As Hardcase coddled what was left of Violet’s body, I couldn’t feel the pain in my own anymore. He screamed so hard that the illusion that was Hardcase disappeared in a flash. What was left holding Violet, was a nearly all white, bug-like pony. His vibrant blue eyes streamed glowing tears down onto her body, and the tattered, broken wings on his back strained to convey his pain as he screamed out. Even seeing a display so raw as that, I still felt astoundingly distant. Like I existed outside the scope of everything around me. Not even when Hispano came down next to me, and tried to shake me out of the shock I felt.

I registered at some level that everything before me was indeed real and happening. But... I couldn’t even begin to focus. Other senses returned to me slowly, such as my hearing. Shouting and sporadic shooting had erupted from the Road Crew’s side of things, but it wasn’t directed at us. As I stared at Violet’s lifeless eyes, all that filled my mind was the twisted feeling of rage and regret. How could this have fucking happened?

Like it was guided by Celestia herself, my head turned toward the roadblock that had been set up to stop us. As I looked, I found many of the road crew firing wildly up at the armored cab of the large middle vehicle. The enormous gun strapped onto the arm of the monstrous machine in the center of the lineup sat smoldering, it’s barrel blasted like it had exploded when it fired on us. So… that thing had killed Violet?

Random shots sparked at the armored walkway entrance to the cab. The heavy plating that sat high up on that machine was a fortified perch on it’s own, but the plating was too thick for any of their guns to get through. After a moment, the form of a griffon peeked up over the edge and flinched back when a few shots came close. The enormous, oddly shaped gun that the griffon poked over now and again fired down in blasting barrages on the road crew workers.

To me, that gun was instantly recognizable, and the first hint of my mind regaining control of my facilities. The blood that ran down my head and clouded my eyes obscured my vision, but I didn’t need it to know that the griffon they were attacking was Galina. She had done this to Violet. This was her fault!

Hispano’s worried face popped up in front of mine momentarily, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying. Putting my forehoof down, I screamed out as it gave under my weight. Collapsing, I felt as Hispano shoved a glass bottle into my muzzle. The bitter health potion numbed my hatred, and did nothing but bring back the pain I should have been feeling already. Even as Buck approached and pulled off his medical bag, I kept my eyes locked on the one thing I needed to kill.

Screaming again, I pushed myself up to my hooves and straight into a hopping gallop. At some point, either in the attack or when I hit the ground, I’d lost my prosthetic, but that didn’t slow me down. While the health potion had brought back a lot of the pain, it hadn’t done anything for my bones. It had however healed my hooves enough that I could charge recklessly off toward Galina.

At this moment, nothing short of death itself could slow me down. I had one goal, one purpose from this moment on. I was going to kill Galina.

Spreading my wings, I felt the mountain breeze sweep up under them. I screamed as the pain from them became my whole world for a few moments. But in those moments, I had been brought up high above the Road Crew firing line. Galina looked up at me with a smile wider than the hole I was going to bore straight through her head. Spreading her own wings, she dove off the back of her armored firing platform, and shot straight down over the cliffside.

If she thought she was going to get away again, she was fucking wrong.

Folding my wings, I felt as Hispano’s talons barely missed getting a good hold on me. Instead, I ripped away from her and cut through the air after Galina. Flapping harder than I ever had before in my life, I aimed myself right over the concrete cliffside. I assumed that Hispano would follow me as best as she could, but like Violet once said, diving is what I was built for.

Galina had a hell of a head start on me as she raced downward, drifting dangerously close to the jagged rocky outcrops. I fell in line behind her, using her own slipstream to pick up even more speed, to the point that I don’t think I’d ever gone so fast in my entire life. But she couldn’t have counted on my speed as I started to catch up quickly. She cast one glance up over her shoulder and I could see the confusion on her stupid fucking face as I raced toward her.

She flared her wide, crimson colored wings, catching the thermals racing up the cliffside past us. Funny, with as big as she was, she came to a stop almost immediately. She tried to be tricky, drifting backward in a thinly veiled attempt to make me overshoot or pull off early. Hell, I watched as she frantically tried to ready her shotgun for when I would pass her up and play into her game.

But here’s the thing when you’re being chased by somepony whose friend you just murdered. I’m not looking to overshoot you. I’m looking to slam you against the fucking rocks, even if I end up going into them with you.

Galina’s realization of her miscalculation came a bit too late. She looked up again just as I plowed into her like a falling brick. We shared a pained scream as the full weight of me did indeed snap something inside her. However, it also snapped my shoulder and foreleg as they were both shoved back up against my face at the wrong angle.

The world started to spin as I kicked myself away from her. She screamed again as she slammed down against one of the jagged cliffside outcroppings. Thankfully, I only narrowly missed it as I spun away from the dangerous rocks. I twisted and torqued at my wings, crying out as I finally caught a bit of the updraft coming off the frozen lake that had gotten a lot closer than I’d have liked it to be. While the stiff wind way up there had dropped to just a slight breeze down here, it was still enough to pull me back into level flight about fifty feet or so above the lake.

A tortured scream echoed off the hills and through the forest that ringed most of the ice covered lake. I turned my head back, struggling to look back while trying to keep my broken foreleg from swinging under me too much. I only had a moment, but in that moment, I felt a wave of fear wash over me.

Like a crimson, white, and blue bolt, Galina launched herself from the rocky cliff and straight after me. I was far out of range of her shotgun, but she fired it off all the same. Sizzling pellets slammed into and skittered across the ice below me. Alright, she’s down but not out. I can fix that.

To try to keep my advantage, I pushed myself into a shallow dive. I just needed some time to come up with some sort of plan, even if it wouldn’t be the best, most well thought out plan in the history of planning. But hey, that’s how I’d done things so far, and as I’d been told too many times, I’m a survivor. Still, while my ‘advantage’ was there, it wouldn’t last long. I may have had more speed in a dive than she could have anticipated, in level flight I was damn sure that Galina could outpace me just on sheer brute wingpower.

The edge of the lake was fast approaching, and a stiff blast of wind curled toward me from under it. The frozen waterfall curled up into a sort of raised lip at the edge, and the stupidest idea struck me. Biting down on the bit in my muzzle, I pushed myself into a glide that put me sailing along just a dozen feet above the ice. Galina’s shots were becoming a bit slower paced. I’d thought maybe she was trying to conserve ammo, that is, until one of the shots whipped under me and struck the icy lip again.

However, I’d quickly approached the top bulge of the frozen waterfall, and moved to act.

I bit down on my grenade trigger and felt the snap of one of them release. The small grenade bounced and skidded along the ice, almost keeping pace with me before lodging itself up against the frozen lip of water at the edge. Tucking my wings, I pushed myself into another dive as I broke out over the sharp drop. It didn’t take much to keep myself aimed toward the lower frozen lake, but in just a few moments, I’d quickly distanced myself from the top of the waterfall. I listened as Galina’s wing beats broke out over the ice just behind me, and I smiled to myself.

The shattering Crack of the grenade drowned out Galina’s pained scream. The blast echoed across the mountains around us before another type of crack came from the ice itself. Thick reverberating snaps and thumps shook the air as the icy waterfall shattered and broke apart like shards of glass. Razor sharp chunks of ice began to rain down around me, plummeting past me as if they wanted to beat me to the bottom first. That… was something I hadn’t planned for!

Doing my best to pull up, I again found my help from the updraft much weaker than I’d have liked. Still, the speed it afforded me helped to pull me away from the many heavy and sharp bits of falling ice. Once again, I found myself traveling at high speed a dozen feet or so from pancaking down with only a moment’s worth of breathing room.

BLAM!

Another shotgun blast from Galina’s gun came down from almost above me. It slammed into the ice next to me, and forced me to bank hard left.

BOOM!

Again, she fired. This time, the shot went wide to my left, and forced me to correct once again. Shit! I can’t pull the same trick twice with my grenade! Come on Night, think! Think or you’re dead!

BANG!

Another shot clipped my wing, and I screamed out as it gave under my weight. I tried my best to curl myself up as I dropped down to the ice, but I was simply going too fast. My back came down hard onto the solid surface, and I screamed out as it felt like it ripped my fur and skin right off my back. The world went black and white as I began to tumble, and my breath was ripped out of me. I don’t know how long I skid and spun along the ice, I just prayed that I wouldn’t die. The world only returned when I found myself slamming into a large rock at what happened to be the lakeside beach.

With heavy beats of her wings, Galina came down out of the air onto the ice ten or so feet from me. She came down hard, with her leg giving out under her weight due to the thick, blood coated shard of ice currently stuck through it. She let out a piercing scream as she flopped down onto the ice, reaching out and scraping along it with one of her talons. Glaring at me, she only had her right eye and three quarters of her beak to her face. The rest of her head looked like a bloody pulpy mess, but she was still alive. Seriously? What the fuck was it going to take to put her down for good?

Her blue spotted white body was streaked with dozens of new, bleeding wounds. I hoped that at the very least, she’d bleed out from how bad they were. Knowing my luck though, even after everything I’d put her through, she’d probably just fucking walk it off. Dragging her other talon up from her side, she pulled her shotgun along the ice and pointed it right at me.

That was it then. This was where it all ended. But I wasn’t going to go down like that, not without at least taking her with me here and now. Chewing on the bit in my muzzle, I wrapped my tongue around the grenade trigger, and closed my eyes.

I didn’t want it to end this way. I loved Buck, I had hoped to spend so much more time with him and Hispano, along with the others… and with Violet. But the wasteland was a cruel place, and if this was the best death I’d get, I’d take my revenge on the one who killed my friend. Pulling hard, I yanked the trigger, and let out a sigh of relief.

The wire that ran along my saddle snapped with a loud twang, and whipped a bloody line across my side. It broke. In my greatest time of need, it failed to even pull the pin on either two of my remaining grenades.

“Are… are you fucking kidding me?” I sputtered out through the taste of copper in my muzzle. “That settles it, I’m fucking cursed.” I fucking deserved everything that’s ever happened to me.

“Looks like you are out of luck.” Galina grunted painfully, smiling across what was left of her beak before squeezing the trigger on her shotgun.

Click

The hammer of her shotgun fell on an empty chamber. The hollow sound didn’t do much, but it did wipe away her stupid fucking smile. As frustration took over her mangled face, something bubbled up inside me. I couldn’t fight it, and even though I knew I was going to die out here, I let the laughter overtake me.

This was such a stupid fucking way to die.

My laughter was stolen as the sky turned dark. Painfully, I turned my head up toward Drake Pass, finding that it was now so very far above us. A light brighter than Celestia’s glorious sun enveloped the entire mountainside. My mind struggled through the pain to figure out what it was, but I came to the realization that what I was watching could have only been the release of Hardcase’s grief as it rolled across the skies above us. The warmth that radiated off the wave of solar plasma felt good, filling the air over the frozen lakes with a sizzling and crackling steam.

I closed my eyes as I felt the heat take me away to a darker, better place where I could die in peace. My thoughts started to drift, and a numbness overtook my tired and worn out body. I was ready to just let go, and when the darkness took me, I didn’t even notice it.

But it was not, as I had predicted, the end of my journey.

“Wake up.”

Unlike Hispano's soft slap this morning, Galina wasn't so gentle. The impact of her talon across my face may have been what had woken me up, but the three gashes her sharp claws left reminded my body just what pain was. I opened my muzzle as my body locked up to scream, but instead I found something stiff shoved into my mouth. I nearly choked on the bitter and muddy stick that Galina forced down my throat as she towered over me.

“No screaming.” Galina grumbled as she ripped the stick from my muzzle. I gasped and coughed as I sucked in deep, pained breaths. Opening my eyes, I found Galina’s overbearing and ragged form glaring down at me. Fuck, she didn’t bleed out? Hell, I didn’t bleed out? “You will not give us away, not until I am finished with you.”

Looking around as best I could, it was dark where I was. Though, I could see vertical strips of light sitting all around us. The few moments I stared at it, it became apparent that we were in some sort of small wooden shack. With her own pained grunt, Galina took notice of my gaze and shoved her one eyed glare down into my vision.

“You may be wondering where you are, yes?” She smirked across what was left of her beak. “It is no matter to you now. You will be staying here for long enough for me to get what I want.”

“What do you want from me?” I forced myself to focus through talking. Hah, wasn’t that something. I actually had to try to speak for a change.

“For you to apologize.” Galina rose up, pressing her talons together before giving each of them a thick crack. “It was rude of you to show me up.” Show her up? How!? “For making me look like a fool in front of Prince Solomon. How can I be best bodyguard when you hurt my charge?” Wait, this was all about that!? So, her arranging this shit, killing Violet, that was all because I sucker kicked Solomon in the face? “And you need not worry. If you give me the apology that I want, I will go easy and consider not using my auto-talon or shotgun. Not yet, anyway.”

“You want a fucking…?” I tried to speak, but as soon as I did, Galina’s talons were wrapped around my neck. I whined and struggled against her, only to find that she’d tied my forehooves to the wall I’d been propped up against. Still, as I panicked, I wrenched my torn up and battered body against my bindings, which only made me want to cry out even more as my numerous injuries reminded me that they hadn’t all been taken care of.

“Apologize.” Galina growled, leaning closer as she squeezed me tighter.

“Sor-y!” I did my best to force the single gurgling word through my muzzle as the lack of air was making my vision go fuzzy. Tears streamed down my bloody cheeks as I just wanted this all to stop. However, that must have been good enough for her, because she released my neck and stood up. I gave another heaving gasp as my lungs burned in my chest. My racing heart hammered at my broken ribs, and my vision continued to fuzz in and out in the one moment of rest I had.

“Dah. Was that so hard?” Galina spoke in a softer, almost caring voice that sent my mind reeling in panic. No, she’d never use that sort of tone, unless… “Now that we are past our previous incident,” She cut off my thoughts as I felt her talons reach down around my hind leg. “Now it is time I break your spirit.”

I nearly screamed again as she lifted my leg up slightly, pulling and twisting at the various cuts and injuries all over me. I tried, I really did try to shake her off, but I just couldn’t fight her grip. Of course, my vision came back as I watched in horror while she positioned one of her legs right up against my hock, using her talons to force my hoof to extend itself to it’s furthest.

“Okay, take a deep breath.” She spoke slowly, using that same caring voice as her cracked beak pulled back wider than I’d ever seen it. I didn’t even get a chance to follow her advice before she kicked her leg down, and at the same time pulled up on my hoof.

I let out a piercing, full bodied scream that tore at my throat. I could feel the crack, wretched at the sound of my leg bone breaking, and I think I blacked out. I had to force my teary eyes open again as I lay there slumped and shaking against the wall.

“Please…” It hurt to speak. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to exist. More than anything, I just wanted it to end. “No more.” After thirty seconds of painful whining, I’d become nothing more than a broken, quivering mess of a crying stallion.

“The time for begging is over.” She cooed coldly as her talons gripped around my muzzle and held it shut. Moving her hindpaw up, she placed it against my chest. “Scream out like a tiny filly again, and I will rip out your throat. Understand me, little stallion?” I was already biting my bleeding tongue to keep myself from screaming again from the weight of her paw. Still, a frantic nodding seemed to be what she’d wanted from me, as she softened her glare. The claws on her hindpaw sunk in, and slowly she dragged it down my barrel.

I tried again, but I screamed through my clamped muzzle. My wrenching and kicking from the pain only made my broken leg twist and flared the pain in my mind. Again the world grew dark as my body coped with the pain by forcing me to pass out. However, I didn’t need help coming to a third time. I felt a sharp pressure against the left side of my head. It was unlike anything I’d felt before, and I was sure she was trying to force her talons straight through my skull.

“As the saying goes, it’s only a fair trade. Yes?” Galina grunted as my head felt like it was being torn apart. Her yanks spiked the pain to levels I couldn’t begin to describe, and each movement was met with scraping, squelchy noises that nopony should ever hear from inside their own head. Still, I screamed against her tightly gripping talon and prayed to Celestia for me to finally just die. “Almost…” She muttered. I felt her grip loosen around my muzzle only slightly before one last yank made me pass out. Miraculously, the pain dimmed inside my head. Not much, but it was better than nothing.

Panting as my heart raced in my chest, I could feel the warm blood dripping down all over me, mixing with the tears running down my cheeks. From the pain in the left side of my head, and from the fact that I couldn't even see out of my eye when I forced it open, I’d begun to realize what she’d just done.

There was no strength left in me to scream anymore. The pain that wracked my body was so intense that I’d actually started to feel numb and cold. So I simply cried. It wasn’t just because of the pain either, it was because I was utterly broken. I had watched one of my first friends die today, and right now, all I wanted to do was be dead along side her.

“How rude of me. That looks like it is very painful, yes.” Galina’s voice sounded like it was coming from far away. Maybe… maybe it was. Perhaps I wasn’t here right now, and this was all actually a dream? Trying to focus the one eye I still had left, I watched through a haze of bloody tears as Galina turned to a bag and pulled out a glowing purple bottle. It was a mistake to look at it at all.

Hope hit me hard, overriding the pain as I gazed at my salvation in her talon. That must have been exactly the expression she was looking for. Holding it out to me, she used her talon to pop the cork.

“Here, let me help.” Slowly, she twisted her talon, dumping the precious healing liquid inside straight onto the muddy floor. When she turned it upright again, there was only a thin pool of the magical purple liquid left inside. “Oops. My mistake.” Stepping over to me, she brought the mostly empty bottle up in her talon and looked between it and me. “Here, maybe you can still get some out from the bottom?”

I tried to pull back from her, but my head only pressed up against the old shack wall. Her talon reached up and grabbed around my muzzle again, clamping it shut as she maneuvered the bottle against my head. I cried out again as the large bottle would have always been too big to fit, but Galina was intent on making it.

“Just needs a little stalliongradian encouragement…” She remarked in a stiff, guttural tone. As she squeezed it tighter in her grip, I could hear the old glass bottle starting to crack. With a startling pop that forced the air from my lungs, the glass bottle shattered and littered my empty eye socket with it’s shards. Her talon left my muzzle as I let out a breathless scream, and wrapped itself around my throat again.

"Too bad your dog is not here to save you. I would hope he would break down to see you like this, yes. Broken and whimpering like a little bitch. Put into your place in the dirt where you ponies belong." Letting go of my throat with her talon, she reached over and slid on her auto talon. "Ponies as weak as you in the wasteland sicken me." She gripped the weapon tightly, bringing it up to my neck. The sharp, curved blades of the motorized gauntlet seemed incredibly well shaped to follow the curve of a pony's neck. Part of it's intended use if I had to say something, seeing as I'd already discovered how well it worked back in Carmacks.

"You know, I have flown so far to get to you. It would really be a pain to carry you all the way back..." Her talon tensed around the gauntlet, and I closed my one good eye in prayer. "Maybe I'll just settle for taking back your head..."

Her words slipped away as the world grew dark once more. I was done trying to stay awake, or alive. All I wanted to do now was die so that I could finally be at peace.

Knowing how my curse had tortured me so far, I knew I could never be so lucky.

I was falling in the darkness. I didn't know where, and I didn't know why. However, the sensation was far too familiar to me to have been anything else, and that was all that I knew.

Opening my only eye, the vast northern forests stretched out under me as the muffled grunts of Galina carrying me met my ears. I was being taken... why? Why didn’t she just kill me? Before I could ponder anything else, I felt myself dragged back into unconsciousness.

Once more I was falling in darkness, but... not complete darkness. Around me, the night skies were speckled with the thousands of twinkling stars. The full moon hung above me, almost watching down upon me as I fell silently. The air under me grew thick, and a wispy pegasus shaped cloud passed by me on my right.

Again, I opened my only eye to the waking world. This time, the light of a small campfire met me. I tried to hang on to the fleeting sensations of warmth it gave, but the cold numbness I’d begun to know crept back in too quickly. As much as I fought to stay awake, again I found myself forced into a deep slumber.

Every time I opened my eyes, a new location greeted me. Every time I closed them, I felt myself falling again and again and again.

The universe that I fell through was dark, and kept in a blissful perfect silence. The starry, nebula filled skies that surrounded me brought color to the darkness, shifting their hues as I drifted ever downward. The moonlit pegasi shaped clouds that crowded the space around me, traveled so free and unrestricted through the skies. Unknowing or caring of the inexorable pull to the ground that never ceased to drag me down. Even the mare in the moon herself watched over me as she hung in the sky. Why was it that she was simply there? Was she waiting? Was she only observing my fall, to see what reason I could possibly have for disturbing this perfectly peaceful scene?

Opening my eyes again, a town sat before me. Not a big one, or a nice looking one. Two strips of ramshackle huts hugged the two lane road that ran down the middle of it. Several inquisitive ponies stared at me as Galina carried me through, but that’s again when everything went dark.

Again, I was falling. Was it just my place in life to fall forever? Would I never find something to grasp on to? How long could I continue to fail, to lose everything I cared about before I hit rock bottom? Was there even a bottom at all to hit?

At last, a single sound met my ears. The flutter of wings that I knew so well, but would never hear again. As I passed through a cloud, Violet fell through it beside me. It wasn’t the Violet who’d been lying dead on the pavement next to me at Drake Pass, or the Violet the Dashite I’d run into on the Empirica. Instead, it was a Violet who was just a small filly, one maybe half my age, and hadn’t even yet earned her cutie mark.

As I looked at her, a bright flash erupted from her flank. As the bright image faded away, a five petaled purple flower that shared the vibrancy of her neon mane came into view. Opening her eyes, she looked at me with a confused expression and canted her head.

“Who are you?”

Before I could answer, the sensations of warmth pulled me back into the light of wakefulness once more.

I remember the bitter taste of a healing potion being fed to me at some point, but it all mixed together into a cacophony of sharp sounds, the smell of blood, and pain. However, as the light of a fire warmed my body, I became lucid once more. The crackling fire roused my senses only just slightly, and a numbing feeling crept over me as I could barely hear as someone moved around me.

“Alright, he’s stable again. More than anything, he’s certainly a one hell of a survivor to have pulled through all that.” I didn’t recognize the voice that was speaking. “But don’t think that means you can continue to torture the poor stallion. Any more and he won’t make it back to Solomon at all.” The stern voice was scratchy, but not in the same way a ghoul’s was. More like how some stallions in the clouds sounded after chain smoking for half their life. “You’re lucky he’s made it this far, and goddesses forbid you drag me all the way out to where ever that asshole is camped because you couldn’t control yourself.”

“Dah, your concern is noted.” Galina huffed back at him. “But what I do with him is no concern of yours anymore.” The sharp mechanical clack of her shotgun filled the air as I tried to focus among the numbing warmth all around me. “It is time to get back on the road. Solomon will pay you in a few days for the trouble we make for you.”

“Fine.” The voice snorted, and the smell of burnt tobacco hit me hard. “But if I find out you’re stiffing me and just heading south, you better hope you get clear through Cantercross before Mr. Wizard hears of this shit.”

My ears gave out again as the numbing took over all sensations. I was still so tired from everything, that falling asleep was just too strong to fight back. Still, somehow beyond all my wishes and prayers to die, I was still alive. Of course I was, I was a ‘survivor’, wasn’t I? Damnit, Violet, why did you have to be right about me?

I didn’t want to do this anymore. I’d lost enough already that I’d fucking earned some sort of peace in my life, hadn’t I? I loved Buck, and Hispano was the closest thing I had to family past him. But I didn’t want to go back to the crew just to watch them die too. Or maybe, I didn’t want to go back to them with how I failed to get revenge on Galina. Of course, I’m Night Flight the fuck up, and they know that. This… was just the one time that it mattered more to me not to fail than any time before.

This time, when the darkness greeted me, I wasn’t falling any longer. No chromatic sky, no pegasi clouds, and no more Violet. Instead, there was simply nothing at all. And to be honest? Maybe it was better that way.

It’s never fun waking up to a stabbing pain in your chest, let alone the dozens of other aches and pains I felt all over already. However, at the very least everything else didn’t seem as bad as it had been. Forced to give out a gasping breath, my eye flew open and my body pushed myself to stand up.

The world warped for a moment as my body adjusted to standing on it’s own again, though for some reason where I was standing felt unsteady. The dark room which I was in resolved, but stayed slightly fuzzy as I looked down to my hooves. A lush white sheet was wrapped up around my three legs, and the largest, most luxurious bed I’ve ever stood on seemed to take up most of whatever small room I was in.

“I...” A voice from behind me made me lock up and give out a fearful yelp. Spinning around, I recoiled and squinted as daylight poured in through a small doorway. The copper tubes of the cybernetic which Solomon’s right hoof stallion used, glinted and reflected the bright light straight into my eyes.

No, eye, as in singular. Fuck that’s going to take some getting used to. Goddesses, was that why everything was still kinda fuzzy? Other than still aching, everything else felt like it was somewhat alright. Maybe Buck can check over everything when I get back. No, Night. That’s if you can get back.

“Ahem.” The formal sounding stallion spoke up before staring at me. “As I was saying, I see you’re awake. If you would kindly stay put while you let me inform Solomon, we will be able to sort some pressing issues out shortly.” Before I was able to retort, he shut the door to the small bedroom, cutting me off from the outside light.

“Do I have a choice?” I sighed before sitting down hard on the plush bed. Looking down over myself, I frowned as I took in dozens of pink lines that tore across my blue coat. Galina’s talon marks had been healed, but deep trough like gouges of coatless skin still remained. Shifting myself, I looked over my rear leg. It was obviously no longer broken, but a long, still stitched up wound ran along the length of my haunch. I frowned as the inflamed stitching cut across my cutie mark, but it was better that than to still have a busted leg.

My ears perked as I heard a door open outside of the room I was in. Muffled, angry words came through the wall as the whole room seemed to shift slightly down to the right. I moved my forehooves to stabilize myself as the whole room righted itself again. Wait, I knew this feeling. This wasn’t just a room, I was on Solomon’s stupid bus thing!

“Where is she!?” The sharp voice of a very unhappy Minotaur came through the walls a lot more clearly than before.

I tensed up, looking around the room for somewhere to hide as the heavy hoofsteps approached the small door out of the bedroom. Shit, this really was just a bedroom, with only a pony’s width of space at the end leading to the door. Of course, it wouldn’t have helped to hide there, as the door itself was forcibly slammed open, smacking against the wall where I would have been standing if I’d tried to hide. The bright light from outside streamed in through the doorway, silhouetting most of the bulky form of Jess.

“You.” She reached up and pointed a single, muscled finger at me that could alone have probably broken my neck. “Tell me what happened to Violet.”

“Landslide, come on!” A shrill, nasally voice called out from behind her. The small, fluffy white sheep I’d seen last time I was here wrapped her tiny cloven hooves around just one of Jess’s rear legs and tugged on them. “I know you still kinda-sorta loved that cunt, but she’s dead now, so get the fuck over it! Solomon isn’t going to like you messing with her, and I don’t want to be reprimanded because you couldn’t fucking control yourself!”

“Fuck off, Lamia. I’m not leaving until I get some fucking answers.” Jess snarled, using a single enormous hand to reach down and grab the small sheep. Lamia gave out a muffled bleat as she was picked up and shoved backwards. “You wouldn’t fucking understand, but she didn’t deserve to die.” Jess snorted with such force that I could have sworn that I saw the silky bedsheets flutter from it. “Tell me what happened.” I wasn’t going to lie, I felt my wings pull tighter against my back from her tone alone, making them bind against me almost as much as Delilah’s anger normally did. “Now.”

“Ah-ah! And what are we doing exactly, Landslide?” The relaxed and infuriatingly coy tone that Solomon’s voice held made my mind do a one-eighty. “What have I told you about barging into my home?”

“Sir, I just need…” She snorted, not moving her glare one bit from me, “one minute.”

“You will have no minutes. In fact, you will get back to the job that I pay you for. Is that clear?” His sharp snap forced her anger to break. She spun herself around in the doorway. “Unless you would like to end up punished like Galina, because that can most certainly be arranged.” Wait, what the fuck did he mean by that?

“Yes, sir.” She grunted and moved from the doorway.

I raised my hoof to shield myself from the bright light coming in. Using the light, I looked around again to see if there was anything I’d missed before. The pale walls were not as solid as I’d once thought, and instead had metal shutters draped down them. The mostly featureless ceiling had a single dome light sitting in the center of it, however just ahead of it sat a small pony sized square with what looked to be a handle on it. That might just be my best chance at getting out of here.

“Oh, I wouldn’t use that if I were you.” Solomon spoke up as he stood in the doorway. “After Violet escaped through there the first time I captured her, I had Lamia install a small capacitor bank up to the handle. Feel free to give it a try, but only if you like the smell of burnt fur.” Alright, fine. If escape wasn’t an option, I guess I’ll just try talking my way out of this. As I thought that, Solomon blocked just enough of the light in the doorway that it reflected off the impeccable luster his white coat gave off. His vibrant purple eyes glared at me as he wore a crooked smile proudly across his muzzle. “Ah yes, you’ve decided to instead reason your way out of this. A smart choice, and might I remark, made much quicker than Violet did the second time I’d captured her.”

Stop talking about her.

“You can drop all that shit.” I grumbled angrily as I felt my heartbeat pick up. Other than the sharp pain that had woken me, the numbness I’d had the luxury of enjoying across my body began to subside as the blood in my veins started to boil. “We knew she was working for you.”

Solomon looked surprised for a moment by my tone, if only that. Did he really not care, or even second guess anything now? He gave a scoffing, forced laugh before rolling his eyes at me.

“Oh, I figured Delilah would have pieced it together at some point.” Shaking his head, he stepped forward toward me. He put a single, impeccably clean hoof on the bed sheets, curling his fetlock around them. “Please, you think I wouldn’t have planned for every contingency?” He laughed before ripping his hoof back toward him. The world spun as the sheets were torn out from under me, and I landed with a soft pomf on the bed. As my mind stopped spinning, I focused my gaze again on him as he rubbed along his chin softly. “But you. You are the puzzle piece I could never have planned for. Oh, I could have made you a rich mare if only you’d worked for me.”

“I bet you say that to all the mares.” I grumbled as I rolled myself back over onto my hooves. “Or at the very least, is that what you told Violet before you had Galina murder her?” I smirked as a realization crept into my mind. “Was that always part of your plan? Kill off your own so you can keep a bigger cut of the Ark to yourself?”

Fuck if I knew if that was true or not, but I wouldn’t put it past this asshole to do something like that. I only hoped that even if it wasn’t true, that the others behind him might question it, even if for just a second to let that doubt sink in. I wanted nothing more than to tear him apart myself, for Violet, for all the shit he’s done. But I’d settle for seeing his own mercenaries turn on him instead if I could just put that fear in their mind.

Solomon’s smirk disappeared. Stiffly, he reached his hoof along the wall to his side. There was a soft click as he hit some sort of button, and a mechanical whirring came from the wall to my left. Turning, I watched as the metal shutters rose up slowly, revealing a window the peered out into the interior of an old warehouse. The early morning daylight that had been blinding me cast long rays that filtered through the corroded sheet metal roof and walls, illuminating the slushy, wet concrete floor outside.

“Rook, if you would kindly fetch Galina.” Solomon spoke up stiffly. The proper stallion that had been attentively standing behind him flashed away in a burst of magic. A thump from above met my ears and momentarily caught my attention. Confused, I froze up as my mind raced. Shit, I didn’t want to go back to another shack. I… I couldn’t handle that.

Whump.

A dark shape appeared on the other side of the window, making me scream and jump up from the bed. As my lungs struggled not to hyperventilate, I nearly collapsed as the bloodied form of Galina rocked slowly up against the window. The length of chain that was bound tightly around her neck scraped across the now blood smeared window. A swarm of flies buzzed around the mutilated and rotting blown out half of her head, swarming around madly inside her caved in skull as her corpse swung on the chain.

She… was already dead?

All my hopes for taking out my anger for Violet’s death on her disappeared in an instant, and were replaced by the familiar sinking pit growing in my gut.

“I told her that nopony on Delilah’s convoy was to be killed. There were rules to this game, and she paid for breaking them.” Solomon seethed as he stepped up onto the edge of the bed. There was a sharp ping as the thick chain outside snapped, and Galina’s body dropped out of view. “But that being said, I don’t think Delilah will care for a simple one to one trade.” His muzzle curled down into a disgusted frown. “No, I think we are well past the rules now.” With a flash, the proper stallion returned behind Solomon, this time with a large looking rifle floating in his magic. It wasn’t as big as Suiza, but it was damn close. “Now I’m sorry that it’s come to this, but this is truly nothing personal. It’s just business. You understand that, right?”

“Don’t worry, Sir.” The proper stallion spoke up as he hefted the rifle up onto his back. “I’ll take her out to the highway where Miss Delilah’s ponies will surely find the body.”

“I um…” Shit shit! I know I’d wanted to die, but not like this! “I’ll work for you!” The panic filled words forced their way out of my muzzle.

“See, I gave you a chance for that.” Solomon sighed as a smile crept along his muzzle. “But you were nothing if not persistent in refusing my, if I may say so myself, quite generous and numerous offers of employment.”

“Yes, b-but…” I fumbled with my words. No, no no! Not now! Why is it that I can only blurt shit out to get me into trouble and not out of it!? “I… with Violet dead… I can inform for you!” Just stay alive, Night. Survive.

“Ugh,” Solomon rolled his eyes, batting away my pathetic pleading words with a lazy shake of his forehoof. “Rook, take her away before her groveling gives me a headache.” Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! Muzzle, I know I give you a lot of shit, but just throw something out already!

“I can get you the book!” I screamed out as Solomon’s lackey teleported to my side. That of course got Solomon’s attention. Why the hell would you say that, Night!? I know I thought to say anything, but that’s the one thing I can’t offer him!

“Woah!” Solomon perked up, his ears scraping along the top of the ceiling as a ridiculous smile threatened to curl around the whole of his head. “Now why would you go and say something moronic like that? Do you think I’m a foal?” He gave out a forced laugh that sent jeering tingles through my spine. “Why would Delilah ever trust you with something that monumentally important?”

“You said it yourself.” I struggled to calm my heart as I told him the only thing from his muzzle that I truly believed. “I’m the one pony none of you expected. I’m her failsafe.” I wasn’t going to tell him that the dog tags still around my neck were the key unless it came to it, but this was the only card I had left to play.

“Ha!” Solomon laughed and waved his hoof at me. “Of course! She would have figured that exact same thing.” With a sigh, he looked at the pony to my side. “Rook, put my rifle away, for now.” With a flash that I could barely see out of my one remaining eye, the stallion with the large rifle disappeared in a burst of magic. “Alright, you’ve bought yourself some time. Not a lot of time, mind you, but I’ll give you this one small chance to prove yourself useful to me.”

“Sure, great.” If I could just get his trust to let me far enough away that I could make a break for it…

“Ah, ah!” He cut me off with a bemused smile, booping the end of my muzzle with his forehoof. “Like before, there are rules to this.” His tone changed sharply, turning into a deeply repulsive snapping sort of speech. “Break them, and I’ll destroy Delilah and her whole convoy without a second thought. Starting with you.”

“O-okay…” I nodded sharply at him. Great, all the more reason to get the fuck out of here the second I could. Images filled my mind of getting back to the convoy just in time to find them already dead because Rook’s teleporting magic beat me there. No, brain, cut that shit out! We could fight them so long as I got back to them in time, and I could make it there in time if I slipped away at the right moment. Again, my mind conjured up images of us ambushed on the road, surrounded on all sides by too many to fight. And then again of the convoy exploding at night while we all slept. A dozen different ways to lose them all if I tried to run now.

Shit… I really was going to have to make good on this offer, wasn’t I?

“Be careful with being so straight-forward, young lady.” Solomon smiled and reached out toward me. My skin crawled as his forehoof daintily wrapped around my side and pulled me closer to him. “You don’t want to start sounding like a yes mare, do you? That’s the mistake Galina made when I hired her. She’d nod her head ‘yes’, when clearly she didn’t understand my one, simple request.” his smile dropped as he tightened his grip around me. “And you wouldn’t want to end up like her, would you?”

“N-no.” I shook my head and fought off the urge to slink out of his slimy hooves. Okay, the moment I’m out of here, I’m never getting this close to Solomon again. Ever. I don’t care if I had to drop a balefire bomb on him from space just to be sure he’d die as far away from me as possible. The moment I was out of here, I’d make sure to force myself to never be in the same room as this bastard again. No matter what.

“Most excellent.” Solomon smiled and forcefully pulled me around with him as he turned to face the door. “Rook, my friend! Would you be so kind as to escort Miss…” He paused, looking down at me. “I deeply apologize, but I can’t quite remember your name.” He laughed to himself as his awkward expression studied me. “It’s so funny because you’d think I’d have remembered it from our last few encounters.”

“Bombay.” I had to force the one word out to him, managing to squeak it out meekly.

“Right, that was it!” He gave a subtle roll of his eyes as his smile returned. “Escort Miss Bombay into town so that she may pay a visit to the good doctor whom she owes her life to.” Turning his gaze back to me, his words felt stone cold, bleeding through the wide grin across his muzzle. “I will not give that hack one cap of mine for the piss-poor job he did. However, see to it that Miss Bombay finds a way to erase the debt on her own.”

Wait, did he imply that he wanted me to just waltz into a doctor's clinic and just murder somepony?

“Very well, sir.” Rook gave an almost bored sigh as he canted his head slightly. “Will the young miss be given her own gear back for this job?” Shit, that’s right! I still had my battle saddle… which had been utterly destroyed in the fight with Galina.

“That junk she was wearing? Most certainly not.” Solomon said as he finally released his forehoof from around me. I ruffled my wings before cringing as a sharp pain ran through my right wing. “Give her Galina’s belongings, and bring Landslide with you to make sure she doesn’t get any ideas on the ride over there. I want to see how flexible she can be.”

“Ride, Sir?” Rook’s trimmed mustache furrowed as he took on a confused look. “Are you wishing for me to escort her in your motorwagon?

“Of course, unless you’d like to teleport the three of you that far.” Scratching at his chin again, I was close enough to the smug bastard to now notice the thin, trailing scar that ran along the length of it. The thought that I might have been the one to cause that mark made me smirk and laugh at him in my own head. “Oh, and one last thing.” As if he’d known I’d been doing that, he glared at me. “She has until noon to complete this task, as Mister Wizard’s associate will be arriving this evening with my land train. I’d like you back at my side for when he gets here.”

“Very well, Sir.” Rook gave a curious nod that made my eye twitch.

“Are you…” I spat out, only to quickly find myself cut off as the world tumbled when my muzzle was hit hard. Of course, I tried to keep myself from falling. But between the uneven soft bedding, and the fact that having three legs wasn’t inherently stable, I failed. With a loud bang, I flopped back onto the bed and smacked my head against the window with a solid thump.

“Silence!” Solomon snapped at me. “Should you complete this task, you will be free to go back to Delilah as one of my employees. There you will wait for me to relay a message to you on what you are to do for me.” I tried to shake off the hit, but the trickle of warm blood accompanied the taste of copper in my muzzle. Fucking asshole. “If you do not succeed in this laughingly menial task I have set you on this morning, then Rook is to find and shoot you. Should you try to flee, Rook will shoot you. Should you try to get anypony to help you, Rook will shoot you.”

“As you wish, Sir.” The smug asshole retorted as I blinked a few times and tried to sit myself up. As I did, I found both Rook and Solomon standing and staring. Solomon’s eye tweaked a little as he looked over me. Tilting my head up, I noticed that I was laying back in a... quite compromising pose toward them.

“It seems… you are more of a mysterious puzzle piece than you first appeared, mister Bombay.” Solomon smirked and let out a light chuckle. “Oh, it’s exciting to be surprised by something again! I mean, I’ve spent so long being one step ahead, I’d forgotten the thrill of being wrong in my assumptions.” Looking at me, he cupped his hoof over his grinning muzzle. “Oh, but you wouldn’t understand how that would feel, would you?” Waving his hoof to me, he began to trot from the room without a moment’s hesitation. “Now now, the sun’s just risen, and you’ve only got the rest of your life to think about what you’ll do to the good doctor when you get to him!”

The sound of clinking metal tracks filled the air, reverberating through the plush seat I'd found myself sitting in. The sleek black vehicle had been an odd sight to behold before I’d been forcibly shoved into it. A mix of an elegantly designed motorwagon from the dawning years of the war, and the wartime efficiency of the set of halftracks bolted to it’s rear undercarriage. At the very least, with the roads the way they were, I could completely understand why the conversion had been made. That being said, this thing was far too nice to belong to an asshole like Solomon.

Solomon’s ‘personal motorwagon’ was larger than the runner had been, and held a much more luxurious interior. With space in the rear seat enough to fit four of that pompous saddle arabian asshole, over half of that space was taken up by Jess alone. I sat on a seat across from her that faced the rear of the vehicle.

I let out a whimper as a sharp pain from my eye socket reflexively made me reach up and hold my head. The flair ups of pain in my missing eye started when I’d walked out of Solomon’s bedroom, and keep coming back in waves every few minutes. Ugh, whoever this doctor was, Solomon probably didn’t pay them to do much more than to give me the minimal treatment.

Then again, every doctor I’d met so far has been willing to do more than just the minimum to help. As the pain subsided again, I tried to relax, simply deciding that whatever painkiller’s I’d been given must have been starting to wear off. I’ll just need something for that pain later.

Next to me lay Galina’s bloodstained gear. Her enormous shotgun had gotten fairly battered in my attempt to kill her, but overall still looked functional. And while I didn’t check for fear of getting shot by the angry minotaur across from me, I had to assume it’s revolving drum magazine was still empty.

Next to that was her ‘auto-talon’. Unlike the shotgun, I don’t think that the industrial looking contraption ever had a day where it once looked nice. It was machine built for brutality, pure and simple, and it’s crudeness reflected that. But at the very least, the sparkle battery that it held probably still had some juice left inside it.

Still, the one thing that had been on my mind since I was shoved in here and carted off northward, was how to get out of this fine mess I’d made. But for the life of me, I couldn’t figure it out. There was no way I could pay off the doctor without caps, and there wasn’t an easy way to get any by noon.

Flying away right off the bat wouldn’t work when they could just outrun me with this motorwagon, and my mind had already shown me plenty of results for that. There was zero chance I’d be able to catch both Rook and Jess off guard to attack them. Hanging my head, I let out a long sigh. That was it. No options other than to complete the one singular task asked of me.

I was going to have to kill the doctor.

“Hey.” Jess grunted, pulling me out of my depressing thoughts. “How’d it happen… to Violet, you know?” The way she asked, she tiptoed around the words. Looking up at her, I could see the pain she felt in her eyes. Really? She actually still cared about Violet? She could have fucking shown it better.

“Galina hit us with some sort of junk cannon, I think.” I grumbled and crossed my forehooves against myself. “Whatever it was, it tore her apart. She was just… gone, instantly.”

“You know, Landslide,” Rook spoke up through the open partition that separated the front driver’s bench and the rear passenger area. “Once it came back up, the radio did mention that Road Crew boss had been killed. The one with the grappling machine, remember?”

“Knuckle Boom.” I muttered as I looked out the window again, watching as the soppy slush covered trees zipped by at a fairly good clip. “Yeah, her machine did that.” My mind tripped over itself as something Rook said gave me pause. “Wait, what do you mean ‘when it came back up’?”

“The radio fuzzed out during the altercation with your convoy.” Rook spoke with a note of intrigue about the event. “It was restored of course, but it was down for several hours. Quite the peculiar event if the radio host is to be at all trusted.”

“It’s just old wasteland shit going out now and again.” Jess rolled her eyes and shifted herself against her seat. As she did, the whole motorwagon listed slightly with her. This thing may have been built for Saddle Arabians, but I’m betting it was not built with someone like Jess in mind. “Anyway, it’s been fine for the last few days, so…”

“Days!?” I snapped. “I’ve been out for that long!?” Oh goddesses, they all probably thought I was dead by now. Buck… oh no. I can’t imagine what he must be feeling. But it’ll be fine, right? I’ll be back home to him soon, and able to see everypony else… except Violet.

Looking down at myself I looked at the scars I’d accumulated from my time at Galina’s talons. I’d been gone for days, nearly been killed, and all for what? I didn’t even get to kill Galina, and I was just going to show up and hope that they were going to be happy I was alive? The hell they must have gone through, I… I don’t know how they’re going to deal with yet another one of my failures.

‘You couldn’t even beat a griffon!’ Hardcase screamed in my mind. ‘Fucking useless pegasus. I never want to see you again.’

‘You can’t expect me to treat your every wound and sleep with you like I’m just your pet!’ Buck’s anger was sharp, and it made my whole body ache again. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t know who you are anymore. Get out.’

‘You’re a danger to the convoy.’ Delilah would say. ‘You’re fired. Why don’t you go be a useless corpse in a ditch somewhere.’

None of these things were even close to what they would ever say, but my fantasies didn’t care. No. What would probably happen upon my I return is that everypony will feign happiness, while quietly hating me for cursing them with Violet’s death. All the while I’ll go back to doing the one thing I’ve always been good at even when I lived above the cloud layer. Not having a purpose in my life.

“Hey.” Jess’s sharp voice kicked me out of my thoughts just as the whole motorwagon seemed to shift forward slightly. “We’re here.”

Well, it was time to put my fears of returning to the convoy aside for now. Picking up Galina’s shotgun, I slung it around myself and did my best to Secure her auto talon to the sling as well. Turning to the door, Jess reached over and pushed it open.

“Good luck, mister Bombay.” Rook called back as he peeked his mustached muzzle up over the midcar divider. “And remember, I’ll be watching your every move. Do not disappoint Master Solomon.”

“Sure.” I sighed as I pushed myself off the seat. “I’ll get it done.”

Author's Notes:

As always, many MANY thanks to TheFurryRailFan for his work in pre-reading this, even though he's been sick for the last few days. You're a real trooper, man, and I'm incredibly grateful for your help.

And of course, thank you to Kkat for Fo:E. Really enjoying my copy of the third printing!