“So, I’m guessing you guys didn’t have any luck.” Hardcase offered as Delilah and I climbed up into the rec area of the Hauler.

The trip to catch up with Bertha had gone quickly enough, taking us out from under the glass roof of the Harmony District. The moment we’d hit a block or so away from the glass roof, ponies seemed to sprout out of the numerous brick buildings along this edge of the city. Where we had stopped however was a few blocks away from the center point of this community, supposedly some old world train station called Gateway Terminal or some such. But, for as much as I felt like the sight of hundreds of ponies bustling about was nice, I’d been pretty sure Delilah didn’t share that particular sentiment.

She offered Hardcase the same burning glare normally reserved for me, before disappearing into her container and slamming the door shut. Wow, that was a bit harsh. Hardcase scrunched up his muzzle as her door closed, glancing at me with a worried look in his eyes.

“Seriously, what’s going on with her?” He kept his voice at a whisper as he moved back to sit at the radio.

I simply shrugged as I climbed up the rest of the way into the Hauler and dumped the sack of fruit onto the floor. A few of the plump fruit rolled out into view, pulling a confused look from Hardcase.

“That’s just how Ma’ is sometimes.” Happy offered as he lounged on the couch like the lazy lump he was. He carefully strummed at the ukulele in his hooves, slightly muting the slow tune he played as he looked down at the fruit. Oddly, he gave a disgusted snarl at it. “Ugh, punga. Why’d you have to bring that junk here?”

“You know what this stuff is?” I found myself asking before I could stop myself.

“Yeah, it’s the shit ‘fruit’ that dick Mr. Wizard pedals to the ponies in this city.” Happy huffed before wiggling himself uncomfortably further into the couch. “It tastes like garbage, and ponies around here only eat it ‘cause it’s cheap and keeps them from starving. It’s why so many ponies even come to live in this stupid city.”

“It’s good to know you at least listened to your mom when we rolled through here the first time.” Hardcase smirked as he reached up and flicked on the radio. The beat of another one of DJ Powercolt’s dance songs filled the air for a moment before Hardcase turned down the volume. “But he’s right in that the promise of work, protection, and food does a lot to attract all sorts, and not strictly the good kind of folks.” He bobbed his head along to the quiet beat of the music as he looked lost in thought for a moment. “Still, he’s gotta be shipping it in from somewhere. There’s no growing plots in the city. Not to mention, you saw the landscape north of Cantercross. It’s too barren and polluted to support any kind of life, and while the south side isn’t as bad off, there’s a whole lot growing that you can’t control.”

“No, he’s growing it here, in the city.” I spat out, not sure how he couldn’t have considered it. “He has tunnels of the stuff growing in the old subway under the city.” With what the pony had said before, I found it hard to believe that they’d hid the knowledge of thirty five growing metro stations from a population as large as what was in this city.

“That’s impossible.” Hardcase scoffed as he looked at me like I’d just suggested that Celestia’s brilliant sun was just the other side of Luna’s moon. “The subways have all been blocked off because they’re filled with toxic fumes from the stagnant wastewater under the city. Ponies who try to explore down there never make it back out.” Shaking his head for a moment, he waved his forehoof and looked like he tried to clear those words before blinking at me. “Why the fuck would you even suggest that, Night?”

“Because while I was waiting for Delilah to finish up in the library, I was asked to help somepony move a drum of sap down there. I had to wear a protective suit while I was down there though.” I shrugged and pointed at the fruits I’d spilled on the floor. “That was my payment for helping...” I cringed as I remembered what the pink stallion had said to me before we went into the station. “And now that I think of it, I was told not to tell anypony of what I saw down there…”

“So wait…” Happy sat up, more attentive now than he’d been in weeks. “You’re telling me that you’ve seen the inner workings of Mr. Wizard’s operation? By accident!?” While I didn’t know why he seemed so excited to hear that, I didn’t appreciate the bright smile that dragged across his muzzle. “That’s valuable information to the right pony…”

“No, Happy.” Hardcase snapped at him. “It’s also dangerous information to the wrong pony. Did you ever stop to think about that?” Shit, Hardcase was right. “What happens when word gets around about who spilled the beans on that shit? This is not what we’re in this city to do, and you know that.”

“The last thing we need is to give Solomon more pull with Mr. Wizard, which is what will happen if we let this get out.” I sighed, glancing over to Happy as his smile was strangled by our words. “If this was supposed to be a big secret or something, we can’t risk the safety of the convoy by putting it out there.”

“Ugh!” Happy groaned as he pretty much threw himself back against the couch again. “Fine, I won’t tell anypony. I don’t wanna be a fuckin’ square, but I guess you two eggheads have a point.” Pulling his ukulele up against his chest again, he plucked at the strings with a look of annoyance that matched Delilah’s recent mood. “Could’a made us all rich, but no, we’ve gotta care about shit...”

“Rich?” I grumbled and glared at him. Really? Is that all he cared about? “Isn’t the whole reason we’re up here to help save your town?”

“Hell, Night’s never even been there and he already cares more about the ponies of Brahman Beach than you do. You’re a fucking idiot sometimes, Happy.” Hardcase rolled his eyes as he stood himself up again. Looking over to me, his mood seemed to brighten. “Anyway, I was hoping that since we’ll be here for another hour or so, maybe you wanted to take a look around Gateway Station, Night? Buck’s out getting medical supplies in the market, Hispano and Cora are off for ‘Talon training’ or something, and lastly, Lucky and Gearbox are out getting food with Howitzer and Boiler. There’s not much to be gained by waiting around here when we can relax out there, right?”

“I don’t know…” I wasn’t sure how good of an idea that was, as I didn’t exactly want to go out and get into trouble after all the shit I’ve caused with Delilah. I was on thin ice as it was already, and the last thing I needed to do was punch a hole through it and jump into the freezing water all on my own.

“Eh, you two do whatever.” Happy mumbled as he set his Ukulele down on the couch and pushed himself up to his hooves. “I’ve got a very important appointment to keep.” Important appointment? He better remember the topic of that talk we had. As he trotted down to the stairs, he gave me a playful nudge, and a wink to Hardcase before he disappeared to down below. “Don’t let Ma’ leave without me now!”

Why did I feel like I was going to regret not tying him down to the couch when I had a chance?

“Sure thing, Happy.” Hardcase rolled his eyes as Happy stomped his way down the ice hold stairs. “Anyway, Night, are you at the very least up for grabbing some lunch?” He teased, holding his hoof out toward the open ice hold stairway. “My treat?” At the mention of food, my stomach gave a loud gurgle and made me freeze up, which only made Hardcase give out a quick laugh. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

Since this was a sort of ‘off the clock’ lunch, I figured that I wasn’t going to leave the Hauler without some things. While I left my battle saddle and Bessy’s shell loading sling back on the Hauler, I did grab my saddle bags and strapped on my jump pack. I didn’t want to have to use it, but if it was the case that trouble somehow found us, I could use it to get the fuck away from it as fast as possible.

I could absolutely feel that my curse was just waiting for me to give it an opportunity to fuck everything up. Because of this, I preemptively took another couple tabs of Chill just to get ahead of whatever pain I’d be experiencing when things fell apart. Still, now that I had, I couldn’t fight this fuzziness that had cropped up in my head. It wasn’t that bad really, it just… made it a bit hard to focus on thinking about one thing for too long.

“Quite the impressive community, isn’t it?” Hardcase spoke up as he dropped off the last of Bertha’s stairs and onto the paved street beside me. “Come on, all the good stuff is in the Terminal markets!” With a pat on my wings, he trotted off ahead of me towards an alleyway where several bored and ragged looking ponies were huddled around a burning barrel. With a sigh, I picked up my hooves and decided that I might as well get this trip over with.

The buildings that made up this part of town weren’t as impressively tall as the skyscrapers behind us, nor were they particularly interesting to look at. The weather and time worn bricks they’d been built out of did happen to at least give them more character than any of the concrete or steel monoliths behind us. Still, the ten-story or so structures dominated the local skyline here, and even with that extra old town character, this place held the same out-of-place feeling as the rest of the city.

The idea that this place was just a bit too good to be true stuck to the growing pit in my hungry stomach, and I could feel myself tensing up the more I looked around. And while I tried to focus on figuring out why that was, that feeling dipped behind the fuzziness in my head and I lost my train of thought. Honestly, it was probably a good thing, as it allowed me to notice the large group of ponies clogging up the other end of the alleyway Hardcase and I were trotting down.

“What’s going on?” I found myself asking as the crowd ahead when from a hushed murmur to a roaring mass of conversations.

“Even though we’re a few blocks from the station, this is how it always is here.” Hardcase had to raise his voice to beat out the crowd, but it wasn’t all too hard to hear him. For a moment as we approached the end of the alleyway, I could have easily confused the sea of ponies on the sidewalks as a less rotten horde than the one that had sieged Midway Station. “It’s actually a pretty cool place! But, it does take awhile to get used to how things work around here, especially if you want to get anywhere.”

“What do you mean?” I asked as I stepped up beside him at the edge of the alleyway.

I could only assume we’d stopped to find a break in the massive flow of ponies moving from the right side of the block to our left. It really did feel like a river, as ponies packed almost nose to flank went about their business without even seeming to notice us trying to get by at all. I blinked as a blue wall of magic shot up out of the sidewalk, instantly stopping the flow from our right as the ponies piled up painfully against the glowing wall.

“That might seem mean to you, but it’s only fair.” Hardcase smiled as his horn glowed. Stepping out onto the now cleared sidewalk, he turned and waved for me to follow. “Now come on…”

A black and white flash slammed into Hardcase from the side as a small zebra stallion came out of nowhere. Hardcase’s spell fizzled as the both of them went down onto the pavement, and he let out a yelp as he pretty much slid back against my forehooves. The zebra however was back onto his hooves and galloping against the flow of the pony river. By the time I could even look over to find out what had happened to him, he was completely obscured in the mass of ponies.

Damn, he was fast!

"Stop! Thief!" The shouting of a unicorn from the direction of where the zebra had come from pulled my attention. "Somepony, stop that zebra!"

Turning to look for the zebra, I found that the crowded sidewalk parted slightly as the zebra stallion pushed his way forward. Those who’d heard the call out had moved, but didn’t help as the zebra pushed his way through those too slow to move aside. Even though he was going the wrong way, he was making a good amount of progress. As the zebra turned and looked back however, I noticed the small cloth bag he had gripped by his muzzle.

"Fuck it, I’m not going through this shit again." Hardcase growled as he got back to his hooves and pushed himself into a gallop. "Come on, Night!" He called back over his shoulder as he took off. Really? I'd expected to find trouble out here, but Hardcase of all ponies had to know we shouldn't get involved. "Hurry up or we'll lose that little fucker!"

Ugh, fine!

‘Come on, Night. Let’s go get lunch, Night!’ Yeah, of course it couldn’t possibly be that simple. Chasing down this guy was a bad idea, but if shit went sideways, Hardcase better own up to Delilah for this!

While the zebra had been fast to recover from his impact against Hardcase, he wasn't exactly the fastest runner. Though, that might have had something to do with the fact that there were quite a lot of ponies here, and he was the leading edge against the flow. Hardcase and I were quickly catching up to him, something that he was aware of by the fact he was constantly looking back to check on our progress.

In fact, he stopped pushing forward and desperately looked around for a way out. He pushed his way over to a sturdy sheet metal fence that was inset from the sidewalk where he could get a small amount of breathing room from the crowd. The fence was almost a story tall, and blocked off an narrow alleyway which if he got through, we probably wouldn't be able to follow into. Shoving his hooves against it, the small zebra founding that it didn't give in the slightest, so instead he turned his attention to the two close buildings that the fence joined to.

That's right you son of a bitch, there's no use in running...

The zebra took a few steps back before charging the fence at an angle. Leaping up, he almost bounced off the brick wall with his hooves, springing and turning himself towards the other side. I couldn't believe what I was seeing as the small zebra jumped his way up between the two buildings and then deftly threw himself over the top of the tall fence.

"Son of a bitch!" Hardcase wheezed as both he and I brought ourselves to a stop, quickly finding the gap of ponies we'd used, close around us. "How the fuck did he do that? Great, we can't fucking follow him through there!" He flailed his hoof up toward the top of the fence, which helped me get an idea.

"I’m not going through there, but I'm not giving up on him yet." I reached up and depressed the button on my jump pack harness. "Get ready to follow me from the ground." I nodded to Hardcase who looked quite concerned as my jump pack whined and spooled up. "Everypony, stand back!" I shouted out, getting more than a few weary looks as again the crowd parted a bit. Sitting up, I flicked down my sunglasses, looked to the sky, and pressed the button in my fetlock.

With the sound of a gunshot, I was propelled up into the sky once more. The world went quiet as my burst of speed drained, and I felt myself slow down. As I reached the point where I started to fall, I flared open my wings and caught the air under them, transitioning into a smooth slow glide.

“Nice form.” The voice of Violet beside me caught me off guard, and I turned my wide eyes to where it came from. I found Violet herself gliding through the air right along side me, and I nearly gasped. However, I blinked once, and she was gone.

“What the fuck…” I muttered under my own breath, confused as to what the hell I’d just seen.

Yelling from down on the street below me kicked my mind out of the loop of confusion that I’d gotten stuck in. Right, deal with seeing Violet later, I need to focus. Looking down, it wasn’t hard to find the black and white striped stallion running pretty much straight away from me down the mostly clear street the the alleyway had lead to. A few ponies seemed to be staring at him as he sped past them, but thankfully for me, he seemed like he was sure he was in the clear now. Alright, how do I approach this?

I could spiral down as I would normally if I were coming down somewhere. But he might see me coming and just run through another alley where I couldn’t follow. Same thing goes for if I make my approach to long and straight. No, I needed to get to him fast, and find a way to make sure he can’t escape again. Which, as annoying as it was, meant I had to dive at him and hope I could stop him with a single precise slam. If I missed this, then he could duck around a corner again and I’d lose him for good.

Goddesses this was going to hurt, wasn’t it?

Torquing my wings, I rolled myself over and locked my forelegs in their outstretched position. Shifting and twisting my forehooves helped me to fine-tune the dive as I entered it. I started in the near vertical, quickly gaining quite a lot of speed before using my wings and tail to pull up a bit. As I did, I cringed as the turbine in my jetpack spun up with my speed and started to drone. Fuck, not now! Just give me a few more seconds!

Despite my hopes, the whine wasn’t all that subtle, and of course the zebra heard it as I lined up for my final approach on him. I was almost leveled out by the time he spun around to find the source of the noise, and though I only saw it for a moment, the wide eyed shocked look across his muzzle was almost priceless. Then of course, I slammed into him. Hard.

The world shifted with a thick snap that took the breath right out of my lungs. My vision spun as it felt like I bounced off the zebra and flipped through the air before crashing down onto the old pavement. Gasps and yells came from the ponies around me before the sound of the world muted as I painfully rolled along the road. I don’t know how far I’d skid, but as the sound of my jump pack grinding against the pavement filled my ears, I felt myself come to a complete stop.

A dozen fonts of admittedly light pain cropped up across my legs and sides, but as I shook my head clear of the fuzziness of the crash, nothing seemed to be painfully out of place. Well, at least that was the case for my body, as the scream of a local pony pulled my attention toward the zebra. He lay on the ground quite aways from me, with his neck bent in an unnatural way. From the way he wasn’t moving, and the same shocked look frozen across his face I’d seen before hitting him, I was pretty sure he wasn’t unconscious...

Fuck, I didn’t mean to kill the poor guy…

“Night!” Hardcase panted heavily as he galloped around the street corner behind me. “Are you alright?”

Running up to me, he quickly helped me get to my hooves. His quick pat down of me revealed a dozen or so bloody scrapes along my body, but past that I didn’t seem to have broken anything. Well, anything other than that Zebra’s neck…

“Dispatch, this is Officer Baloney,” The sharp voice of an earth pony mare forced both Hardcase and I to freeze up. “Ten twenty three on that ten fifteen. Standby for an update.” A grape purple mare in black armored barding trotted over from the street corner where Hardcase had come from. Her barding was bulky and covered in pockets along the front, containing magazines for the rifle she had strapped along her back, as well as what looked like an old radio. The white letters of CCPD embroidered across her chest at least gave me some hope that she’d see the reasoning behind my actions. “Does somepony want to explain what the hell happened here?”

I really couldn’t afford to get arrested for this today…

“You see officer, that zebra had stolen a bag from a pony a street over…” Hardcase started, but froze up as the officer gasped as she looked at the body.

“I fucking told him he’d get himself killed one day if he didn’t shape up. I should have done more.” The officer sighed and pinched her temple in her fetlock. Wait, she what? “But my own mistakes shouldn’t be your concern.” Turning to me, the mare offered a sad smile and gave me a pat on the side. “The Cantercross City PD thanks you for your help in stopping this crime, citizen.” Turning to Hardcase, she looked him over for a moment. “Was it your bag he’d stolen?”

“No.” Hardcase shook his head, flashing a nervous smile. “But the stallion who it does belong to was just around the corner.”

“Unfortunately, I’ve got to stay here to write a report about this incident, as well as wait for somepony to come pick up the body.” The mare nodded as she reached up into one of the pockets of her barding and pulled out a sheet of old, yellowed paper. “If I could trouble you to take the pony’s stolen bag back to them, the CCPD would be grateful for your help.”

“No problem, officer.” I nodded to her and looked over at the stallion’s body again. As I did, I froze as the bloody form of Violet was sprawled out across the road where the zebra had been. Blinking again, Violet’s corpse disappeared, and I was once again staring at the dead stallion. Putting my forehoof to my chest, I could feel my heart racing, pounding against my ribcage as my mind rebounded twice as fast.

What the fuck was going on? Why was I seeing Violet now? I don’t understand!

“Night, are you alright?” Hardcase’s voice once again pulled me back to the real world.

“No, I…” The words were so eager to leave my muzzle, but I bit my tongue painfully to stop myself. Think about what you’re about to say, Night. It’s not going to be so simple to say that you’re seeing his dead wife. Looking up at him, his worried gaze was busy studying me, and I knew he’d definitely see through any lie I gave. I didn’t know what to do, and to make matters worse, my legs had started shaking as I began to panic.

“Woah, woah, calm down.” Hardcase gave me a few soft, reaffirming pats against my scraped up sides before stepping up and hugging me tightly. “I don’t know what’s going on, but why don’t we take that bag back to its owner, and we can talk as we head back to the Hauler to patch you up, alright?”

“No! I didn’t mean to kill him.” My mind bounced from the thoughts of Violet, to reminding me that I promised Buck that I wouldn’t kill anymore. Reaching over, I stared right into Hardcase’s eyes. “It was an accident! You… you can’t tell Buck. We can’t go back, not like this. He’ll ask, and I promised, and...”

“Alright, alright.” Hardcase nodded as he pulled off the hug, putting his forehoof to my lips to force my words into quivering whimpers. “There’s a clinic on the edge of the city not to far from here. We’ll turn the bag back in and then go there, alright?” I have him a shaky nod as my mind raced to figure out why the hell this was all even happening to me.

After ten minutes of wading through the river of ponies with no sign of the stallion who’d had his bag stolen, Hardcase decided that we should head to the clinic and get me patched up before continuing the search. I kept my eyes glued to the ground the whole time though, afraid that if I were to look up, I’d see Violet again somewhere amidst the crowd. Why was I seeing her now? Was it my curse that was doing this, punishing me for all the mistakes I’d made in the last few days?

When Hardcase said that the clinic was on the edge of the city, he hadn’t been kidding. While the brick buildings had been a nice change from the skyscrapers, just a couple blocks from where we were now, the dark and foreboding forest to the south looked like it was pushing towards us. Over the last two hundred years, the southern forest looked like it had made the decision to reclaim the city for itself, and had begun a long and slow process of consuming it’s first victims.

The further I looked along the street, the old red bricks of buildings gave way to the ivy, vines, and trees that flourished here. They grew in, around, and even out the windows and roofs of some of the old world structures. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the vibrant purple flowers that grew on the buildings were of the same shape and hue that had adorned the Bramble wolves just outside of Filly Crossing.

I pushed the thoughts of the fight with the wolves there from my mind. No, if I dwelled too much on that, I’m sure that’d see her again. I needed to focus, to keep myself moving forward to work on problems that I have now, not the mistakes of my past.

“Alright, we’re here.” Hardcase nudged me as we stopped in front of an average looking brick building.

Like most of the buildings around this part of town, all of the windows in the old, brick three story structures were boarded up. Honestly, it left this entire section of town feeling like it was abandoned. Looking over the building, I couldn’t find anything that dictated this place as a clinic at all. Maybe Hardcase hadn’t remembered the correct address?

As he stepped forward and knocked on the old oak door, I could feel my heart start to beat faster again. What if this was where Buck went to get his medical supplies? What if it’s actually Buck who opens the door!? My mind raced with all the ways that this could go horribly wrong, but locked itself down on one single worse outcome. What if all I saw when the door opened, was Violet?

The door swung open quickly, and an older mare greeted the two of us with a tired and unfocused gaze.

“The fuck do you want?” The strawberry coated unicorn mare grumbled as she brought her gaze across both Hardcase and I. She blinked a few times, batting away her curly creme colored mane so she could rub at the saggy bags under her puffy eyes. With a long yawn, she canted her head to us. As she did, I noticed a dark brand on the back of her neck. Just by seeing it made the matching brand on my neck burn, and made me glad I was as far away from Tephra as I could be. “Hardcase? I didn’t know you were back in town already.”

“Yep, though it’s just for a little bit, Sunshine.” Hardcase nodded with a smile as he gave a little wave at her with the hoof that held onto the stolen bag. “Think you can help us out with something? I know it falls a bit outside of your purview, but my friend here could use a good look over.”

“Sure.” The mare nodded before groggily turning around and waving for us to follow her. “Why do you have Ritz Tabard’s bag by the way? He never lets anypony touch that ragged old thing, let alone let it out of his sight.”

“Oh, is that whose it is?” Hardcase chuckled as he followed the doctor inside, waving for me to follow him. “My friend and I had recovered it off a zebra who’d stolen it, but we couldn’t find the owner afterwards. Thanks though, we’ll run right over to the hotel after this and give it back to the poor guy.”

Following Hardcase inside the old building, we passed through a small entrance hallway and into what looked to be a fairly cramped studio apartment. A rickety bed and dresser sat on one side of the floral print wallpapered room, while a decent sized cast iron stove glowed with the embers of a fire as a tea kettle steamed away on its top plate. A table with a pair of chairs sat next to it, though one of the chairs was only being used to store a pile of what looked to be old medical textbooks. A dust covered radio sat along the back wall, and looked like it had been neglected for decades, if not a century. I guess she wasn’t a big fan of music...

“So, how’s Violet doing?” The mare asked with an unintentional sharpness that quickly brought my mind back to her.

Immediately Hardcase’s hooves froze to the floor, and to be honest, mine did as well. I cringed as I looked up at him, expecting the worst. To his credit, he simply took in a deep breath and put it out there.

“She died, last week.” His response was simple, and spoken with an expediency that felt like he wanted to sweep it under the rug.

I knew it was hard for him to say at all. Hell, it wasn’t easy to think about, doubly so with these visions I’ve now been having of her. I know it doesn’t need to be said, but what either Hardcase and I wouldn’t have given to turn back time and save her...

“Oh.” The mare’s reverent tone sounded genuine to me, and thought I didn’t really know her, I could tell that she must have been a friend of Violet’s. “I’m sorry for your loss.” After a moment of silence, she continued walking. I followed both Hardcase and the Doc through another doorway at the back of the room. There, the old wooden floorboards we’d been on transitioned to cold concrete, and the smell of copper permeated the air.

The back room was a bit more spacious than the cramped living area on the other side of the wall. Lines of cabinets filled with old bottles and glinting silver tools ran around the edges of the room, and an all to familiar looking metal examination table sat in the center. As we walked into the room and my eyes had time to adjust to the slightly muted lighting inside, several dried crimson stains along the floor and on the metal table itself caught my gaze. It was about then that I began to wonder just what kind of a doctor this mare was…

“So, why don’t you tell me what’s going on with him.” She asked, shooting a flat gaze over to Hardcase, who offered the same look right back at the mare.

“It’s good to see you haven’t lost that keen eyesight of yours!” He gave out a nervous laugh, forcing away his somber mood before glancing over to me. “Well you see, it was almost like he had a panic attack of sorts. And well, you know me. I wouldn’t normally trouble you with something like this, Sunshine, but I could feel something was off.”

“Alright, if you’re ‘feeling’ something like that on him, then I know better than to question whatever that special sense of yours is.” Doc Sunshine nodded as she looked to me with more than mild curiosity. “If it worried you enough to come to me, then something probably is going on.” She pointed me to the blood stained metal slab in the middle of the room and gave me a somewhat comforting look. “As a veterinarian, you’re not exactly my normal clientele, but I’ll do my best. Climb up on the examination table for me and let’s have a look at you.”

I did as she asked, doing my best to avoid touching any of the dried blood splotches. A shiver ran down my back as the cold metal table ebbed through the numbness that ran across my body. I guess amidst all these terrible feelings that ran through my mind, having the painkillers numbing me was a small blessing I could be thankful for.

“Come on…” Doc Sunshine grunted as she crossed her olive green eyes trying to look up at her own horn.

Sets of similarly colored green sparks sputtered out from it’s tip as she tensed up. Pulsing fizzles shot from her horn as she looked like she put maximum effort to squeeze her spell out through sheer willpower alone, which then again, might be how it works in the first place. I don’t know how unicorn magic works, and I probably never would…

With a brilliant flash, a blinding horizontal line of green swept through the air. The doctor’s horn hummed softly as she brought the spell down, running it across my body a few times. With another set of sparks, the humming died and the spell dissipated.

“So, Doc,” Hardcase took a step toward me as he spoke, “What’s going on with him?”

“Well,” The doc sighed as her curious interest in me all but died on the spot. “With all of his symptoms, I do have one question to ask.” Bringing her eyes up, she narrowed them spitefully at me and sneered. “Have you started seeing things yet? Or is that what caused your episode in the first place?”

“What?” The words tumbled from my muzzle as I tried to figure out what she was getting at. How… how could she have known I was seeing Violet?

“Hallucinations, images that aren’t really there. Sound familiar at all?” Doc Sunshine snorted with a disdain that would have brought a smile to Delilah’s muzzle. “Normally they appear before the shakes and panic attacks, but some ponies get the advanced symptoms first.” Glaring at me, she tapped her forehoof against the floor impatiently. “So tell me, are you seeing things that aren’t there?”

“Y-yeah…” I nodded and looked over to Hardcase. I didn’t want to bring it up to him, not after he’s been doing so well in coping with her loss. But I couldn’t hide it, not if the Doc could fix it. “I… I’ve been seeing Violet.”

“It’s as I thought.” Doc Sunshine shook her head in disappointment as she turned to Hardcase. “You’ve got an addict on your hooves.”

“Excuse me?” Hardcase almost lost it at that, giggling as he tried to force his smile away. However, the serious and stern gaze that Doc Sunshine gave him eventually helped him to win out over the smile.

“All of his symptoms can be explained through excessive doses of Chill.” She shook her head as she sat down and pointed at her own head. “The hallucinations are normally an early warning sign of the neural degradation the drug causes, however from the scarring around his head, I’d say that his previous injuries might have hidden the symptoms for a longer period of time.”

“Woah, woah.” Hardcase raised his forehooves at her and offered me a quick, uneasy glance. “He may have had his fair share of injuries, but are you seriously telling me that you think Night is a Chill addict?” Crossing his hooves, he looked disappointed at her conclusion. “Maybe your eyes aren’t as good as I thought. You’re losing your edge, Sunshine. He’s not an addict.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I don’t just think he is.” She mirrored Hardcase as she angrily crossed her forehooves, but now cast her angry gaze at me. “I know he is. How many pills have you had just today? Four? Six?”

“Uh…” Goddesses, I didn’t like being put on the spot like this! Still, as much as I wanted to lie and say that I’d been following Cora’s strict instructions of no more than four a day, lying wouldn’t help me right now. “Eight?” I couldn’t help but cringe as Hardcase’s jaw nearly hit the floor from that. Oh come on! How could he know what it’s been fucking like having all the pains I do? “What? I got shot yesterday, as well as stabbed back at Lil’Canterlot. The pain’s been bad lately, so I just thought I’d get ahead of it with a bit of an extra dose. That doesn’t make me a fucking addict!”

“I’m sorry, but that’s just not true. Your previous injuries have already healed, so the pain is not part of those.” The doc’s tone changed again, shifting to where it sounded like she was childing me over this shit. “Part of the function of Chill is to stop damaged nerves from firing, which is that comfortable numbness you feel while on it. With enough use at high enough doses, those nerves get used to not firing at all. So when you stop or have a break in using, even for a few hours, any errant signal to them makes them cause painful feedback. That feedback can also cause hallucinations, paranoia, and a dozen other mental problems that can drive the addict to consume higher and higher doses.”

“No, you’re wrong.” I snapped at her and waved my hooves over all the scars across my body. “You think I take this much Chill because I like it? You have no fucking idea how bad it’s been every single day. With all the injuries I’ve had, I’ve fucking needed something to dull the pain.”

“And I’m telling you, that while you still have those scars, you are a perfectly healthy stallion.” She snapped back at me before jabbing her hoof against her horn. “My spell doesn’t lie, the pain you feel is just your body telling you that you need more of the drug, nothing more.” With an annoyed sigh, she grumbled and tucked her forehooves under each other again. “Addicts always have a hard time accepting this, but if you’ll just...”

“I’m not a fucking addict!” I nearly screamed as I pushed myself off of the metal table. I didn’t need to hear this shit right now, not after everything I’d been through. If she couldn’t stop me from seeing Violet, fine. I just wasn’t going to suffer in pain just because she thought I was some fucking junkie looking to get high.

“Look, you need help. Prolonged Chill use can cause tremendous and irreversible nervous system damage. My advice is to wean yourself off the heavy duty stuff by going to using Wave for a while, and then only stick with basic painkillers like aspirin from there on out.” She growled back at me, raising her voice as she too got to her hooves. What was it with this bitch that she just wasn’t getting? Every word of hers felt like it was cutting deeper into my head and I just wanted it to stop. “Wave won’t stop the hallucinations, and I know you don’t want to hear it, but…”

She shot her hoof out toward me, weather to point at me or to strike at me, I couldn’t be sure. But before I could think about which one was more likely, I figured that I’d been caught off guard enough and simply reacted. My forelegs pushed off the examination table, and I leaned forward as I shoved her back into the cabinets behind her.

“You don’t even fucking know what I’ve been through!” I snapped, flaring out my wings and puffing up as large as I could. There was a sharp crunch as she buckled the wooden cabinet doors from the hit, and she gave off a surprised whine as she crumpled to the floor. “I can’t live with both the pain I most definitely do feel, and the shit I’ve done. It’s one thing or the other, and Celestia as my fucking witness, I’ve made my choice.”

“Night!” Hardcase called out as he sprung forward and grabbed tightly around me. “Calm down, she’s just trying to help!” His horn glowed softly out of the corner of my eye, and I don’t know how, but a wave of calm washed over me. I couldn’t fight the flood of contentment I felt rush through me, like somepony had simply sapped all the rage from me in the span of a few seconds. “Just… calm down.”

“I…” The fog that I’d felt in my mind earlier intensified, pushing back everything else inside my head to leave me with a lonely empty feeling. “I’m sorry… I don’t know what came over me…” I turned my eyes down to the frightened gaze of the doctor on the floor below me. As my eyes moved from her to the broken cabinets she’d hit, I let out a soft gasp. “I-I didn’t mean to…”

“I’m so sorry, Sunshine.” Hardcase sighed as he tightened his grip around me. “He didn’t mean…”

“You’re a… get out.” She snarled, cutting him off as she pointed to the exit. “I said get the fuck out of my clinic!” The rage I’d just lost was all she looked like she held onto now, and her anger nearly bowled both Hardcase and I off of our hooves. “Move!”

“Alright, alright!” Hardcase nodded quickly, letting me go as he stepped away. As he did, I looked over at him to find that his disguise spell had faded, and his white and blue chitinous changeling form almost glowed under the soft lighting in the room. With a flash of his horn, Hardcase’s spell came back, and his magic pulled the stolen sack up close to him again. “Come on, Night. Let’s go.”

“I’m sorry.” I sighed as we trotted toward the brick buildings that crowded the outside of the bustling marketplace again. I never meant to cause any of these problems, I just… didn’t want to be in pain anymore. Maybe that was selfish of me, and really I should be hurting for all the terrible things I’d done…

“It’s not your fault, Night.” Hardcase forced himself to sound like at least a small part of him believed that. “We’re all doing the best we can with what’s happened.” His cadence slowed as he looked like he was fighting himself in his head before he turned to me with a frown. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re an addict, Night. But... maybe you should tell Buck about this.”

“Yeah, I should...” I sighed and gave him a slow but hesitant nod. I didn’t believe that doctor, not one bit. I only took Chill to dull the pains from all the injuries I’ve had, nothing more. And if I told Buck about it, then he might just cut them off completely. “I… I just don’t want to have these aches make the difference between me doing my job, or ending up too slow and distracted that somepony gets hurt.”

“Hey, you’ve done a great job at that so far, Night.” Hardcase turned and offered me an even more forced smile than before. I don’t know how he could even pretend to be as optimistic as he was after everything that’s happened just today alone. “Don’t ever think that anything other than trying your best is absolutely necessary. Even if Delilah rides your flank about screwing up sometimes.” Sure, he was right, but it didn’t make Delilah’s anger sting any less when she’d yelled at me. “Now come on, we’re almost to the station.”

Hanging my head as we walked, I wanted to ask him how he could shrug things off so easily. But part of me worried that his answer would be something I didn’t want to hear. Honestly, the illusion of him holding everything together made me feel a whole lot better than risking an explanation, so for once, I kept my muzzle shut and just followed alongside him. However, my muzzle didn’t stay shut for long as we passed the outlying brick buildings, and plunged straight into the sea of ponies moving about on the sidewalks and streets. While this part of town seemed to be much older and comprised of mostly brick buildings, they at least had one ‘modern’ feature built among them.

In the center of the city block wide plaza was a rotund three story building that, for lack of better words, looked like a performance stage. On the flat roof of the building stood four enormous statues of dancing mares in long flowing glass gowns. They each stood on their hind legs, holding each other up with their forehooves as each of their dresses bowed out to become a glass roof that stretched down over the streets and myriad of train tracks that criss-crossed the station.

The glass roof glistened in the sunlight, each of its windows formed to look like a different cut of jem that cast down warm, prismatic rays of light onto the city streets below. Even the criss-crossing support pillars that sat just outside the sweeping glass windows of the main building, had been designed in such a way that they weaved between each other and made the place look almost like it was a birds nest. There didn’t seem to be a single detail built in it that wasn’t somehow ornate or designed to be solely functional.

Honestly, while I hadn’t visited many train stations so far, I could assume that they probably tended to lean more toward efficiency and economy. But of all them I’d seen so far, this one felt the most like while it was purely meant to be functional, that was no excuse to make it a bland and boring concrete box. And I don’t think that was at all by chance. The unmistakable logo of three blue gems that sat painted above the grand arched entrance to it said everything to me.

I remember that the Ministry of Image used to be run by a mare named Rarity, who before the war, was a leader in the fashion industry. Embarrassingly, some of the first and most gorgeous dresses I’d ever laid eyes on were examples of Miss Rarity’s work in old books and magazines. And because this building was so incredibly close to her style of design, I wouldn’t be surprised if this building had originally been designed exclusively by her back during the war. A glass dress might be a tad uncomfortable to wear about town, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t the most beautiful dress I’d ever seen adorn a fifty foot statue.

“Quite the piece of engineering, isn’t it?” Hardcase sighed as he stopped just outside the crowd of ponies moving from right to left along the sidewalk in front of us. “As beautiful as it is from here, you haven’t seen anything yet.” With a smirk, his horn flashed to life again, and another magic wall forcibly parted the ponies on the sidewalk. “Come on, Night. Let’s go return this bag.”

I nodded and followed him across the sidewalk, and past all the angry looks of the ponies pressed up against the magical wall. I stepped down into the street, and almost tripped over the set of steel track that were inlaid inside the asphalt.

“Watch your step!” Hardcase laughed as he hopped over the tracks. The tracks themselves were neatly inlaid into a section of bricks that split the road with a couple ponies width gap before giving way to another set of tracks. “You know, Gateway Terminal grew to be so busy back during the war, that in order to serve the city, a good few of it’s thirty six platforms had to be built underground alongside the intercity metro.” Skipping over the set of lines and up onto the next sidewalk curb, Hardcase gave a light twirl of himself as a vibrant genuine smile grew back across his muzzle. “I know that may not mean much to you, but to me, just that level of an engineering challenge is exhilarating to think about.”

“Why?” I asked as I hopped over the next set of lines to follow him. It’s not that I wasn’t curious, but to be honest, seeing him so easily shrug off the travesty that was what happened at the clinic meant I had to at least try to do the same. If that meant asking him about his weird engineering fetish, than so be it.

Then again, by the way he cringed as I asked that and froze up before stepping down to the next set of tracks, I could guess that it wasn’t so simple of an answer. He scrambled to keep the stolen bag in the grasp of his magic before turning and giving me a somewhat surprised look. Okay, maybe it wasn’t such a good topic to have brought up after all...

“Let’s just say it’s complicated, but…” He lowered his voice a bit as I climbed onto the curb to stand with him. “Think of it this way, a small part of it is that Changelings love challenges. There’s a special drive that pushes us to strive to adapt to fit any situation, and it’s something that’s a fundamental part of what and who we are.” Turning his gaze, he smirked and again took in the towering dancing mares above us. “To you, sure, it looks like I have some weird fetish. But to me? Adapting to solve a tough puzzle is as rewarding as any sex you’ve had or you ever will have with Buck.”

I deadpanned at that, holding onto the expression until he looked over at me.

“What?” He stifled his laugh with his forehoof before stepping down from the curb and over the next set of tracks. Turning around, he jabbed at his horn as he walked backwards. “Sorry, it’s not like I can turn this off when you two are in the mood.” That’s not the point! “Besides, don’t forget, you asked.” Again, that’s not the point!

Rolling my eyes, I hopped down onto the tracks and followed him. After that set of tracks, there was yet another curb to break up another pair of tracks bisected by yet another brick pathway. There was a pattern here that was beginning to emerge to me, and the more I looked at them, the easier it all fit into my head.

Still stenciled across each side of the path was the word Platform, followed by a number. The numbers seemed to get higher the closer we got to the station itself, and looked to terminate on what was platform eleven. As we crossed the last gap between platforms, there was only one last set of tracks before there was just sprawling open concrete the rest of the way. Just across that expanse was the arching entrance to the old world station, where hundreds of ponies had stalls and shops set up outside the old glass windows.

However, once Hardcase was on the other side of the last set of tracks, he turned around. As I stepped up to join him, he didn’t seem to want to follow anymore. Instead, he just stood at the curb facing the wrong way like he was waiting for something.

Had he seen someone behind us? I started to scan the crowd of ponies walking on the sidewalks back across the tracks, but forced my eyes shut when my mind forced a realization upon me. No, I will not see her again. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder why he’d stopped now. Which of course, went completely past the self-censor in my mind, and straight out of my muzzle.

“Why did we...?” I asked before I was cut off by the shrill whining of my jump pack spooling up. Immediately I panicked, looking down at the flap on my harness as I wondered when I’d hit the start button. It was about when I found the leather flap untouched that I realized that the whining wasn’t coming from my pack at all. Rather, it was droning on from down the rail line that Hardcase and I had stopped on.

Looking down the line to my left, I traced it eastward through the city. While the other lines around here curved and criss-crossed around the whole plaza, this line was different. It cut an almost straight path through the old brick buildings, stretching on and on. Eventually it curved just enough that I lost the tracks amidst the various old buildings blocks and blocks away from the plaza.

“Eeee! I was hoping she’d show up!” Hardcase gave an excited giggle as he trotted in place and brightened up like a colt who’d just been offered candy. Clopping his hooves together as he sat himself facing eastward, he was nearly vibrating enough that I could feel it through the cold concrete under my hooves. “I missed the Black Beetle last time we came through, and I told myself I wouldn’t miss her when we stopped here again.”

Actually, it wasn’t him vibrating at all. The concrete under me was vibrating!

“The what?” Was he really this excited over what I could only guess was a train? Really, did we have time for this? I know we’re not exactly in a rush to get back to the Hauler, but train watching wasn’t exactly how I’d expected to spend the lunch he’d offered to take us out to. The whistling in the air picked up, starting to sound more and more like the archano-jet engines that some of the advanced vertibucks that the Enclave had used. “Wait… that sounds like an aircraft.”

“Correct!” Hardcase’s grin grew as I squinted and looked down the line. What the fuck did he mean by correct? That didn’t answer anything! “The Black Beetle is the fastest cargo train in the north, and can make the run from Destruction Bay to Vanhoover in two days. Though, the NERPC never runs her on that long of a trip. Generally, they leave that dangerous journey to the ENR and their old school wood-fired locomotives. But those are peanuts to the sophistication and marvel that is the Black Beetle.”

He gave me only the shortest waggle of his eyebrows before his attention was torn back to the distant turn in the rail line. There, a large black monster slowly came into view. I say monster because while it was obviously the size of a fucking train, it had four glowing red eyes blazing on its ‘face’. Each pair of two eyes were slightly offset from the top of the train, and the ebbing green glow that came from the undercarriage of the black object made it look like the maw of a ravenous beast that was devouring the track as it approached at what became an alarming speed.

No wonder he liked it, it looked as much like a massive armored train as it did a changeling!

Almost as I’d thought that, the barely audible screeches and groans that the odd train gave disappeared as the whining grew to a roar. The glowing red eyes brightened into four brilliant yellow flares, shifting apart from each other and allowing me to see that they weren’t eyes at all. Instead, they were in fact pairs of vertibuck archano-jet engines that somepony had built into each side of the shiny black aerodynamic body of the train.

“But... you can’t use those on a train!” I nearly fumbled over the words as my brain worked to figure out just what fucking idiot thought that strapping aircraft engines to a train was a good idea. I mean, it doesn’t make any sense to do that! “They’re way to big and heavy, right?”

Sadly for me, my words weren’t reaching Hardcase over the now deafening noise that the four engines were making. Not only was the noise incredibly uncomfortable, but as the train was getting closer and slower, so was the dust and debris that was being kicked up by it along the tracks. Which, I’m guessing Hardcase had forgotten about, or was too busy marveling over the prewar vehicle to care to move.

Well, I wasn’t exactly in the mood to have either of us get melted by the exhaust wash of an arcano-jet engine today. Stepping forward, I grabbed around Hardcase’s barrel and gave him a good yank away from the tracks. He seemed startled, dropping the bag before giving me a confused look. Turning back towards the rails, he gasped and pulled the bag up to us as the train rolled by at a fair clip. As he brought the bag back safely, I watched the engines on its side swivel back down. It blasted the concrete, bathing where we’d just been with heated exhaust that admittedly felt quite good over my Chill-numbed skin.

The brakes squealed as the arcano-jet engines spooled down, and the train itself started to slow under its own weight. As Hardcase was busy staring at the engine as it continued along the line of track, I traced along it’s worm like trail of train carts. It was what looked like an endless stream of rail cars that were hooked up behind it, too many for me to even begin to count. Sweet Celestia, it looked like they stretched all the way through the city!

There was so much that it had been hauling that I’d begun to understand just why trains had been so widely used back in the day. Hell, it was starting to make sense why we even went to war over them! Everything from dumpster looking carts filled with piles of rusting junk, to flatbed carts strapped with barrels of glowing magical waste were hooked up just behind the engine. They were then followed by a dozen or so flatbeds dedicated to what seemed to be medical supplies with the symbol of Destruction Bay on it.

Past those however, there were nearly two dozen oddly shaped cylindrical cars that had what looked like yellow warning symbols on them. While I’d seen similar markings on hazardous chemicals at Dad’s old skycart maintenance job, I had no idea what these were meant to hold. And knowing the pit in my stomach like I did, I probably didn’t want to know. Too bad my brain didn’t get the memo...

“Hey, what’s in those?” I asked as Hardcase gave a contented hum and turned around.

“What?” He blinked a few times before squinting at the long line of matte black cylinder carts. “Oh, those tanker cars? Probably if I had to guess from the hazard markings, those are full of ammonium perchlorate. There’s a wartime factory that made that stuff just on eastern edge of the Misery Range, but all that’s now Kingdom territory.” He gave a dismissive shrug as we both watched the unmarked and surprisingly well kept tanks roll by. “These are probably all empty, as the Kingdom’s takeover of the old factory was almost a year ago now. Don’t know why they don’t just ditch them instead of hauling them all over the place. Then again, it’s not like the Beetle doesn’t have hauling power to spare!”

“Maybe they’re hoping to kick the Kingdom back off the place?” I didn’t really care, but the thought of those fucking inquisitors being taught a lesson or two admittedly put a bit of a smile across my muzzle. “Eh, it’s not our problem anyway I suppose.” Turning, I figured we’d dilly-dallied enough that we should probably get back to returning this bag and then sitting down somewhere for some well deserved food. “Okay, so which way are we going?”

“Just up there, to the Traveler’s Inn.” He gave a lazy wave over towards a small door just inside the archway that lead into the bustling station. “It’s been a while…”

Hardcase’s voice drifted off as I looked into the crowd ahead and froze up. Among the crowd, in the wash of colors and clothes, one pony stood out over all the rest as she headed for the door to the inn. A pegasus pony with a coat as blue as the sky, and a mane the color of the blazing sun. I couldn’t move, breathe, or even blink as I watched what I could have sworn was my mother walk forward and disappear into the inn.

Like a bolt, I was off. Sure, the ‘Black Beetle’ might have been the fastest train in the north, but for the seconds it took me to bolt across the pavement to the door of the inn, I was the fastest pony. Without a moment’s hesitation, I grabbed the door handle in my fetlock and threw it open so hard that I thought I might rocket it straight off its hinges.

“Oh, my word!” A proper looking stallion standing behind a concierge desk gave me a startled look as I practically charged into the empty lobby of the inn.

The fairly spacious and open lobby was well furnished in deeply stained wooden planks that lined the walls. It sported furniture that looked mostly made out of timber and logs outside of the soft, if musty looking cushions that sat on them. An old and slightly crooked painting of a forested mountain was hung over a crackling fireplace that gave the room a pleasant warmth, and filled me with quite the homely feeling.

But none of that was important, not if mom was somehow still alive.

“Did you just see a mare walk in here? Middle aged, sky blue coat with a sun yellow mane?” My tongue felt like it almost twisted itself into a knot as I struggled to get the words out fast enough. I swept my eyes across the room again, finding a long hallway that stretched a good ways down the station, and looked to be lined with the inn room doors. “Where did she go? Is she staying here? How long has she been here?”

“A mare, just now?” The grey coated stallion tapped at his chin, twirling at his white and red striped mane in his hoof, giving me a once over with his silver colored eyes. “Well, I'm fairly positive you're the only mare I've seen within the last few minutes. I had a working mare bring a client in with her about twenty minutes ago, but nopony else has come in since. Is there anything else I can help you with, miss? A room for the night, perhaps?”

No mare? I blinked a few times, glancing back down the long hall of doors. Had I really seen her at all, or was this another one of the hallucinations the Chill had given me? I mean, that’s not really a question, was it? Mom was dead, I’d already accepted that. So then why was I so hopeful that she was alive?

Fuck… maybe I was an addict after all.

“Miss?” The stallion cleared his throat and knocked me out of the hole of painful memories I’d been digging in my head. “Can I help you?”

“No.” I sighed before my brain kicked me with a reminder of why Hardcase and I had even come to the inn in the first place. “I mean, yes.” Shaking my head, I felt the fog from the Chill seep back out through the gaps in my thoughts where my mother had been. “We’re here to return your bag?”

“We?” The stallion offered a amused chuckle as he waved his hoof at me. “You seem to be alone. Are you alright? Should I go fetch a doctor?”

“What? No, Hardcase is…” I spun around for a moment, unable to find Hardcase anywhere around me in the room. My eyes stopped as I peered out the doorway, watching as Hardcase was still slowly walking his way across the open pavement outside. “Eheh… Sorry, I guess I’d gotten a little ahead of him.”

“Why’d you go running off?” Hardcase huffed as he trotted up to the door. “If I didn’t know better, I’d…”

He cut himself off as a group of three stallions barged past him and through the open inn door. The three of them pushed past me, with the one in the lead offering only a momentary glare to even acknowledge I was in their way at all. Seriously, I’d met some rude stallions in the wasteland so far, but did everypony have to be that way? Though, the longer I looked at them, maybe they’d dealt with a little bit more bullshit than I ever had. All of them had more scars covering them than I could count, with the one unicorn in their group even missing most of his horn.

Yeah… at least I still have my wings, so maybe I don’t actually have it that bad off.

“Y-yes, can I help you?” The stallion behind the counter stammered and shrunk a bit as the three approached.

“Yeah, Mr. Wizard’s looking for the pony who came in with Miss Fine.” The brown coated stallion in the middle spoke up, craning his neck and flexing his well muscled earth pony legs a bit. “What’s the room number?”

“F-four. They’re in four.” The concierge pony trembled and pointed down the hall of doors. He whimpered and shrank as the brown stallion simply snorted before the three of them turned and headed down the hallway. “P-please, try not the break anything in my inn!”

“Geez, what was that about?” Hardcase brought his voice down as he trotted up to me. Both of us watched as they trotted down the hall, stopping in front of one of the doors. Slowly, they opened the door before the three of them disappeared inside. “Well, whatever it is, it’s none of our business.” Walking forward, Hardcase blocked my vision of the stallions as he levitated the stolen bag up to the pony behind the desk. “I believe this is yours?”

“Oh my word!” The stallion gasped and scrambled up over the concierge desk, kicking old papers and files around as he did. “You… you really got it back!”

Snatching the bag with his hooves, he quickly turned it over and dumped the contents out onto the old carpet covered floor. A few old letters and papers dropped out, along with what looked like an old leather bound Equestrian passport. But the woody thunk of a small, ornately carved box forced the stallion to hold his breath. Slowly, he reached forward and tipped open the box to reveal a collection of old yellowed pictures of what looked to be like different families of ponies. The thought of the compartment in Buck’s yoke filled my mind, and I instantly understood what made this box important to him.

“Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!” Tears of joy ran down his muzzle as he reverently closed the box and pulled it close to his chest. “You have no idea what this means to me. Our entire family history is in here, and I’d thought it lost forever when that thief snatched it up!” He looked up at Hardcase and I with a sneering gaze as he spit on the floor. “I hope that dirty stripe rots in the police precinct for the rest of his days.”

“Well, he’ll be doing plenty of rotting now…” Hardcase muttered under his breath with words that hit me harder than I’m sure he meant them to.

“W-what?” The stallion stammered, slowly taking a step back from us.

“I… I killed him.” The words tumbled from my muzzle as I cringed. Wow, that was smooth, Night. Maybe if you say it a bit louder next time, you’ll transfer all of that guilt you feel right into the poor concierge stallion! You’re a fucking idiot.

“Accidentally killed him.” Hardcase came in for the much needed save there, though the nervous smile that he pressed at the concierge stallion didn’t really do all that much to help sell the explanation. “Regardless, we’re just glad we could help bring this back to you.”

“No, no! Don’t confuse my reaction for a lack of thanks.” The stallion offered his own forced smile as he held a forehoof out to us. “My name is Ritz Tabard, owner and operator of Gateway Station’s very own Traveler’s Inn, and I’m eternally grateful to you for bringing my family’s history back to me.”

“Yes, we’ve met once before, Ritz.” Hardcase nodded as he gave the stallions forehoof a firm shake. “We came through Gateway about a year ago on our way north.”

“Ah, well then you must excuse my memory. I see so many ponies everyday here that it’s hard to remember faces.” He nodded and held his forehoof out to me, brightly smiling until he looked at the gem in my fake eye. Slowly, I took his hoof and gave it a light shake as well, but from the way he tensed up, I wasn’t sure I’d made the best impression on him. Turning back to Hardcase, he forced his smile back across his muzzle. “For your service to me however, I’d like to offer both of you a week’s, no, a month’s stay here, on the house!”

“That’s kind of you to offer,” I spoke up as both Hardcase and I shared a guilty look. “but we’re not in town for more than another few hours.” I gave out another sigh as Ritz looked at me and cringed as he instantly gazed into my fake eye again. “Maybe we’ll take up that offer next time we’re up north again?”

“Perhaps you will!” Ritz gave a frantic nod before quickly turning away from me.

Really? Was my eye that bad to look at? From the way the others on the crew saw it, they seemed to think it looked quite neat! Unless they were all just lying to protect my feelings of course. But I guess when it came down to it, it didn’t really matter what anypony else thought about it, it was there to keep my socket from hurting, that’s all.

And as it always had endeavor to do since I lost it, the pain in my socket flared up with the thought of it in my head. Even the fake eye and heavy dose of Chill couldn’t do anything to stop the quick jab it gave. Thankfully, Hardcase’s heavy hoofpats on my side at least gave me a short distraction from it.

“Alright, Night.” He sighed as he turned and walked back to the open inn door. “I don’t know about you, but I can’t really put it off any longer. Let’s finally go grab something for lunch!”

Author's Notes:

As always, many thanks are given to TheFurryRailFan for his help in making sure the chapter is presentable!

And of course, a big thanks to Kkat for creating this fantastic wasteland in the first place!