I let a soft whimper slip out of my muzzle as Salt and I flew around the edge of the lake away from the city. The brand I now had permanently burned onto the back of my neck wasn’t something I was proud to have gotten, but if it meant saving Hardcase, I’d deal with it. Plus, the guy doing the branding was nice enough to give me a baggie with a couple tabs of Chill to help with the pain. He’d even pinned it into my mane with a hairpin for easy storage! And thank the goddesses for the admittedly awesome painkiller. Er… not the goddesses in relation to the crazy cult, but…you know what, never mind. Maybe it’d be a good thing if I thought that way for now.

“Alright, we’re almost there.” Salt called out as he stiffened up his wings to glide. He looked back to me, giving me a concerned glance at how far I’d fallen behind. “You alright? Do I need to slow down?” He let out a soft gasp and covered his muzzle with his hoof. “Oh shit, I forgot about your feathers…”

“I’m fine.” I grunted and forced myself to give a few hard flaps. “It’s… not so bad. Thicker air down here helps.” That wasn’t an outright lie, but dear Celestia I wished the air could be a fair bit thicker here. Panting and heaving, I brought my pace up to match his for now before holding my legs straight again to glide. “So… you going to tell me what sort of danger Hardcase is in?”

Dipping down, he steered us over toward a small, overgrown cabin that was nearly completely obscured from sight by the forested mountain towering over the northwestern part of the lake. As he came down, I had to do a second pass to bleed off my speed, corkscrewing my way down onto the soft mossy ground in front of the cabin.

“Just over a decade ago, a trade caravan from the Crystal Empire showed up in Mare’s Lake.” Salt sighed, hanging his head as he turned around to face me. “With it, came a trader who specialized in magical gems. He brought all sorts of gems with him, from ones filled with raw magical energy, to ones that had been forged into crude talismans. But one gem sat in his ‘junk’ box that I am sure he never knew the true worth of.” Looking through me, his glance shot straight across the water to the island. “It was a single shard of the shattered crystal heart of the empire. A single, tiny shard that contained more love stored inside it than any hive could ever hope to feed off for a millenia.”

Sitting down hard, the image that was Salt fuzzed, and disappeared in a brilliant green flash. Before me sat a bug-like pony. Much like his friend in Carmacks, he sported chitinous ebony plates with streaking white accents across them. A bristly black fuzz cloaked around his sides and top half of his body, and a pair of amber insect wings twitched and buzzed from his back. A white colored flexible fin sat where a pony’s mane would be, and a crooked segmented horn rose out of the thick chitin skullplate. The solid blue color of his eyes wavered as tears rolled down his ebony upper jaw, and the jagged sharp peaks that meshed with the ones of his lower jaw trembled as he sobbed.

His horn flared to life, and in another green flash, Salt returned to looking like the pegasus stallion I’d known from Four Peaks.

“Sorry… I’ve spent so long trying to forget this place.” He sniffled, raising his hoof and wiping at his eyes. As he did though, a small smile returned to his muzzle. “I didn’t think I would ever get to feel sadness myself.” He shook his head and looked at me. “I don’t understand how you ponies can live with such emotions…”

“What do you mean?” I asked, again distracted enough that my muzzle spoke for me. No, Night, get back on track. “What happened here? If you had all the love you needed, what started the fighting?”

My question instantly soured Salt’s look. “The Queen.” He spat. “She went mad trying to get that shard. And then once she had stolen it, she ordered every drone out, and then sealed herself away in the hive, determined not to share it’s love with anyone.” Taking a deep, shivering breath, he wrapped his forehooves and wings around himself. “For some of us, that act alone severed us from her control. And as any changeling knows, a drone can’t normally exist without a queen. I mean, we can survive, but it’s not easy. It… hasn’t been easy.”

“So, one of the others changed. Declared herself the new queen” He continued, but let his wings fall limply to his sides. “A struggle ensued, and a civil war within those loyal to the old and new hives began. The disorder caused the new ‘queen’ to send out a wave of magic that disrupted the disguise of every changeling in the city. And just like that, the hunt against us began.”

“So… you left. Didn’t you?” I asked as I sat down in the moss. He gave a solemn nod to me.

“What choice did we have? The hive collapsed completely as the settlements of Mare’s Lake banded together and slaughtered any and all who didn’t run.” Holding his hooves out in front of him, he studied them as if they belonged to somepony else. “The day when the queen finally died, I was already long gone. But those of us who’d been assigned to protect her, got one last dying curse for abandoning our duties. For failing to protect her, she blocked our ability to feed off of love at all.” With another sigh, he put his hooves down onto the moss and sat up straight again. “Those of us who didn’t end up killing ourselves or wasting away, learned to adapt. To live off of other feelings and emotions, even if they were nowhere near as sustainable as love. Rage, sadness, hatred and hope…” He looked up at me and smirked softly. “But while love was tasteless and unfulfilling just the same to all of us, lust was the only thing I could even sustain myself on anymore.”

“So that’s why you liked me?” I asked, getting another nod from him in return. I didn’t know whether to be flattered or insulted by that. On one hoof, I was only supposed to be a meal for him? Then again, if I would have never known otherwise, was there really a problem with that?

Of course there was plenty wrong with that, Night! He never really liked you at all. Even if you thought he liked you, in the end, he was just using you. Sure, it wasn’t in the same way as everypony else had used you in the wastes, but that didn’t make it any less wrong. Though, you yourself have changed over time with regards to loving who you once never thought you could. And plus he just told me that I didn’t love him, I lusted after him, which… sounded like it might have actually been how I felt at the time, but I don’t know! Maybe there was a chance that one day, Salt and I might have…

“Ahem…” Salt cleared his throat with a bashful look across his face. “I know I’ve given you a lot to think about, as I can feel your emotions going wild. But we really must be going. I know that the dragon sleeps in the entrance to the hive, so we must be gone before sunset.”

“Right.” Looking at the sky, the bottom of the sun was just pushing down to almost touch the rest of the mountains that ran southwest along the lake’s edge. We wouldn’t have too much time at all then. “So, what’s the plan?”

“We will sneak onto the forested north side of the island and head for the settlement in the center, where you will pretend to be the new ‘chosen’ one.” He looked out across the water again, but this time toward the city. “I will transform and do my best to imitate Tephra’s mannerisms, which…”

“You can transform into a fucking Dragon!?” I shouted out before immediately clamping both my hooves over my muzzle. “Oh shit, sorry. Didn’t mean to yell.”

Salt had frozen from a cringe so hard he currently was standing on a single leg. His eye gave a twitch before he slowly lowered himself back to the ground. Well sorry if today I learned just how big dragons fucking were, let alone that changelings could imitate something that big at all! This information… was probably going to make me rethink every single person I met from now on…

“Yes, changelings can assume almost any form. It’s just harder to hold it the more complex and different it is from our own anatomy.” He sighed as he got onto his hooves and flared his wings out. “Anyway, once we get past the ‘devout’ on the island, we’ll slip into the hive, go find Hardcase, get back into the forest, and then wait for the cover of darkness to leave.”

“Sounds like a good enough plan to me.” I mean, it wasn’t like we had any other choice, but I was just trying to project positivity for once again. There wasn’t much wiggle room for things to go wrong here, and if they did, then Hardcase would die. No pressure, Night. It’s not like you might completely lose it if you lost another friend this week…

“Look, I… still know the way through the hive, that’s not what I’m worried about though.” Salt spoke up as he walked softly through the moss towards me. Carefully, he put his hoof on my shoulder and pulled my attention up to him. “But I don’t know what I’ll feel once we’re back inside.” He looked away from me, off a thousand yards through the trees into nothingness itself. “I don’t know if or how that shard will affect me when we find it, so if it comes to it, I want you to do what you must to protect yourself first and foremost. Even if it’s to leave your friend and I down there forever. Get out of there, and go live your life, Night.”

“Okay.” I nodded to him before reaching out to pull him into a hug. I don’t really know why, but even after everything he’d done to me, it just… felt like the right thing to do.

Slowly, he curled his forelegs around me and hugged me back softly. “Heh, I needed that. Thank you.” He spoke softly. But as quickly as I’d begun it, he broke off from the hug. “Maybe though this would be best saved for after we get your friend back.”

“Right.” I nodded and spread my wings. “Lead the way then.” Holding my hoof out toward the water, I looked across it to the island as the first bit of the sun sank below the mountain’s peaks, and dragged its shadow across the island.

Goddesses… I hope we weren’t already too late…

Taking flight again, I beat my wings to build up some altitude and speed. As we reached out over the water, Salt dove down, flaring and holding himself just inches above the placid lake. Holding my forelegs out stiffly, I leaned forward, dipping down as well. I picked up a bit of speed as the cool moist air prickled my legs with droplets of icy water. It sent a shiver down my spine, and it put a small smile across my muzzle.

But the feeling of speed was short lived, as we passed the halfway point in our approach, and I began to pull myself up to brake a bit. As my drag started to beat my lift, I gave a few stiff flaps again to keep up my velocity before coming down into a hobbling gallop on the rocky island beach. As I jumped and hopped to avoid some of the higher and more oddly shaped rocks, I came to the realization that it might have been a bit better idea to put in the extra effort to land just a bit closer to the woods...

“Shit, I’d forgotten how well you could glide once you get going.” Salt said with a small smile of his own. He floated overhead, only dropping down to the ground once he was just in the treeline. “Alright, now remember, let me do the talking for now.”

With a bright green flash, the trees themselves were thrust apart as Salt took the form of Tephra. His glowing yellow eyes scanned above the treetops for a moment before he looked down to me.

“Follow.” He spoke in the same booming voice that Tephra had in the boathouse. With a lumbering step, he maneuvered himself through the trees at the edge of the forest, heading for the center of the island.

I followed, hobbling along after him into the underbrush, but it wasn’t easy to keep up to a three story dragon. Plus, as much as my prosthetic helped me walk again, that was only on level or at least clear terrain. Every other step had me hooking it through some branch or bush that threatened to pull it right off my stump. Maybe I should have asked him to carry me like Buck normally did…

Fuck, don’t think about Buck now, Night. Hardcase needs your help, so focus on nothing else. Looking up, I kept my eyes on trailing after the enormous swinging tri-tipped tail batting at the trees behind Salt.

It was… uncanny how perfect of a copy he looked. And to be honest, part of me feared that maybe he really was Tephra all along, and this was all some sort of elaborate trap. However, while I still didn’t totally trust Salt, I didn’t feel like he would have gained anything by setting a trap like that up. Unless he was a much better actor than even Lilac Lace was, his breakdown and hesitation at the mossy cabin was most likely the real thing.

Though, on that, I had to think about my own acting recently. I needed to work on it, to present myself with as much confidence as that mare back in the bar did. My time lying to Solomon’s lackeys had been a good start, but I could do better. If I’d learned anything from watching ponies barter and converse down here, I knew that being able to sell yourself as something you’re not was imperative to get by. So once Hardcase was back, and I go find Buck, I think I’m going to set a goal for myself to start practicing my acting by getting a good deal on some gear for myself.

“What…” Salt’s booming voice came through the trees ahead as I pulled myself over a downed, mossy log. Another bright green flash lit up the air ahead of me, and the trees bent back to their original shape as I approached. Panting and hopping my way toward the inner edge of the small forest, I found Salt looking over the edge of a small hill.

“What is it?” I asked as my stomach clenched and my heart raced. Why had he dropped the disguise? Did… did he find Hardcase? Were we already too late!?

“This… this isn’t a sanctuary for those nutjobs at all…” Salt gasped, covering his muzzle and looking back toward me.

Joining him on the crest of the ‘hill’, I found that it was in fact, a grassy ditch. Scattered through the bottom of it, lay the charred skeletons of dozens of ponies, griffons, hellhounds… it was a mass grave. But… this didn’t make any sense...

“What the hell is going on here?” The words tumbled from my muzzle as I turned to look at Salt. He locked his eyes on me, as desperate as I was to look at anything but the grizzly pile below us.

“I don’t know, and I don’t care.” He shook his head before using his wing to point toward a large pile of rocks at the end of the clearing. “But I think it’s safe to say we’re alone on the island, so let’s get into the hive and find your friend before Tephra returns and adds us to his pile of friends here.”

Inside the collection of rocks and boulders had been a small, but fairly easy to access path that lead into a cave. The rocks outside were an average and unassuming collection of rocks, but once you got in here, they changed drastically. The way that they were carved out looked more like somepony had scooped great gouges into the walls, and had drilled holes through various stone pillars and supports for no reason.

“Weird…” I spoke up without thinking, hearing my own voice echo off further down into the tunnel.

“Understandably confusing to you, but this is changeling Architecture.” Salt spoke up before his forehead began to glow. Even without a horn, he cast a light from about where it would be on him. “Were the original hive queen still alive, it would be nearly impossible for any non-changeling to find their way here, as the cave would always be changing shape and size.”

“Huh…” That was… neat, I guess, if not a bit disturbing to think about. I’m not sure I feel very comfortable in a cave that could just collapse on me because it decided to change shape. Really, I wasn’t sure how anypony could feel comfortable in a place like this. “So… this was your home?”

“Pft, no.” He looked around with a forced smile. “This was what my ancestors used, a temporary hive built for when Mare’s Lake was just becoming a booming city midway through the war. Most hives set up somewhere fairly close to their parent cities, but my ancestors really lucked out with this island. These caves worked well for a time, but the real hive is another ten minutes or so deeper. We’ve been through seven queens since we first arrived, and all of them kept their deception magic limited to just inside the deep hive.”

“During the war? What were your ancestors doing up here?” I didn’t mean to pry into a topic that didn’t really make a difference in the long run, and was something that he might feel uncomfortable telling me. “I mean, if you don’t mind my asking that is.”

“Not at all.” He flashed me a wider nervous smile than before, but continued anyway. “Mare’s Lake didn’t really have any strategic value to either side, no military presence, and only a hint of the ministries. No, what it had in droves however was cheap land, ample room to expand, and almost non-existent tax laws. Corporations and banks flocked here in droves to take advantage of that, and brought all their records and databases with them.” Waggling his eyebrows at me, an actual full bodied smile appeared on his muzzle. “And where there’s information to be stored, there’s a changeling nearby looking to ransom it back or sell it to somepony else.”

“So… you were just common thieves?” I spoke out flatly, tarnishing his smile as he gave a small shrug in response. “What? Tell me if I’m wrong, but am I to understand that you went through all this work building a hive… just to steal some documents from a few companies?”

“Of course not. The dangers that the megaspells posed weren’t lost on us changelings either.” Rolling his eyes, he went back to scanning the tunnels ahead with his hornlight. “We came here to stay away from the major cities. Mare’s Lake was secluded, not a priority target, and full of ponies who were too focused on the war effort to notice if a few of them went missing now and again.”

“You thought you were safe from the megaspells?” I almost had to laugh, given the state that Mare’s Lake was in now. “How’d that end up working for you all?” Nopony was safe, and as every Enclave Pegasi remembers, if it weren’t for us sealing up the sky, it would have been a lot worse. Granted… we still could have opened it back up again a lot sooner than two centuries later…

“Hell, it worked out as planned. Mare’s Lake was never hit.” Salt said so matter-o-factly that I nearly tripped.

“What do you mean it was ‘never hit’.” Flailing my forehoof at him, I pointed back up the cave path. “You’ve seen the state the city is in!”

“Oh, that? Yeah, it was three days after the bombs when the first of the rad storms arrived.” Salt snorted and shook his head. “The whole city collectively lost their shit as it finally sunk in that their perfect secluded lives would never be the same again. No one was coming to save them or set up the government again, and they were all on their own with their untold fortunes suddenly worth nothing at all. Riots erupted amid the storms, and they tore apart the city they’d built with their own hooves, burned most of it to the ground for good measure.” Ruffling his wings, he stood up tall. “We came in, saved who we could in the chaos, stealing them away to feed the hive in the glowing winters to come.”

“Right, you saved them.” I rolled my eyes. “I highly doubt that being fed on by however many changelings is at all comfortable…”

“Hey.” Salt snapped at me, making me lock up in midstep. “You have no idea how hard we have to work to ensure that those we feed on are both oblivious of it and happy. I understand that you’re just uneducated to how we work, but leave that prejudice bullshit at the door, Night. I expect you to be better than that.”

“Okay, I’m sorry.” I sighed. Good going, Night. Once again, you let your mouth run you off toward trouble. “It’s just a lot to take in.” This is why you think before commenting on matters which you don’t understand! Keeps you from looking like a complete ass.

“I know, which is why I can forgive you for that.” Salt said with a grumble as he trotted ahead faster. “Anyway, we’re here.” Turning a corner, he disappeared into what looked like an opening to a much larger chamber. Following him into it, his light illuminated something I hadn’t expected to see at all.

The enormous metal cog was inset to the wall, just like I’d seen in old pre-war Stable-Tec advertisements. It was about a story tall, made out of highly polished brushed steel, and had a small electronic console sitting nearby. However, unlike in those I’d seen depicted in pictures, instead of the Stable-Tec bright yellow logo and number on the door, they’d gone for something a little bit different. And by different, I meant it was written in fluorescent glowing green paint.

“It’s a Stable… er, a ‘Hive’, I guess.” Despite just scolding myself about it, the words again worked their way out of my muzzle.

“In all but name, yeah.” Salt gave a sniffling smile as he slowly walked up to the small electronics console that sat next to the door. “Stables are just a logo, a brand name slapped on any bunker built by Stable-Tec. Any idiot with the materials, tools, and knowhow could build a bunker just the same as a Stable-Tec Stable. You just have to get your hooves on the blueprints and schematics without paying the royalties, which for us was the easy part of course.” Giving a few flicks to some of the controls, a dim yellow light brightened on the console.

There was a rumbling shake that resonated through the floor. An electronic hum made the air in the cavern pulse as my eyes locked themselves on the enormous door. Then, all went silent.

An indescribable screeching noise pierced the air, and I dropped to the floor to cover my ears. The ground itself shook as the massive door was dragged backwards a couple of feet. Then, a mechanical clacking picked up as it was slowly rolled off to the side and tucked out of sight.

“Oh, I did not miss that…” Salt gave a shiver that was shared by the one my own body gave. “Come on, let’s get inside before the timer cycles and it closes again.” He trotted over and held his hoof out to me. “Unless of course, you want to hear that noise any number of times more than we have to.”

“Yeah, let’s go.” I nodded and grabbed onto his forehoof. He helped me stand back up, and Immediately the pain in my eye socket flared up again. Gasping, I let go of his hoof and pressed my own against the socket again.

“Night, are you…” He asked, reaching out and using his forehooves to steady me a bit.

“I’m fine, just my fucking eye again.” I grumbled. “Let’s get inside, then I’m going to take another chill pill.”

“Alright.” He sighed. That was when I felt him press against my side as he wrapped his wing over me again. “If we have time, after we save your friend, maybe we can swing by the infirmary to see if there’s still any supplies in there to help you out.” As I looked up at him, I found his worried eyes looking into the dark interior of the bunker ahead of us. With a sigh, he offered a weak smile. “Welcome home, me...”

This stable was… how do I put it? Creepy? No, that’s not really encompassing enough. Bland? No, that’s still not it. There was a word I was looking for, but for some reason my mind felt like it was running in circles to find it.

This stable was devoid of everything. Yeah, that’s not quite it either, but it works well enough. There wasn’t anything here, not even the faintest hint of life. No lights, no grime or dirt, no bodies, and no furniture. Just… long confusing hallways of flat grey that looked cleaner than anywhere I’d been so far in the wastes. The chill pill I’d taken made everything feel numb, and I’m pretty sure that wasn’t helping the feeling of this place overall. The only things that stood out in this place, was the sound of our hoofsteps in the halls and stairways, and the light that Salt cast around from his horn.

Salt himself had given little more than a whimper since we’d come inside. For once, I was keeping my own muzzle snapped shut. I figured that it was like when I’d returned to Four Peaks and found everything the way it was. I’d needed some time to process things, and I’d assumed he would as well. For once so far, I was more experienced in something than Salt was, but that didn’t bring me any comfort.

We’d wound down yet another staircase to a lower level. It was getting hard to keep track of where we were going now. Every wall, hallway, and corridor looked the same to me, and I’d begun to wonder if that changeling shapeshifting wall magic maybe still existed inside here. Even though he said that wouldn’t be possible since the queen had died. However, Salt stopped as he reached the bottom, stiffening up for a moment. His horn flared, and the pegasus I knew was replaced in a green flash with his bug-like true self.

“I… I can feel it.” He hissed through his chitinous jaw as his wings gave a flittering short buzz. “It’s faint, but it’s this way.” Turning down the hall, he trotted off.

As I followed, I began to have bit of a problem. Every other step he started to pick up speed, at first, going from a walk to a slow canter. But all too quickly, it turned into a brisk gallop, and then a flat-out run.

My heart hammered in my chest as my hooves scraped at the rough concrete floor. I tried to keep up with the soft glow his horn gave off as he turned corner after corner. But each time I turned down another hall, I found myself further behind, and that light fainter than before.

“Salt?” I spat out through my gasping breaths as I raced after him.

He never responded, simply galloping faster and faster. I whined as my lungs started to burn. Still I pushed myself to go faster, stretching my wings out and using them to brace myself as I leaned into each turn. But there was only so fast that I could push myself, and though it had been doing an excellent job so far, my prosthetic didn’t quite have the same grip my other hooves did on the floor, and gave out as I turned yet another hallway.

“Salt!” I cried out as I tumbled to the floor.

I panted heavily as I skid to a stop. Perking my ears, I listened as his hooves echoed away from me down the halls, and the light from his horn faded from the walls. Between my own deep breaths, I gazed around as the grey darkness pressed in around me. The stark silence that had crept in as the sound of his forehooves trailed off sank into my mind, and I froze up.

Shit. What the fuck am I supposed to do?! Oh goddesses, I don’t want to be lost down here forever...

Panting heavily I closed my eye and focused on just breathing. Okay, step one, don’t panic. You can get through this, Night. You’ve just… gotta trust yourself. You can find both Hardcase and Salt, and when you snap them out of whatever daze they’re in, they can lead you out, alright?

There was a sharp ringing that filled the air around me. I jumped to my hooves as long strips of red lighting flickered on down the entire hallway I was in. The ringing was quickly replaced with a general alarm noise like I’d heard when the Enclave was doing their air drills. Still, the red emergency lighting that had kicked on began flashing slowly but steadily. In it, I could see the end of the hallway that Salt had run down.

“Alright, I can do this...” I muttered to myself.

Stepping forward, I built my hesitant walk into a brisk trot. I was largely guessing on what way to turn as I reached the end of each successive hallway, which… sort of worked. I hit a few of them that terminated in dead ends, but that itself meant I was making progress.

However, after a few minutes of that, I was beginning to lose hope. Then, between the now almost soothing sounds of the general alarm noise, I heard a frantic set of bangs coming from one direction. Perking my ears, I did my best to follow it. The closer I got, the louder, and more erratic it started to sound.

Peeking my head around one last corner, I found a heavy metal slablike door sitting shut with Salt hammering his hooves against it. He gave out sharp, snarling hisses as he did his damnedest to beat his way through what was probably a forehoof thick piece of steel. Sitting just a few hoofsteps away from him however, was a terminal inset into the wall.

Carefully, I made my way toward him. I was afraid that in his daze he’d turn around and attack me, but the closer I got, the more I understood that he probably didn’t even realize I was still here. The gem must have affected him, and while he’d said that I needed to watch out for myself if this happened, I’d come way too far to turn back now.

Looking at the terminal, I cringed as the terminal itself had a huge hoof shaped web of cracks across it. Straight under the cracks, it displayed a fuzzy line of text that I couldn’t quite read due to the damage. However, a set of options were still clearly enough displayed at the bottom for me to read.

Commit? Y/N

Well shit. What the fuck did that mean? Goddesses, this was more Hispano’s forte. Why couldn’t she have just been here? She’d have this door open faster than she could brag about how fast she could open it!

Still, she wasn’t here, and I was left with a choice. Chose a random option and risk having everything go to shit, or actually have it be the right one, and saving the day. Alternatively, there’s no reason to believe that this command would even do anything at all given the state of the terminal…

Well, here goes nothing!

Closing my eye, I pressed my hoof down onto the keyboard and mashed it around until I heard a soft beep come from the terminal. Opening my eye again, a yellow flashing light filled the hallway, and another rumbling vibration spread out through the floor under my hooves.

Salt hissed as the large metal door began to swing inwards, and as soon as he had the chance, he’d squeezed himself through the widening gap and disappeared into the dark interior. Still, I let out a deep breath and thanked Celestia for not screwing me over this time. Turning toward the door, I trotted through it and found an enormous square room behind it.

It was huge, maybe a few stories high, as well as at least fifty feet across to each side. Multiple levels of walkways stuck out from the walls, ringing the open aired center of the room. Looking up as I walked further in, I found a set of catwalks stretching across every few levels. Hanging underneath one of the highest walkways, was an emerald stone that glowed a soft pink from it’s center.

Salt’s buzzing wings stole my attention as his glowing blue eyes shot across the air. With a screeching scream, he slammed himself into the green stone. A sharp crackling came from it as a deep gouge opened up, spreading like the cracked glass on the terminal outside the door. As I watched, a glowing ooze seeped out from the crack, and within a few seconds, it healed the damaged stone.

Again, Salt slammed himself against the emerald shape. This time, he hit so hard that a flare of green magic enveloped him and was forced around the stone. Another sharp creaking crack emitted from it. However, this time instead of waiting for it to heal, Salt turned and gave it a hearty buck with his back hooves. The emerald object snapped to the side, hanging in the air for only a moment before it dropped, well, like a stone.

I backpedaled as it crashed down onto the floor, shattering in a wave of green shards and green goop. I covered my face with my hoof as a bit of it splashed up onto me, and within moments, it hardened up. There almost wasn’t even time to comprehend what was going on before something picked itself up out of the goo.

A black and orange thing stood up, letting most of the goo slide off of it’s body. It was the shape of a pony, but filled with a dozen holes, and shared a similar look to Salt overall. A pair of slit blue eyes opened up slowly as what I could assume was the queen stood as tall and imposing as an alicorn like Lilac Lace did. She sucked in a deep breath, looking down at the goop on the floor. In a small clean patch surrounded by the green goo, was a brightly glowing pink gem shard. Then, she looked up and stared at me.

“Drones!” A commanding voice that matched Tephra’s nearly blasted my mane back as she bore an angry gaze right through me. “An Intruder is in...”

A white bolt dropped from the walkway above me, streaking through the air like a meteor. It impacted the stunned queen mid sentence, slamming her down to the floor with a pained scream. There was a sickening snap as both the meteor and her impacted the concrete, and the queen’s neck twisted sharply under her own body. As the meteor’s glow resolved into the heaving form of Alabaster standing over her, she went limp as another few squelches followed a trickle of blood down her muzzle. I watched as her heaving chest seized, and her empty gaze became unfocused and still.

Standing over her now lifeless body, was a ragged and heaving Alabaster. Giving a snarling hiss, he spun himself to face me. The moment his eyes fell upon me and didn’t waver, I knew that he wasn’t in there anymore.

More than that, he looked thinner than I’d ever seen anypony in my life. He was little more than a frail torso perched on four wobbling stick like legs. The tattered wings that lay limp against Alabaster’s back didn’t seem to have the strength to hold themselves against him anymore, and flopped a bit with each of his heaving breaths.

I’d seen starving ponies in the Enclave before, but never this bad. I knew in my mind that losing Violet would hit him hard, but I never thought about what that would actually look like. It hurt to see him like this, and for a moment, I’d forgotten that he hadn’t even registered that it was me.

“Hardcase…” I spoke up softly. His ears perked at his name, but only for a moment. With a snarl, he crouched down to guard the pink crystal on the floor. “Hardcase, it’s me, Night.” Slowly, and with his eyes still on me, he reached to grab the small pink shard at his hooves as he snapped his sharp jaws at me. The tip of his horn began to glow blue with magic, and it gave of the same crackle that came from some many of the old magical energy weapons.

With a swooping hiss, Salt shot down from the ceiling and slammed into the side of him. The two of them tumbled along the floor as a ball of nothing but rage and snarls. Salt’s flittering wings plucked him into the air again, and he used his advantage to once again swoop down and slam against Hardcase. With a sizzling crack, blue beams of magical energy lanced through the air from Hardcase’s horn. Shot after shot left burned lines across the ceiling, just missing Salt as he maneuvered sharply to regain an advantage.

“Salt, stop it!” I shouted to him. Yet, he was still too far gone to hear me, just like Hardcase was. In thirty seconds flat, the room had devolved into a warzone between two armies of one. And if I didn’t do something, they were liable to kill each other like this.

Looking over toward where the queen had died, a soft pink glow was still nestled in the smallest patch of clean floor surrounded by goop. The crystal! That’s the source of all of this, so it’s gotta be the key. I have to destroy it, it’s the only way to stop this madness!

Stepping over into the goo, I found it squish under my forehoof. As I reflexively brought my forehoof up, the goop hardened around it, caking into what might as well have been stone. Shit. Looking back, it was at least another few steps in the goo. If it hardened around me and I got stuck now, that was it. Hardcase or Salt would end up dead, and then shortly after one of them won, I was dead.

Stepping forward, I put my other forehoof in, and then pulled it out of the goo again. Gee, if only my stupid fucking wings were good enough to let me hover like a normal pegasus, this would be east! Maybe… if I’m just fast enough…

Taking a deep breath, I flared my wings and pushed off with all four legs. My bounding leap splashed me down halfway toward the gem, and coated my legs with more of the go. Using my wings, I flapped hard and pushed off with my legs. I could feel the goo start to harden tighter around me as I hopped about half the distance left to go. This time when I came down though, the goo was thicker, and the splash sprayed onto my wings.

Still, I flapped for my life and kicked off again. With a solid ‘pop’, my prosthetic dried into the goop, but my stump bounded free. The weight of the solidifying goop had weighed me down even more this time, and again, I hadn’t quite made it. My good rear hoof landed into the hole my forehoof had made, as my stone caked forehooves plunged into the goop yet again.

Furiously I began to wiggle my hoof around to smear on and collect as much goop as I could. I screamed as I struggled to drag my left forehoof upwards before the gluey goop set. Finally after quickly coating what seemed like a gallon of it on, and using all of my strength, I pulled it clear of the rest of the puddle. Dear Celestia was it heavy as fuck now!

But I just needed one fucking hoof free! That was it!

The hissing and snarling deathmatch going on in the background halted as two sets of glowing blue eyes had turned to see what all the fuss from me was about. With my forehoof raised into the air, their eyes locked onto the mallet’s worth of green stone solidified on my leg. Then, their eyes dropped to the floor, looking at the naked crystal sitting just next to me.

They both hissed as the two of them gave up trying to kill each other in favor of trying to charge me. And while I was glad they’d finally decided to be ‘friends’ and work together, I wasn’t happy that I was now their target! I gave out my own howling scream, and with as much force as I could, I swung my hoof down at the crystal.

A bright pink light filled the room as my hoof came down on the shard. There was a high pitched ringing that picked up in volume as the light faded with a crunch. The room fell into complete darkness for a moment. Then, there was a sharp blast, and I was knocked back into the quiet darkness.

“Night?”

The voice of a mare spoke out from the darkness.

“Night, honey. It’s time to wake up.” It was… my mother’s voice.

I groaned as the sound of a beeping hospital machine came from next to me. My body was numb, thanks to whatever painkiller I’d been given. What even happened? The last thing I remember was…

“There’s a good boy.” The voice of my mother spoke up again, but this time from right next to me. “Mother’s here to make you all better again.”

Opening my one eye, I gave out a gasp and sat up sharply. However, a pair of hooves pressed stiffly against my chest, forcing me back down into the soft bed I’d been laid into. The hooves that held me were colored as blue as the sky. Looking over so my good eye could see, I felt my breath leave me as a wavy mane the color of the blazing sun ringed my mother’s face.

“M...mom?” My mind didn’t care that I was out of breath, forcing me to croak out what felt like the single most important word in my life.

“Of course, honey. Who did you expect?” She smiled and gave me a soft tap on the chest. “A good mother would never abandon her son.” Slowly, she dragged the old wool blankets from the side of the hospital bed up and over me. Giving out a hacking, gasping caught, my lungs reminded me that I needed air to live. “Now you just concentrate on getting some rest.”

“But… the Enclave… they said you were dead…” I managed out between gasping breaths. How could she be alive? Unless… maybe she’d actually been declared a dashite! Violet said that she thought her family might have been told she died, and…

“Enclave?” Mom scrunched up her muzzle and gave me an incredulous smirk. “I don’t know who that is, but it’s not proper for a colt your age to believe such lies.” Stripping the wires that connected me to the medical machines, her words made me freeze up.

“You… you’re not my mom. She loved the Enclave.” The words slip out of my muzzle, making the imposter freeze up. “No, mom’s dead. So who the fuck are you?” Was this Salt? Was this some sort of sick attempt to try to repay me for the loss of my father?

“Alice?” Salt’s voice called from down the hall, making the imposter-mom stiffen up and stand up straight. “Alice, you better not be in there again!” Salt’s annoyance bled through the air as I heard him galloping down the hallway toward whatever room I was in. Sticking his head in, the grey speckled pegasus I’d always known him as stuck his muzzle into the room and shot an angry glare at her. “Oh, are you fucking kidding me? What was the one thing I told you not to do?”

“I was merely attempting to treat the patient.” This ‘Alice’ mare spoke up while standing tall to project toward him. “However I was not given the requisite information to complete the character profile. You neglected to inform me that the parent was deceased.”

“Of course I didn’t tell you! Because you were just supposed to check on his vitals and leave, not masquerade as anyone!” Growling, he dragged is forehoof down his muzzle. “Resume Redheart protocol and go do a full inventory of the stocks. You’d think for a ‘learning machine’, you’d learn to listen to do what you’re told.”

With a green flare, my mother dropped away with a flash. What existed for a moment, was a ponytron sized machine. However, instead of the blocky pony shaped metal I’d unfortunately seen before, bulbous black ceramic plates with an eerie green glow under them formed the general size and shape of a pony. A sharp spike of a horn glowed brightly before another wave of green flame enveloped the machine.

What stood next to me now, was a starkly white middle aged mare dressed in a traditional Ministry of Peace nurse's outfit. She had a pinkish mane that was tied up in a taut bun, and a light pink tail tied up just the same. A cutie mark of a red cross sat across her flank, and the projection of it was so detailed that I could see the individual colored furs that made it up.

“As you wish. If you need me, just call.” The mare nodded and then promptly trotted out of the room.

“Ugh.” Salt sighed and hung his head. “I’m sorry, she’s… hard to keep tabs on sometimes.”

“Whatever, I just… didn’t need a reminder that I’ll never see my mom again.” I sighed and pushed myself to sit up. “Regardless, can you explain just what the hell happened?”

“Well, you destroyed the shard, Night. You saved Alabaster and I from tearing each other apart. And now with the queen actually dead? I can feel love again.” Salt offered me a comforting smile, but it faded after a moment. “You did more than just save me, Night… you let me be myself again. I don’t think I could ever tell you how much that means to me, even after all that’s happened...” He paused, flushing white for a moment as he hung on those words. “Or do you mean what happened overall? Like, with Four Peaks?” That… was something I still wanted an answer from, but had reserved myself to never actually get. “I guess I do have quite a lot to explain to you about that.” With a sigh, he walked himself over to the end of my bed and sat down.

While I more than anything wanted to hear what he had to say about it, all I could think was that Dad was dead, and that would never change. I’d already come to terms with that, and while Violet was going to take some time to get over as well, it would happen. My time making mistakes in the wasteland has taught me that I can’t dwell on them. I just need to keep moving forward, and I can only do that if others move forward with me.

“I… don’t care.” I spoke up softly. While it was yet another case of tossing words from my muzzle, I meant exactly what I said. “I kept asking myself why it had to happen. What went wrong. What did you have to do with it?” He looked at the floor and hung his head. “But even though my whole life came tumbling down, I’ve since realized that it will never go back to the way it was.”

“Night, that’s…” He began, but I wasn’t finished.

“I forgive you, Salt.” I shouted out. “I don’t care anymore because I’ve moved on. I’ve made new mistakes, I’ve made new friends, I’ve found love in the wasteland. Those things, both the good and bad, are more important to me than anything that will ever come from my past now.” Offering him a smile, I felt a little light headed as I spoke only the words that came directly from inside me. “And I think, maybe it’s time for you to move on from the past as well, Salt.”

A soft clapping came from outside the doorway to my room. A smug looking purple unicorn walked around the corner and offered me a sad smile. But I couldn’t have worn a happier smile across my muzzle to see Hardcase again.

“I’m sorry you had to come rescue me, Night.” Hardcase sighed. “I can’t imagine what you went through to earn the scars you’ve got now, but even so, you still came for me.”

“Delilah said you were missing, after…” My words died in my throat as Hardcase slumped a bit.

“Yeah. I… still can’t believe she’s gone. I knew what happened here a decade ago, and when I came, I thought maybe I could feel her love again through the crystal until I just wasted away in solitude.” He gave a sniffle, but looked up again at me with a teary eyed smile. “But I can’t just give up, and you helped me to see that today. Violet wouldn’t have wanted me to lay down and die. She was a fighter, just like you are, Night.”

“I miss her too.” I felt a tear run down my cheek as my eyes watered as well. “I’m just… happy you’re okay, you know?”

He gave a whimpering nod before he all but sprinted over to my bed. He wrapped his hooves around me, pulling me into a hug that I could barely feel through the painkillers. I did the same, and held him tightly as we both sobbed. Salt, while he didn’t cry, did stray close enough that both Hardcase and I pulled him into the hug.

After a few minutes, both Hardcase and I had worked through enough shared tears to fill a bathtub, and we all broke off. While I didn’t go anywhere, I did lay back in the comfy hospital bed as Hardcase excused himself to be alone for a few minutes. Which of course, left Salt and I back together.

“So…” He spoke up, breaking the couple minute’s silence between us. “I hate to rush you, but… we kind of have to get going.”

Oh, shit! I forgot we needed to get out of here before Tephra came back to the island. Forcing myself to sit up, I threw the blankets off of me and scooted myself to the end of the bed. It was at that point that I realized that I was no longer covered in any more of that green stone goo stuff. And while my wings could use a good preening, I loved the feel of how light they were when they weren’t weighed down by that weird shit.

“Woah, easy there.” Salt said, reaching down and scooping something up from below the end of the bed. “You’re probably going to need this.” Raising his hoof, he held out my prosthetic leg to me. “I… hope you don’t mind. It seemed to be in pretty rough shape, so I cleaned and fixed it up a bit.”

It had indeed been cleaned off, and overall, it looked like it had been polished up to a near shine. It had even been somewhat repaired like he said, having been bent back into the shape it was before that junk cannon tore it off of me.

“Thanks.” I gave him a smile and took it. “You’re right, we should probably get going.” Slipping the ceramic cup over my stump, I gave a sigh of relief to feel it lightly suction up against me again. “It’s going to take us an absolute age to get back up top with all those hallways to wind through.”

“Yeah, that’s no longer an issue.” Salt gave a wavering grin. “See, it took us so long to get down there because I’d thought the queen was killed when the hive was breached. Obviously… you saw she wasn’t quite as dead as I’d thought.”

“So… that was the magic you were talking about earlier?” I asked, getting a short nod in return. “I guess it’s not impossible to navigate through after all.”

“Plus, as you’ve probably noticed by the shining lights everywhere, Hardcase and I managed to get the power back on in this place.” He held out his hoof to me. “Which means we can skip the stairs and just ride the elevator.” Taking his hoof, I scooted myself off the bed and got myself standing again.

“Oh, thank the goddesses for that.” I breathed a sigh of relief and shared a chuckle with him.

“But… Night?” He spoke up softly. “I know you said you think I should move on, but… I think I’m going to stay here for a while.”

“What?” I asked him with what probably looked like the most dumbfounded expression anypony has ever held.

“I mean, the Hive has everything I need for now. Thanks to the queen selfishly hiding it from us all, it’s pretty much still a well stocked bunker. And as dumb as she can be for a robot, Alice can keep me company for now.” Salt gave a forced chuckle before rubbing at his neck. “And I was thinking… if Boxer, Pepper and I could have survived out there all these years, then maybe some others did as well. Hell, before I met your friend without his disguise on, I thought our breed was the only one to have survived the war, seeing as we never heard from any of the other hives.”

“Pepper?” I asked him bluntly. While I truly didn’t know a damn thing about anypony named Pepper, in the back of my mind, I already knew what he was going to say.

“He… was the drone I went to Four Peaks with. My brother and best friend. ” Salt sighed, closing his eyes and focusing himself on speaking. “He thought I was getting too close to you, that I was getting desperate to feed again. He thought I’d slip up and you’d find out what we really were, and grew more and more paranoid. I tried to reassure him, but he’d already made up his mind. Said he’d create a diversion so that we could escape and find a new place to hide. I… wanted to tell you I was leaving, it didn’t sit right to just lead you on like that to then just disappear after what I’d known you’d gone through with your mother. That’s why I wanted you to come to the cave that day. To say goodbye.”

“So… he caused the accident.” I felt my eye twitch. “I… don’t know what to say.”

“Trust me when I say he never would have purposefully done anything to harm anypony.” Salt whimpered. “I don’t know what happened on that cloudship, but it was never supposed to end up that way. He had no idea what he was doing, but still he tried to help save us. I should have gone with him, should have stopped him from even going into that ship.”

So that was it. The reason I’d been cast down into this hellhole of a wasteland. The reason my father was dead. An accident that not even Salt could answer for.

I’m cursed, I get that, I’ve accepted it. But that didn’t make this feel any more like this was just one fucking step too far, even for a curse. I’m glad that I’ve come to have such loving friends down here, but… to officially call it an accident? It just feels hollow. Maybe it couldn’t have ever been stopped, I don’t know. But there’s nothing I can ever do to bring back my father. And in looking back at Salt, I realized that nothing would ever bring back his brother either.

“Then we both lost someone we cared about.” I wasn’t going to lie, this information hadn’t quite hit me like I thought it would. Again, I felt numb to the information, and just filed it away in my mind to care about later. “And while I can’t forgive him for killing my father, I’m sorry you had to lose a brother.”

“That’s fair, and thank you.” Salt nodded and gave me a soft tap on the shoulder. Looking up to me with a smile he stretched his forehoof out to the door. “Shall we go, then?”

“Yeah.” I nodded and took a deep breath. “Let’s get Hardcase, and we’ll go.”

The trip back to the surface went faster than I’d thought. The elevator ride up was minutes, the walk up the cave path another ten. But as we came out of the cave, and the dark hues of night time started to overtake the orange skies, I hesitated to walk any further.

“So…” I spoke, turning to Salt. “We’re here for another day, but then we’re continuing south.” I fought against the tight feeling in my chest as I looked at Salt’s genuine, but small smile. “This… is goodbye then.”

“I guess it is.” He nodded and looked up to the sky. “But that’s how it needs to be, right? We both need to move on, and this is part of it.”

“Oh come on.” Hardcase gave me a firm pat on the side. “You’re acting like this is goodbye forever. You could always come back up and visit in a few years, Night.”

“Yeah, that’s true. Except there’s a teeny tiny problem with that…” I cringed as I glanced over to Salt.

“Tephra.” He deadpanned as he glared off into the sky.

“Exactly.” I nodded. “You see, there’s this crazy fucking…”

“No, shut up.” Salt spoke in a hissing snap as he wrapped my muzzle in some sort of muting magic. Raising his hoof, he sharply pointed to the sky. “Tephra is back.”

Though his form mostly blended into the darkening skies, the green glow in his chest was easy to pluck out at a glance. His wide wings beat back the air in brutish sweeping flaps that kicked up dust, even from where we were at the other end of the clearing he was landing at. Held in his claws, was the squirming form of what I assumed to be the stallion from earlier.

“Welcome to my sanctuary, Chosen.” His booming voice was strong, but it was easy to hear that it was more reserved now than in the boathouse. “Enjoy your first impressions of it, for soon you will join the others who I have taken.”

“Are… are those bones!?” The stallion nearly screamed out. “By the goddesses, what happened to them all! What’s going on here!?”

“These are your fellow chosen, the ones I have chosen to save before you.” Tephra gave a sputtering laugh that shot out a gout of green flame into the air. “Why do you not think you deserve a fate such as theirs? Why do you think it was you who I have chosen for this honor?”

“H-honor!?” The stallion screamed, and even though it was getting darker by the moment, I could see the stallion in his grasp squirming in panic. “I… I killed my sister for refusing the goddesses! I have done only as you have requested, as any devout chosen would!”

“Lies!” He snapped out, bringing the stallion closer to his yellow eyes, which glowed as brightly as if they were bonfires themselves. “You asked to be saved by me, you wanted to prove you needed saving. You are WEAK. Only the weak ask for more than the Goddesses gracious gifts. Only through spreading the faith will you ever be rewarded.”

“B-but I tried!” The stallion whined and hammered his forehooves futily against the dragon’s claws. “M-my sister... she…”

“You failed to convert somepony so close to you as a family member.” Tephra snapped, squinting at him. “Somepony whose bond is closer than any other in the wastes, and you failed to show them the glory of the Goddesses. No, you will never help to spread the light, and are thus a hindrance to both the light and the Goddesses. I have chosen you so that, like the others bones you will join, you will not poison the herd. Your culling will strengthen the bonds of the TRULY devout.” Bringing him closer to his muzzle, he gave the frightened stallion a relaxed, indifferent look. “May you find comfort in that while you descend into the pits of Tartarus for the rest of eternity.”

“What!?” The stallion screamed out. “No! Help! Please, I...”

The stallion disappeared in a brilliant flash of balefire that enveloped the dragon’s claw. The sizzling hiss that filled the air silenced him forever. As the flames flickered out, and the dragon lowered his claw from his face, the glowing balefire saturated bones of the stallion clattered out of his grasp and joined the pile down below.

A rhythmic set of low gong like rings carried over the water from the city. Tephris raised up on his haunches, and turned his head around to look in the direction of the sound. With a heavy sigh, he let his massive wings sag across the ground as he deadpanned at the pile of bones.

“Goddesses give me strength… what so urgently requires my attention so close to my time of rest?” He grumbled before turning himself around. Lifting his wings again, he lowered himself down to the ground. “By the prophet’s word, a missionary’s work is never finished…” With a kick that shook the dirt under my hooves, and a beat of his wings that forced me to brace myself against it, Tephra took flight back toward the boathouse.

And thank the goddesses he fucking left. Er, don’t thank them… you know what? Fuck it. Praise Celestia and Luna, but fuck all these fanatical assholes.

“So… that was a thing.” Hardcase gave a nod before pointing to the forest. “So… we just chose any which way to leave then? Sound good to everypony?”

“Yeah, but it would probably be safest to head northwest,” Salt nodded and looked over at me. “To that cabin across the water we were at earlier, remember, Night?”

“Yeah, I remember.” I nodded, stopping when I looked back over to Hardcase’s unicorn form. “But… we flew across. So…”

“Well, his wings might not work, but he could always just ‘shoo bee doo’ his way across…” Salt shrugged before disappearing in a flash of green fire. When the fire dissipated, what sat before me was a turquoise colored pony… that had an elongated scaled rear end that kinda looked like that of a fish. Oh goddesses, is that what seaponies looked like? Fuck that’s weird…

“Not a bad seapony impression.” Hardcase shrugged. “Seen better, but not bad.”

“Every changeling’s a critic.” Salt rolled his eyes as he transformed back into his smiling self again. “But seriously, take care out there you two.”

“Yeah,” I nodded, reaching over and quickly giving Salt one last hug. “You too.”

Hardcase and I both gave waves back as we trotted off through the island forest again, making our way back toward the beach. Once there, I had to squint for a few moments before I could vaguely make out where the cabin across the water was nestled in the woods. But as I spread my wings, ready to fly, I found Hardcase reach out and stop me.

“Say, Night.” Hardcase spoke as he gazed across the water. “I know I already thanked you, but… I was in a seriously bad way.” He paused as I’m sure he was remembering his favorite times he spent with Violet. “But while she may have had that whole thing with Solomon going on, Violet believed in you more than anypony else on the crew.” Breaking his longing gaze, he looked over to me and nodded. “That being said, she and Delilah believe in you, and while you may already know that, just know that I believe in you too. Hell, the whole crew likes you, and it really tore them apart when you disappeared like you did.”

“Thanks, Hardcase.” I spoke softly, reaching my wing over and pulling him warmly against me. “That means a lot to me, even if I do screw up all the time. But that’s why I’m going to do what I can to make it up to each and every one of you. Hopefully without screwing that up as well.”

“Well, we all screw up now and again. No sense in getting all tripped up over it.” He smirked as he looked back over across the water. As he did, his look shifted to one of doubt. “Do… you think that excuse will work on Delilah? She’s not too worried about me I hope…”

“Oh, she’s going to be pissed no matter what.” I sighed and gave him a few pats with my wing. “But take it from the guy who’s been on her bad side since he joined this trip. It’s going to suck, but you’ll get through it alright.”

Author's Notes:

As always, a huge thanks to TheFurryRailFan for his dedication in helping to clean these chapters up before launch. You're the best, man.

And of course, many thanks to Kkat for both Fo:E and letting us all use the setting as we please.