard her make before. Scotch reached out a hoof and touched the zebra filly, only to find her shaking. “Pythia!” she said in alarm, realizing the mewling noise was Pythia too terrified to scream.

Precious let out a roar behind her, and Scotch turned to see her being pulled into the hole in the ceiling. The dragonfilly’s head and forelegs dangled out the hole, claws scraping at the metal edges as she snarled in pain. “It’s got me!” she cried out, and Scotch tried to jump up and catch one of her legs. There was a crackle, and the dragonfilly screamed as she tried to catch the edge of the vent, but the rounded, smooth edge offered nothing, and as Scotch sat there, her friend was yanked into the opening, disappearing. A second later there came a roar, a green flash of flame, and then… silence.

She whirled to Pythia, grabbing her and giving her a shake. “We have to run!” she shouted. She could hear the whirring again. Whatever it was, it was coming back for them! Pythia didn’t answer. She hadn’t even looked over as Precious had been taken away. Scotch did the only thing she could. She picked up Pythia and hauled her out of the office space, earth pony style. The whirring noise drew closer, and as they got out to the production floor, she saw a red bar in the direction of the exit.

So Scotch went in the opposite direction, past the production floor into the next room.

That was as far as she could before her chest gave out. She collapsed on the concrete floor, struggling to breathe, the whirring receding for some inexplicable reason. Still she was glad for the breather, the cold concrete soothing her as she stared at the ceiling far above.

They were in some kind of warehouse, with huge sacks piled four or five high on pallets. Some had split open, scattering dry kernels of corn across the floor. Water had caused several to become bloated and blackened with mold. She coughed, struggling to shake Pythia out of whatever attack she was suffering. They’d come to rest under one of the few lights that provided emergency illumination to the warehouse.

Instead, all she got was her repeating, “…as I am as I was as I will be as I am as I was as I will be as I am as I was as I will be…” in a strained whispered over and over again. Her eyes were wide, but her pupils had contracted to pin pricks.

“Pythia!” Scotch snapped, shaking her hard, then breaking into ragged coughs. “Pythia, I need you… I…”

Her ears prickled as the noise of whirring grew. She couldn’t carry her any further. Couldn’t run. Whatever was after them had picked off both Skylord and Precious. Pythia was broken. They are going to take us and we are going to die alone in a metal room.

“Leave me,” Pythia whispered softly.

Scotch turned to her at once. “What?”

“Let them take me,” Pythia breathed. “Then get away from here. Save yourself. You have a future if you go after I’m taken,” she said, her voice faint, as if in a daze.

Scotch couldn’t have said that. Not Pythia. “Pythia,” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

She just stared off into the darkness. “I’m walking. I can’t stop walking. And I see me walking in front of myself. I hear myself following myself. But is it myself, or myself am I?” she murmured, her eyes going wide, “Oh stars, who am I? Who am I?” She repeated the question again and again, tears streaking her cursed face.

It was crazy. Wrong. Stupid. “It was just a dumb poster!” she tried to insist, but Pythia didn’t respond, her eyes wide and staring at Goddesses new what. Could she leave her? Her last friend? But it was a choice between both of them getting caught, or just one. Scotch Tape backed away to a gap between the bags of corn that was just large enough to hold a filly. All she could hope was whatever was after them wouldn’t look here. She wasn’t abandoning her friends. She wasn’t. She’d see what was after them. Find a way… some way… any way…

From the light above dropped a single silvery cable. It curled this way and that, like a tentacle. Pythia sat there in the pool of wan light, murmuring her litany over and over again. The tendril touched her body, and there was an electrical crackle. Pythia’s body went rigid, then limp. In a flash, the tendril curled around Pythia’s foreleg and drew her slowly up into the air, before she left the cone of light and disappeared into the gloom.

Scotch sat there for several seconds, trembling as she tried to process what she’d seen. That tendril had looked mechanical. Maybe a security system of some kind, reacting to intruders. They’d been expecting turrets or blocky machines, but zebras had made robots far more sophisticated than simple clunky automatons or large weapons of war. This was a machine, but machines could be turned off. Their power could be cut.

But could she do it on her own?

Right now, she sat as if frozen in a bog, sinking slowly ever deeper, the water creeping towards her mouth. This was like back in the swamp, only this time no random stranger was coming to her rescue. She’d seen Precious pulled into the hole. She’d have to avoid those. How was it tracking her? Sound? Cameras? Scotch watched the red bars move, and then froze. What if they had some zebra form of an E.F.S. too? She wasn’t anywhere near sneaky enough to hide from something like that.

She thought of going to the power room, but remembered the hole that Charity had likely been taken through. She could try to find wherever they were controlled, probably some place marked ‘Security’. If not, the forezebra of the factory probably had a terminal in her office. But if she moved, they’d just catch her.

‘Get away from here,’ Pythia had told her. ‘I had to come back,’ she’d said she heard Scotch say.

How could she come back if she didn’t leave? Could she do that? Just leave?

She hadn’t taken any salvage yet. At the moment, all she was doing was trespassing. They’d want to capture her too, but maybe she could just walk out of here. Free. Then what? Go back to the Green Legion and hope she could find help? And if she couldn’t?

She heard the sound of whirring.

Scotch waited. If she could see what she was up against, maybe she’d know what she could do against it. The whirring stopped. She held her breath as she waited, her eyes straining in the dark. If that tendril touched her, she’d be electrocuted and done.

Then she spotted it slithering over the surface of the bags overhead. The articulated, shiny metal rasped ever so softly as it descended, wiggling this way and that as it tried to feel for her. She pulled further back into her crevice, pressing her belly against the floor as the barely visible, shiny tendril stretched for her. She could see it gleam inches from her nose, the tip smelling sharply of ozone.

Then it reversed, retracting back above. Slowly she moved forward again, and listened for the whirring. It was going to have to get closer. She stared at the bulging plastic sacks next to her, full with eight cubic meters of corn. Biting her lip, she rasped her hoof against it. It flaked away, and the seam popped, opening a few centimeters and spilling forth a few kernels. The one on her opposite side was just as fragile.

Then she spotted it. A… ball? Yes, a shiny, white metal ball about half a meter across. It was rolling slowly down a metal support beam and into the pool of light. When it reached it, the spherical shell popped open wide enough to expose the robot within. Its glassy cameras gleamed in the light as it slowly approached the gap Scotch occupied. The tendril snaked out from a spool at the bottom, reaching for her.

She took a deep breath and slashed at the plastic bags to either side of her. Once, they probably wouldn’t have been affected. Now, the ancient plastic split and at once Scotch was buried in a crushing, slithery, almost fluid press of dry corn kernels. The stream of corn did the rest, ripping the bag wide open, spilling out into the warehouse floor in a flood of yellow grain. She felt the pressure above her shift at once, and imagined the pallets stacked four high tumbling down into the warehouse, and onto the deadly little white ball.

Pushing as hard as she could upwards, her head broke the surface of the grain. Sure enough, two palettes above her lay at an angle, the rest spilling out in a fan. Scotch shoved her way free of the gap, tumbling out on the heap of spilled grain.

She got three steps before she heard the whirring noise. The slope of grain shifted away, exposing the little round robot as it furiously tried to roll its way out of the slippery grains. It stopped, popped its shell to focus on her, and let out a very unhappy little squark.

Oh horseapples.

She had to run, and took off back through the rusty production floor. Her chest burned as if somepony had stuck a knife in her. She heard the whirring behind her. Either the one she trapped had freed itself, or another had joined the chase. As she ran around some equipment, she dared a peek back.

Not another. Others. She counted at least four or five. The innocuous little spheres travelled on the floor, whirring around equipment to close the distance. She glanced above her and saw two that were stuck to the ceiling, rolling along metal rails overhead. She had to dart and weave around the most difficult terrain to force the spherical robots to get around. She burst into the packaging plant, struggling for breath, and spotted two rolling across the room towards her. With a desperate leap, she jumped onto one conveyor belt, scattering boxes and canisters of cornstarch all over. The spheres rolled underneath, slapping their electrified tendrils over the edge as they tried to catch her. All she could think of was to try and scatter as much debris as possible across the floor to slow the rolling machines.

The last dozen feet she half leapt and half collapsed through the door and into the open air. The door banged shut behind her as she collapsed on the concrete, next to the Whiskey Express. Then, every action focused on breathing, punctuated by coughing. Twice, she felt the world slipping away, but refused. Her friends were inside. They were trapped! She couldn’t just pass out, no matter how censured her lungs were.

Then an upside-down face entered her vision; a strange brown, flat face with dark eyes, an ugly slab of a nose, and a satisfied smirk. Something wet and rubbery curled its way around her throat and hauled her into the air, so she could see the brown equine lower half of Korgax. Thick, fleshy purple tentacles sprouted from his right shoulder, weaving into something that approximated an arm. “Well,” he rumbled, “After the year of hell you put me through, this is almost anticlimactic.” He pressed a pistol against the side of Scotch’s head. “Still, I’ll take it.”

Behind the Whiskey Express sat the larger steam tractor the trio travelled in. The gargoyle was digging through the trailer of the Whiskey Express while the dog was squatting in the razorgrass, appearing lost in profound thought. The centaur cocked the hammer back on the pistol, and all she could do was hang there and wheeze!

“Wait!” the gargoyle cried out, its little wings lifting the rotund body up and over to the pair. “Wait wait wait wait.”

Korgax hissed through his teeth. “What is it, Spurgle?”

“I’m having an idea. An brilliant, brilliant idea!” the green creature said as it clapped its hands together. “Riptide wants her dead, right?”

“Hence the bullet I’m putting in her head,” the centaur rumbled.

“But Haimon’s paying just as much for her alive!” the gargoyle said as he rubbed his hands together. “We can sell her to him. When he’s done with her, we take her back, then kill her, then sell her to Riptide! We can get paid twice for one mark!”

The hound rose from the grass, limply walking over to join them. “I like paid twice. It’s like getting paid… and getting paid.”

Korgax snorted, his eyes locked on Scotch’s. “Have you two forgotten the year of hell she’s put us through? Her friend took my arm.” Those tentacles tightened on her throat. “My arm!” he hissed.

“Come on, Korgie,” Spurgle whined. “We’ve been after this mark forever. We need to get as much out of her as we can.” He peered at the door they just emerged from. “Ooooh, we should find her friends! They may not be worth as much, but I bet we’ll find a use for them,” he said as he leered at her. “Maybe paid thrice?”

“I like paid thrice. It’s like getting paid and paid and… um… yeah,” the canine muttered, scratching his posterior. Then he raised a finger to his muzzle and sniffed deeply with a lazy grin.

“Are you two stupid?” Korgax demanded, and shook his head. “What am I saying, of course you are. We just had a payday land in our hands!” He waved Scotch at the pair, making her vision swim. “We’re putting a bullet in her, and taking her back to Riptide, and then we’re never taking a job on a pony again.”

Scotch took as deep a breath as she could. “I can make you rich,” she said as loudly as she could squeak through the tentacles’ choking grip.

Korgax tightened his grip, silencing her. “Oh no. None of those tricks. We’re taking the tractor anyway. For expenses. Like my arm!” he growled at her.

“Whoa!” Spurgle shouted, and the centaur’s eyes bulged. He pointed the pistol at the green scaled creature and pulled the trigger. Instantly, the gargoyle flashed to stone, and the bullet pinged off his face. He reverted just long enough to blurt, “I–” and returned to rock as a second shot hit his face. “Didn’t.” A third shot. “Mean!” Another stone shift. “To say!” Again. “Whoa!”

Korgax stopped firing, and growled at the cowering statue, “Never tell me ‘whoa’.” He stomped his hind leg and regarded Scotch dangling in his grasp. She was about to pass out and leave it all to chance when the hound monster put its hand on the mass of tentacles and squeezed them, making the centaur’s eyes bulge. “What’s wrong with you, Trog?”

Trog looked at her. “I wanna hear how she can make us rich.”

Spurgle reverted from his stony self, the divots in his face bleeding a little bit. “Ow! Right! We need to maximize our profits on this one, Korgie!” Korgax glared at him and the gargoyle shielded its face once more, “I didn’t say the word! I didn’t say it!”

Korgax quivered as he held her, then relaxed his grip enough for her to gasp in a breath. “Fine. But we’re giving her to Riptide, no matter what. Especially after all she put me through to catch her.”

Scotch coughed as she struggled to breathe and recover. The trio loomed over her and she took as deep a breath she could and wheezed, “I told you. I can make you rich. Super fucking rich. Richer than you even imagined.” The gargoyle’s leer seemed to draw back into a more contemplative expression as the hound scratched his rump, just as contemplatively.

The three blinked at her as she dangled there, silently processing what she’d just said or dumbfounded by it. “Ponyshit,” Korgax muttered, his reddish brown eyes narrowed as the centaur snorted.

“I’m not lying,” she wheezed. “I can make you richer than whatever Riptide and Haimon are paying you.”

“You’re telling me that a bunch of pony kids have that much money?” Korgax said and gave a deep chuckle. “No. You’re trying to play me. Like when we first met.”

“I’m not lying and I’m not playing. I can make all of you ridiculously wealthy,” she said, trying to keep the hysteria out of her voice.

Spurgle sneered, “Let me guess. All we have to do is let you go? Heh! I’m greedy, not stupid. He’s the stupid one,” he said, jabbing a green thumb over his shoulder at Trog, who nodded enthusiaticly.

“Not right away. You’ll let me and my friends go after we pay you. But first, you have to do a job for me,” she said, keeping her eyes on Korgax’s.

“Are bounties allowed to do that? I’m not sure that’s in the rule book,” Trog asked as he blinked owlishly at Korgax. Doubt played in Spurgle’s eyes too, as the gargoyle wrung its hands and licked its wide, thin lips.

“You’ve been a pain in my flank for a year. That bitch that protected you took my arm. You think you can pay us anything that’ll match it?” he challenged.

“If I’m right, you’ll not just be able to buy a real arm back from the Carnillians, but have plenty left over. But only if you help me, and then let us go. You don’t even have to tell Riptide or Haimon you found us. You can claim it’s all yours, and that you found it fair and square.”

“You’re trying to use us!” he roared. “Ponies! Zebras! That’s all you ever do! Pull our strings and make us dance however you want.”

“Yes, I’m trying to use you!” Scotch snapped as sharply as she could, hanging by her neck. “You’re big and strong and good at fighting, and that’s what I need. My friends are inside. You need to help me free them. Once they are, we’ll take our things and go and leave you with a mountain of wealth we can’t use, but you can.” She coughed, letting the centaur think that over. “I don’t know anything about you three, or what you are, and I don’t really care to. I just want to go on my way. Now you can help me and be rich, or haul me back to Haimon and get whatever he promised to pay. Your choice.”

“Korgax. You got to admit we’ve missed out a lot of jobs hunting her down. If stiffing Riptide makes us rich, I’m all for it. Filly wasn’t worth the hassle,” Spurgle said.

“She’s nicer than Haymoon and Rippertide was,” Trog added.

Korgax drew her face to his, till their noses almost touched. “If this is a scam... a trick... anything at all... I’m going to hunt you to the ends of the world. You hear me?” The tentacles slithered over herbody, as if threatening a far worse violation should she dare his ire again. She tried her best not to panic as they tightened on her limbs.

Scotch took a deep breath. “I swear. And you have to promise that after I pay you, you let us take our things, one cart of salvage, and go.” Charity would kill her if she didn’t add that.

The centaur considered her gravely. “The payout better be what you say it is,” he said as he carried her over to their larger tractor, removed two pairs of hoof cuffs, and locked her forehooves together, then her hind hooves. He tried the cuffs together with rope, the tentacles on his arm wiggling as they tied the knots. “What are those?” she asked.

“A piss poor substitute for a real arm,” he growled as he gave the cuffs a yank. “Something those hacks in the meat market were happy to slap on the stump after that bitch pony lopped it off. Whatever they are, they’re wired into my brain and I can hear them, constantly.” He jabbed her in the chest with a finger. “This payoff you’re promising better cover a real arm at least!” he snarled before slinging her across his shoulders. “Now what are we dealing with?”

Scotch described the spherical robots, and immediately got two startled look and one chuckle about ‘balls’. “Murderballs? You idiots went into a factory with murderballs? Are you nuts?” Spurgle asked.

“We didn’t know there were ‘murder balls.’ It’s not like there’s a sign or anything!” she objected. The gargoyle’s eyes bulged and he pointed a claw at a sign above the door they’d entered. The glyphs, as best as she could work out, read ‘sphere securities’. “Well... we didn’t know what that meant. Our griffon doesn’t salvage much.”

“Idiots,” Spurgle hissed through his teeth. “Murderballs are security robots and tons of bad news. They’re not just smart, they’re nasty too. I wish I had one as a pet!”

“No you don’t,” Korgax contradicted, grumbling as he started to load his pistol. “Murder balls are tough, and they behave like swarm predators. They need breaks to recharge though.”

“How do you stop them?” she asked.

“Like this,” Trog said and lifted one foot and slammed it into the ground. “That’s how you stomp!”

“You stop them by shooting them all, finding the control center, or cutting off their batteries at their recharge bin,” Korgax said as he started to fill magazines for his rifle. “We’ve had marks try to hide in ruins with the damned things.”

“I’m shocked they still have power,” she commented.

“Yeah. Zebras got these batteries with this weird, wickedly hot metal. You can’t stay too close to it or it’ll make you sick, then kill you,” he said as he then took out a jar of some sort of grease and began to wipe it over his arms and legs.

“What’s that for?” she asked.

“They like to grab arms and legs. If enough of them get a good grip, they’ll pull you right off your legs. Damned things can stick to metal too, and the shock can put me out if they hit me in the right places.” he said, then jerked a thumb at Trog. “With the exception of this moron. Nothing gets to his brain.”

“Nope!” the lumbering canine agreed happily.

“What is he?” she asked, and got a sharp look. “Sorry. I don’t know anything about monsters.”

“Big surprise there,” Spurgle sniffed, using a metal rasp to sharpen his claws.

“We used to have a kingdom here in the zebra lands,” Korgax said in a low rumble. “We were... okay... with the zebras. They didn’t like us. We didn’t like them. For the most part, we just ignored each other. Then your stupid, idiotic war broke out, and the Empire appropriated our lands. First a little. Then a little bit more. Then we snapped, and they put us down like monsters. All because they had to fight with ponies across the sea.”

Scotch laid her ears back. “It wasn’t the ponies’ fault the zebras hurt you,” she argued, then remembered that they could drop everything and go to Riptide.

“No?” Korgax snorted. “Tell me. Do you realize just how many people who had no clue what ponies were get fucked by your war? If you two just fucked over each other, fine. Your problem. But you two dragged all of us into it. I don’t know what ponies did to your own ‘non-ponies’ but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t pretty.”

Scotch opened her mouth to protest, and then closed it again. “No. We did pretty much the exact same thing,” she admitted, remembering Rover the sand dog. There’d been a minotaur too. And the griffons hadn’t been happy either. “Sorry bad things happened to you, but I didn’t do it. I wouldn’t have.”

“Sorry,” Korgax echoed scornfully. “Kids. It’ll take a lot more than sorry to make things right.” He removed his saddlebags and set her aside to put on a bandoleer, loading it with spare magazines, healing potions, and a few grenades. They looked more like pineapples than apples.

“Well, it’s all I can do. Honestly, I don’t know anything about monster-people,” she said as she tested the cuffs. No dice. They weren’t coming off without a key. “Are you all... like this?” she asked. “So different?”

“We’re about to go fight murder balls and she wants a history lesson?” Spurgle cackled, then started sharpening his fangs.

“She’s the first person I’ve heard ask for one,” Korgax said, peering down at her suspiciously. “A long, long time ago a creature called Chaos went stomping all over the world, like a black thunder cloud, and made all kinds of things like centaurs, minotaurs, gargoyles, and gnolls. Dozens. Hundreds. Some don’t look like much. Others are huge beasts, like chimeras. We’re all children of Chaos, though, which means we don’t kill our own... if we can help it.”

“I just... how is it you’re not extinct? It’s not like you can interbreed,” she said, and that got a laugh from all three, though a bit belated from Trog.

“Who says we can’t? If I find a nice centaur girl, sure. But a minotaur, sphynx, or even a gnoll bitch would be fine too. If I don’t mind sticking my dick in stupid,” Korgax chuckled.

“‘Cause they are stoooooopud!” Spurgle added.

“Yup,” agreed Torg.

“Course, no telling what the kid’ll be, but they’ll be a child of Chaos. Just like us,” he said as he checked the pistol and rifle. “Ready, you two?”

Spurgle set the file aside, leaned over, and bit the edge of the Whiskey Express’s trailer, taking a bite out of it! He spat the metal aside and grinned. “Ready!”

Trog furrowed his brows, lifted one leg with a look of extreme concentration, and let out a thunderous, wet fart. He relaxed with a grin. “Ready.”

With her slung across Korgax’s back like a sack of potatoes, she could barely see under his right arm. Trog went first, followed by Spurgle, and finally Korgax. The factory looked much as she’d left it, the boxes and containers of corn starch lying haphazardly all over the place. Korgax scanned the corners with his rifle. “Okay. They’re probably registering intruders,” he muttered.

“Anybody home!” bellowed Trog at the top of his lungs, his shout echoing through the factory.

“Kinda hard not to register that,” Spurgle hissed, rubbing a claw in an ear hole on the side of his head.

“Okay. Keep your eyes open for the scout,” Korgax said, his voice low and tense. “We need to find their security. See if we can get lucky and disconnect the power supply. Let them run down before they fix it. Otherwise, maybe we’ll get lucky and find a logged in terminal.”

“Upstairs, you think?” Spurgle hissed.

“Fifty-fifty. Might be in the basement too. Out of the way of production,” Korgax muttered.

Scotch spotted the red bar. “There it is,” she said. “That direction.”

“What direction?” Korgax demanded. She jabbed her snout off to their left. “Where?” he repeated, and she wrenched her neck, trying to poke her nose towards the bars.

“That way! And this would be a lot easier if I had a hoof free!” Scotch retorted.

“Not a chance! And how do you know?”

She wasn’t about to tell him about what her PipBuck could do. “Earth pony sense.”

“Spurg,” he muttered, and the gargoyle nodded, lifting himself into the air and flying up towards the ceiling. “Trog. Sing.”

Trog grinned quite happily and began to howl. It was the sort of singing that seemed to seek out every beautiful note, and then go out of its way to miss them. Scotch would have given anything to try and muffle it, but she couldn’t get her hooves up to her ears.

Spurgle darted up into a hole in the ceiling, scaly legs and tail flailing. Then he turned into the stone, and plunged out of the hole, dragging with it a sparking murderball that flailed at the gargoyle with its electrified tendril. Spurgle reverted to flesh long enough to spread his wings wide and flip in the air, positioning the sphere beneath him before returning to stone. Stony talons crushed the sphere flat against the ground.

“We got a second before it kicks out another one,” Korgax growled, then looked back at Scotch. “Tell us when you sense it,” he muttered, and then they were moving into production.

“My friends are that way,” she said, pointing her nose in the direction of the yellow bars on her E.F.S. Then another red bar appeared. “There’s one!” she shouted, jabbing her snout in that direction. This time, the half meter sphere was skulking along the floor, peeking at them from around the rusty pipes and machinery.

“Get the ball, Trog! Get the ball!” Spurgle cackled, and the lumbering gnoll blinked, spotted the white sphere, and loped after it on all fours. The sphere let out a squark of alarm, whirling away through the machinery, but the gnoll easily vaulted over pipes and rounded rusting machinery. It tried to run up a metal girder, but the huge hound monster leapt after it, hands and paws scrabbling on the girder, before snatching it in his jaws. He ran back, stopping every few seconds as an electric zap made him jerk.

He dropped it to the ground before them, the surface covered in drool. The little robot seemed to have drained its power supply trying to escape the canine. Finally, it gave a limp electric crackle and went dead. Trog picked it up, gave it a little shake, and then threw it across the room, where it shattered into pieces. “Stupid ball was broke.”

“How many are there?” Scotch asked.

“Dozens? Hundreds? Right now, they’re just scouting us. When they swarm, you’ll know it.” He grunted. “These are type ones. Cheap. Not surprised they grabbed a bunch of kids. Now if there’s buzzballs, things will get interesting.”

Buzzballs? “How many types are there?”

“Too many. They made big ones for outdoor use. Some are poisoned. Even ones that can cloak. The worst carry a balefire egg in them, but most of those are in military bases and the like,” Korgax answered. “If we can pick off the scouts, we’ll keep it guessing and we’ll shut it down.” He led them in the direction of her friends, into the second floor office space.

“More red balls! I mean, more coming!” she blurted out. “There’s a hole there!”

“I see it!” Korgax said, pulling out a grenade, yanking off the end, and tossing it into the space. There was an electric crackle, and some of the bars winked out. Two others came rolling out, and Korgax unloaded three rounds into each from his pistol. She didn’t know what kind of bullets he used, but they punched right through the shells and killed the machine inside.

They got into the hallway when she heard it. The entire factory began to hum like an enormous hive, the whirling echoing through the vast chambers. A sea of red bars surrounded them, and none of them needed Scotch to tell them that they were in trouble.

“Here they come,” Spurgle muttered, flexing his claws.

“Pony, your pay better be worth this!” he growled.

The murderballs swarmed in down the hall, some rolling along the floor, others dropping down from holes in the ceiling and rolling along the metal strip set in the ceiling. As they moved, some popped open their shells, and began to fire integrated pistols at the trio. Spurgle landed in the front, spreading his wings wide, absorbing the shots as Korgax drew his rifle and targeted these first with precise shooting from over the stone statue. “Watch our ass, pony!” he yelled as he exhausted the magazine and slapped in a fresh one. “Go play, Trog!”

Trog raced down the hall and launched himself into the flood, seeming like a child rolling about in a ball pit of doom. It was hard to tell which was deadlier, as the hound smashed and tore with foalish abandon as the spheres didn’t just try to electrocute him. Some had buzz saw blades, and others had thick metal spikes that they jabbed him with. Though they may as well have been pizza cutters and toothpicks for all they slowed him down.

Scotch saw one rolling up behind them, through the offices, and shouted, “Behind us.” The ball popped open and somehow launched itself at Korgax, a half dozen thick tendrils snaking out and coiling tight around his hind legs. A tendril curled tight around the centaur’s neck and shoulders, pulling tight.

Spurgle reverted to flesh. “I got it!” he snapped as the scaly form crawled under his stomping hooves, hooked his claws into the strangleball, and tore its casing off, before biting the metal to pieces. Korgax didn’t stop shooting, even as the tendrils cut off his air supply. When the robot was dismembered, Spurgle went through and slashed the cables around his throat. They parted, and ripped the centaur’s hide, earning the gargoyle a snort and glare. “You’re welcome!” the gargoyle sniffed.

Then a sphere broke away from the swarm on Trog, launching itself straight at the gargoyle. He caught it easily, but then the case popped open. Inside, a ring of nozzles pointed at his scaley face. “Oh–” he said before a cloud of white gas enveloped him. In an instant, Spurge was covered head to tail in a layer of shiny white ice.

“Damn it!” Korgax said as he maneuvered around the frozen Gargoyle. “We need to get to security and shut this down! It’s got to be close!”

“They’re pokey!” wailed Trog. “I don’t like pokeyballs!” shouted the hound, who sent a dozen flying with a swing of his arm.

“Keep smashing them,” the centaur directed, and then raced at the mob, leaping over the struggling gnoll. Some turned, training gun barrels or more tendrils at them. His pistol barked out again and again, blasting out the cameras in the murderous little robots.

Scotch spotted a glyph that she thought read ‘Sphere security’. “There! I think that’s the door!”

Korgax tried to open it, but it was locked. Smoothly, he reached into his bandoleer and pulled out a wad of something gray and rubbery, mashing it hard against the lock with all the force he could. When he pulled his hand back, a wire was connected to some kind of device... a detonator, she realized. He moved ten feet away, and then there was a loud pop. The lock and handle disappeared, and he kicked it open with a hind leg.

Inside the room was a large terminal opposite the door, on the left, a dozen clear glass tubes, and on the right, a half dozen of those large, strange batteries that made her PipBuck click. On some of the monitors were images of her friends in a metal chamber filled with dead and desiccated bodies. Precious was beating at a door with her claws.

Korgax rushed to the terminal. “Damn. Locked out. I don’t have time for this,” he said as he started to manipulate the keyboard.

Three spheres rolled in the doorway after them. “Behind you!” she shouted. One popped its shell and launched itself into the air with a pneumatic spike. It flipped in an arc, extending the spar of steel right at Korgax’s spine. The centaur kicked out an applebuck that would have done any earth pony proud, and knocked it away. The second opened its casing, revealing a buzz saw band that started to spin. It caught the floor with the whirling edge and flew at his chest. The blade dug in deeply, cutting through his bandoleer and the rope that lashed Scotch to his back. She tumbled to the floor and lay there a moment, stunned.

Then she saw the key to her hoofcuffs sticking out of a pocket in the bandoleer. She snapped it in her jaws and undid the cuff on one hoof.

And got a pistol in her face. Korgax struggled with the buzzball with his tentacles, trying to avoid the wildly gyrating blade, but his eyes and gun were on her. In them was a promise that he’d rather see them both dead than allow the chance of her escape.

“I’m not going to cheat you,” she said as loudly as she could, staring into his eyes, past that gun barrel that was centimeters from her forehead. “I promise.”

The third ball popped open, exposing a gun barrel that swung towards Scotch. This was it...

Korgax swung the gun over a put three rounds into the gunball’s optics before it could open fire. Blinded, it seemed to panic, spraying bullets wildly till its magazine ran dry.

“Get the terminal. Shut them down,” the bounty hunter panted, trying to shoot the buzzball... but his pistol was empty too. He hammered the shell ineffectively as it whirled. The spikeball was coming back too.

She threw herself on the terminal and tried to put together a glyph that would give her access. Without Pythia or Majina, she could only guess what it might be. There were a dozen she thought she might be able to make. ‘Potato.’ ‘Running’ ‘Sock’. None of those sounded very promising. She’d only have four tries.

The first she guessed, there was a squark and half of the squares blacked out. Then she paused. Were the non-blacked out ones right then? That narrowed her choices! Still, half of this was guessing. She manipulated the squares. ‘Hammer’? No. but now there were only three blacked out. She spun and rearranged those three. ‘Corncob’? All but one square was lit up. She turned the square. ‘Corn stalk?’ ‘Kettle corn’ ‘Corn something’? She only had one pick left before she was locked out.

“Ah, buck it,” she muttered, and picked corn something. The screen flashed white, and she got a menu. Fortunately, in a giant flashing red glyph, was ‘alert’. Underneath was ‘cancel’ or ‘alert authorities’. Underneath was ‘open detainment chamber.’ She paused.

She could let her friends out. Leave these three to deal with the murder balls. There was no guarantee that Korgax wouldn’t turn on her. Take the riches, and take the bounty too. If she let her friends out, they could run for the exit. The number of security robots had been thinned out. They could probably get away.

But... she’d given her word. Did that count for anything?

What would Blackj– no. What would Dad want?

She took a deep breath and hit ‘cancel.’

Instantly the balls snapped closed and rolled to the nearest metal strip. They rolled up into the ceiling, and a minute later dropped into the now depleted glass jars. Half their number still lay in busted heaps in the hallway. She opened the door to the detainment chamber a second later.

The door hissed open, and a dozen desiccated zebra bodies piled out, along with Precious. “No fighting!” Scotch snapped as the dragonfilly gave a long, low growl at the centaur. She went straight for the stricken Pythia, whose eyes were wide with shock.

“You came back,” she said lightly.

“Well, yeah,” Scotch muttered. “I had to come back,” she said as she gave a wan smile. Pythia stared and suddenly the filly was blushing. Pythia could blush! Scotch couldn’t help but giggle, “You okay?”

Pythia turned away. “I... for now... yeah,” she said quietly.

“Um, Scotch? There are three very unhappy bounty hunters here to see you!” yelled Majina from the security room. She turned and looked at the trio. Spurgle was shivering, with chunks of ice still stuck to his scales. Trog looked just tired as he licked the myriad little wounds poked into his hide. Korgax just stared, his face stoic, tentacle arm undulating.

“I got bullets, still,” Skylord growled. “If they try anything.”

“T-try it, ch-ch-chicken,” Spurgle said through clattering teeth.

“I like chicken. I’m hungry,” Trog rumbled.

“I think it’s time we settled things, Pony,” Korgax said, his voice low. “You owe us.”

“Scotch doesn’t owe you anything!” Majina challenged. “You’ve make her life a living hell, right, Scotch?” The filly beamed.

“Actually, I do. Come on,” she said evenly as they walked out.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” They stood in the grain warehouse, beside the heap of spilled corn that Scotch had wiggled out of. “You said you could pay us!” Korgax roared.

“This is pay!” Scotch countered. “Corn starch is made from corn, and corn you can eat. There’s thousands and thousands of starving Carnilians out there who’ll take this for money. Or if you don’t want to be bothered, you can sell the location to the Green Legion or Blood Legion or whatever legion.”

Charity rubbed her hooves. “Tell me you promised we could take some of this too. Then she blinked. “You did promise that, didn’t you?” She couldn’t nod quickly enough.

Korgax just looked at her thoughtfully now. There were dozens, maybe even hundreds, of enormous plastic sacks in this warehouse. One pallet would be a small fortune, and while some of them had spoiled, plenty hadn’t “There’s still the fact you cost me an arm. And a year’s frustration.”

Scotch took a deep breath. “Well, I’m sorry about the arm. I didn’t ask Vicious to cut it off,” she said evenly. “Maybe you can buy a less squirmy replacement? That’s up to you.”

Spurgle rubbed his frostbitten nose. “It’s not gold or bullets, but I guess it’s money. But what about Riptide or Haimon? They wanted us to catch her.”

“It’s a big Wasteland. You can just say you never found us,” Majina suggested.

“But our reputation!” Spurgle whined. “We’re Korgax, Spurgle, and Trog! Notorious bounty hunters extraordinaires! No one’s going to hire us if we can’t catch a half dozen kids!”

Trog scooped up a handful of corn and popped it in his mouth, masticating furiously. “Crunchy,” he said around a mouthful of corn meal.

Korgax just crossed his arms and tentacles, his eyes narrowed and mouth twisted. “Can’t say I’m happy with this. It’s not easy giving up a grudge. And centaurs... believe me... we can do grudges. Still, I reckon we’re square.”

Scotch relaxed.

“We’re rich! Rich!” Spurgle shouted, clapping his hands. Then the gargoyle launched himself on to the gnoll. “Hey! Stop eating our money! Stop!”

For the first time today, Scotch gave a laugh.

They spent the rest of the afternoon loading up one wagon worth of salvage from the factory. There wasn’t any way that they could haul more, and besides, soon as word got out the factory was relatively safe, it was going to be a magnet for hungry zebras. Maybe Charity could have sold off the grain, but Scotch’s heart wouldn’t have been in it. Charity picked only the choicest bits for the trip ahead, lamenting that she couldn’t talk Korgax out of their steam wagon. Majina had picked the poster for herself, but Pythia refused to look at it, let alone talk about it. Skylord found the supply of bullets for the gunballs, so he was happy.

As they readied to leave, Korgax approached her. “Been awhile since anyone gave me a fair deal, and lived up to it,” he rumbled. “Zebras. We’re just freaks and monsters to them.”

“Well, to be fair, you’re a pretty freaky monster to me too. But we both made out on this,” she said.

“Haimon’s still after you. Riptide too. You’re important to them.”

“Did they tell you why?” Scotch asked. “Did they say anything about a prophecy?”

Korgax snorted. “We’re monster freaks, remember? We don’t get the details. Still, I heard them arguing about you. You’re dangerous to them. They said something about you being marked by the stars, but I don’t think either of them agreed on what that meant.” He crossed his arms. “Zebras and their stupid superstitions. Still, they were planning on getting you in Irontown. Poison you or your friends. Ponynap you if they could.”

Scotch stared at him a moment, then smiled. “Thanks.”

He snorted. “Don’t know why I told you. Those two, they really want your head. Way worse than I did. I’m still not happy about this,” he grumbled.

“I know. But we’re square, right?” she asked again.

“We’re square. Now get out of here. I’m going to have to find a way to get one of those bags to the greens. We’ll do this careful and smart.” And with that, the centaur stalked away. Maybe it was just wishful thinking, but she liked to imagine he was smiling. Spurgle was just rubbing his hands through a sack of corn like it was gold, but Trog gave a lanky grin, waving with one hand.

“So…” Scotch rasped as they drove down the road, nudging Charity with a hoof. “How much of this is mine?”

“Excuse me?” Charity asked with a frown as she packed away the goods.

“For saving your life from the ball of death?” she asked. “I saved your life. It belongs to me now.” She coughed and rubbed her chest. “I think ten thousand bottlecap ‘save your life’ fee is fair.”

“I’ll deduct it from your bill,” Charity said as she dug through her bag.

“Yeah, you better…” Scotch Tape blinked. “Wait? Deduct? Bill? What bill? I don’t have a bill!”

“I wonder what this is worth,” Charity mused as she turned over a circuit board that Majina had found.

“You’re not charging me for something Blackjack did, are you?” Scotch asked, feeling more apprehensive by the second. She didn’t actually have something on Scotch, did she? “Charity!”

Author's Notes:

I'd like to thank everyone for reading this far in Homelands. I'm trying to become a lot more proactive in my writing. This chapter also went in some twists and turns, but hopefully Scotch will be back on the road again. We haven't seen the last of these three, though.

Huge thanks to Kkat for writing FoE, and huge thanks to Bronode, Heartshine, and Icy Shake for helping me edit and make it better. A plug to Heartshine's own story 'Speak', which you could count as on official sequel to Blackjack's story. Lots of talking and brain worky bits to it.

If you like my story, please consider supporting my writing on patreon. For just a dollar, you'll get access to everything I write and brain drippings too. Thanks!