I jerked awake, and felt agony peppered over my body. The worst was a feeling that throbbed on the inside of my barrel, from the edge of my chest through to a place just behind my ribs. My eyes snapped open and I tried to yell. No sound came out, my lungs didn’t fill with much in the way of air. I noticed a red unicorn stood above me, in between gasps. His horn glowed, and his eyes were sallow. No- He wasn’t red, he was stained-
“Rose-” I managed to say. His eyes opened and his magic ceased.
“Save your strength,” he said firmly, before lighting his horn.
I tried to scream, and my legs jerked as he dug into a wound on my barrel. They were stopped by a pair of restraints. What was going on? My head turned and I saw the forms of ponies laid down on anything that could be found. Many were bandaged, many other looked to be in the process of expiring- The smell of antiseptic, blood and excrement hit me at once. I had been here before…
I retched, covering the ground near my head with the sparse contents of my stomach. Another piece of shrapnel was pulled from my body.
“Sorry,” Rosetta said to me, as I felt ever more lightheaded. There was a chill throughout my body, the only warmth came from the obsidian against my chest. It pulsed with my heartbeats. “I’m so sorry,” he said before pushing a needle into my body. The pain lessened. Time passed, and I laid there wondering if this is what I had wanted all along. Some far away part of myself wondered why I hadn’t expired already. I wasn’t sure how much blood I had lost, but it should have by right kept me unconscious. There had been no transfusion. That was what had saved me last time…
Someone stepped into the room. A tall stallion, kerosene flames reflecting off of his coat. He cleared his throat with a sharpened cough.
“Physician, will he live?” I remembered him. The person Icepick and I had failed to kill. That explained the restraints, he was the kind to take few chances with his own hide.
“I-I believe he’ll pull through,” Rosetta said to him. “The bullet travelled through without hitting any major organs. And I’ve retrieved most of the shrapnel. It’s just, he’s lost so much blood.”

I closed my eyes and lied as still as I could; the painkiller and the exsanguination helped in that regard. The sound of Tegarni’s voice almost made my breath hitch.

“This is a healing poultice, do you know how to use them?” Tegarni said after a few seconds with only the sounds of dying ponies filling the room.

“Healing magic in a bottle, they replace blood and mend tissue,” Rosetta replied, his voice undulating. “And are very rare.”

“I need him to live. He has questions to answer,” I heard him grasp something from a saddle bag. The soft ting of glass being set on the wooden floor followed. The door shut moments later. That stallion had always thought something was queer about my appearance. He was the most skeptical of my story. He had always seen me as an Equestrian, when most of them believed, rightly, that I wasn’t one of these centuries old colonizers.
“I got as much out as I could. I stitched the hole in your diaphragm back up, your abdominal cavity needed some work too. Drink this.” My stomach churned at the thought of something being added to it. And yet when he pressed it to my mouth and slowly poured it down my throat… It was ambrosia- I was having life poured into me. My lungs filled steadily, my wounds knit together and my veins felt more full.
And then it was over. I was better. It was as if I just had days of bedrest and a liter of blood back inside my body. “What happened after the shelling?”
“We surrendered- He saw that I’m a doctor, and told me to save your life-”

“I don’t know. She isn’t in the plaza, she isn’t in here. She’s gone.”

“Good-” I coughed up something warm. “I was worried she’d try to do something romantic, something stupid.” She could make it home. She could live. I was under no illusion that I would live past any convenience for Tegarni. Somehow I was okay with that. Whatever I had set out to do by running into this other world, I think I had accomplished it. I had solved at least one mystery, and fought with all of my being for other ponies. And I was certain I had found what I was sent here to find-

“Like the stunt you pulled?” he said dismissively as he made his way to the other side of the room.

“Yes,” I mouthed under my breath. The crawling at the edge of my vision had returned. “But I lived, again.” At that thought the obsidian pulsed harder. That chunk of glass might’ve made the difference… Once again, I wasn’t allowed to die. I was always living by the grace of someone else. As I laid there, listening to the anguished moans of wounded ponies, and breathing in the smell of those who were expired or close to expiring. I was no-one. Even if I succeeded in subjugating this world, I was just another cog in a game played by forces greater than myself. I could have that statue erected in my honour.

I could play along with the power ruling my home from the shadows, in a bid to protect them all through martial supremacy. That statue could be mine, I could be immortalized. Sombra’s obsidian alighted at that. It was as if there was a piece of that great figure embedded in the glass, pushing me that way, loaning me the strength and power I needed to carry out his orders-

“You aren’t from here, I know it, Tegarni knows it. Icepick told me, she was convinced she was going insane, having dreams through the eyes of a unicorn stallion living in a wildly different place. She thought they were signs of mental illness; visions reminding her of Equestria. The world she was taught to love, but that was always lost to her.” He spoke like anyone past the point of exhaustion did. Numbly and heedless of any consequence. The confidence of mere alcohol is nothing compared to shock of seeing the lives of people you knew and love die without any warning.

“I had no idea, I didn’t mean to make things harder for her,” I sighed and felt my lungs seize for the thousandth time that night.

“Why are you here? I know that you fought in a war, I know you have more magical ability than any unicorn I’ve ever seen. Why would you come here, and try to obscure your origin?” Rosetta asked me before turning back to the Arabian that was under his care. “Well, that’s another one gone.”

“I’m an explorer. I came here to learn about the lot of you, the Arabs, the Rangers and the ponies of Paradise Lost. I don’t want a war. But I fear one has already begun.” I felt my neck muscles lose their battle with gravity. The feeling of being at death’s door was becoming too familiar for comfort-

“Sure- You’re just a normal explorer pony. You just happen to be in the memories of a mare you had never met, and know how to drop bolts of lightning from the sky-” I felt the darkness at the edge of my vision close in once again.

I was awoken with a crash, I there were many Arabs around me. I was sprawled on the ground in a different building, one that had escaped the many ravages of the attack. They must’ve picked me up and dropped me on the ground.
“We meet again, Permittivity, if that is your name.” Tegarni pushed past the his guards to stand above me.
“It is my name, it would make sense to you if you had more than an elementary educat-” I felt the impact from his hoof against my visage. My mouth filled with warmth, I looked up at him after a second. This was going to be my death. He wouldn’t hesitate if he was riled up. I smiled.
“And where exactly did you get your education, I’ve never seen an Equestrian call lightning down from the cloudless sky,” Tegarni snarled at me. He ground his hoof into the ground. He was a physical beast, not a psychological one. There was only so much he could do to me.
“A fine institution, but nothing more than a standard school. I’m just a normal pony, I’m no more magical than you or him,” I said to a stallion standing beside him. My tongue was steeping in the blood, I had always liked the taste of iron. Maybe ferrous things have an attraction to me…
“Then how did you appear in a storage room filled with magical technology? Just tell us the truth, it’ll be less painful that way.” He licked his chops as he mouthed the words. This one was a sadist.
“I was testing equipment to make jumps between magical gateways, the gate misfired, and I was thrust into your midst. From then on I was a prisoner among you until I took the opportunity to escape.” The next strike from him broke skin on the surface of my face. Warmth crawled down my face in a viscous line, turning my burnt orange fur darker in the low light of the room.
“Gateways? You truly expect us to believe the jump between parallel planes of reality could be accomplished by accident?”
“Again, your lack of lateral thinking astounds me. If there is demonstrably more than one universe, one timeline, then the odds of there being an uncountably large number of parallel worlds is also likely. Moreover, if there are a nigh infinite number of them, then the minute odds of an accident become more likely to happen, in at least some instances. You just need to use your-” The next one stuck me in the chest. A solid kick to an area that had just been shot is horrifically painful, I doubled over, and threw up once more.

“You’re no mere technician. You fight like an animal, no-one other than a warrior or a psychopath will skewer a stallion with a length of rebar.” He looked down at me and my dry retching.

“You caught me, I was once a soldier. Corporal Permittivity, Serial Number 111-157-37. That doesn’t make my being in the wrong place at the wrong time any less likely. I’m not an oddity where I come from, we once had a war that would make your little war of liberation look like a tribal honour spat.” This time he didn’t strike me. Tegarni merely rubbed his chin with a hoof.

“That seemed genuine… For some reason I believe you just told me the truth. You spoke plainly, and it looked as if you had a weight lifted from you. Please tell me more, Permittivity was it, if you are indeed not of the Equestrian stock then tell me where your bloodline resides?” He was beside himself. What did it matter, really? There was the power of Sombra, and then there was the role the Destroyer was set to do. He was the Destroyer, he was going to burn and pillage the only ponies who could possibly hold the line against the Imperial army.

“I’m from the northern part of what you would call Equestria, there is no Equestria where I come from. There was a war between my home and the southern states. I was a conscript.”

“There was no war between the Zebra Empire and Equestria in your world?”

“There is no Zebra Empire, and Equestria is merely an ideal of national unification, but there skirmishes and naval conflict between the Celestians vis a vis the Zebrican Freehold.” He was growing ever more surprised as I spoke, I was giving him answers, answers he never expected, honest ones.

“What about Sall’han? Our home, is it free?” Tegarni softened, he was having a harder meeting my eyes. Bearing in mind, I was the injured one. Perhaps he was the more damaged one in his mind. The Destroyer had to be broken, an avatar of the most self-immolation of Equine-kind…

“No, it was taken centuries ago by principalities and kingdoms of the west coast of Equestria. Everyone there speaks Equestrian, a large part of the natives were affected by a plague brought by the colonizers. Millions died.”

“What? That’s-” He looked at me. My heart was pure in that moment. For that single second I understood him. This is why he would damn his people.

“A holocaust. One that wasn’t intentional, but one nonetheless,” I finished saying to silence. Everyone in the circle knew that this was a sacred thing to him, if not to them all. What was power if not the control over others’ lives? That was what I had been sent here to find. It was our mission here, to gain leverage over others. To dominate others, to further the great game. That was what happened here. This stallion desired power. To free his people. But it was still in the service of power. Power was what he wanted-

“Tegarni, sir, there’s been an assault on the perimeter, with a push towards our mortar crews!” A breathless stallion ran up to the circle and yelled this at the solemn commander.

“What? Is it Icepick?” He asked the stallion, who nodded affirmatively. “I’ll lead the counter attack. Crescent Moon is in charge of the garrison duty.Somepony put this stallion under guard in one of these buildings- Don’t let him expire.” I enjoyed being an afterthought. Granted, it was better than having my guts spilled. “Squads three through seven with me,” he barked after a second. The gunshots came closer again. I just hoped she wasn’t doing a suicide run. Or worse, trying to reach me-

“Yes, sir,” what appeared to the lower officers said in response. Many of them moved to follow Tegarni. Just before he left, he took the time to look me in the eyes and speak a single sentence to me.

And then he was gone. Only a fraction of his soldiers remained. One of them, somewhat smaller than the rest came up to me.
“We’re moving you to one of the interior buildings. Any sign of magic or resistance will be met with your death, or worse,” they said. Their voice must have been damaged, I swore it sounded feminine. I was surprised by this even as a pair of stallions hoisted me to my shackled hooves and began to follow me. Behind me were another set of stallions, each of them armed and ready to kill me. The walk was painful, whatever else had happened, I wasn’t going to in top shape without weeks of rest.

Or more of that healing magic. Something inside me craved it, to stop the pain, to be myself again. Perhaps enough of it could make me whole again-

I was kicked in the rear by a stallion. The building ahead of me beckoned. It was a small family home, perhaps three bedrooms. My hooves stepped me through the doorway. Inside was another set of stallion, and that shorter commander. They all looked at me with suspicion, eyeing my horn like it was an avatar of a destructive god. They were almost correct, I suspected. The horn was a false flag though, I was merely a stallion. My token from Sombra, that was the source of many things. Many unnatural things. Things to bend worlds and the ponies that lived within them…

“Do not think that we will let our guards down,” I heard Crescent Moon’s voice from across the room, as I came to rest on the wooden floor. Crescent Moon, under that garb was a mare.

“I would never expect that from a professional military, which you are,” I responded before falling onto my side. It was nigh impossible to sit on my rump while in fetters.

She motioned to the rest of the ponies around us. “A lot us are simply freedom fighters who learn on the battlefield.”

“If I may ask, are you from the research base, Oasis Station? Because you all speak Equestrian, and you’re in charge of the fighting force itself?”

“You’re out of your element asking these things-”

“You called yourselves freedom fighters earlier, but tell me this, where are the ponies who lived in this very house? What gives you the right to impinge upon these ponies lives?”

“I don’t have to answer you.” One of the stallions besides me moved to strike me for talking, she motioned him to stop. “You killed friends of mine, and Icepick has been a terror to Arabians for years. That’s all aside from intelligence you have in your head, intelligence that would mean the end of our fight.”

“You didn’t issue demands or give us a chance to give ourselves up. Your forces just attacked these ponies,” I had to ask her, she seemed less averse to this.

“It wasn’t my choice, and even if you aren’t an Equestrian – that much I believe – I think collateral damage to ponies is within the bounds of war, because this is a war for the very survival of our people. You told Tegarni that in your version of the world, Arabians were culled by a plague and are a minority within our own lands. If that isn’t reason enough to fight against the Rangers with every weapon we have, I don’t know if there is anything to do but fall upon our swords,” Crescent looked at me. In her muffled voice there was a pang of regret. She knew that this was at best a necessary evil. She reminded me of Icepick. Icepick would die for her people, but I don’t think she would ever be able to reveil in the suffering of innocents. Maybe there was a lesson here. Some common Equanity…

“Just don’t cause more pain to these ponies, that’s all I ask. I don’t know you; you’re an enemy, but you seem to have a conscience. It kills a person’s soul, to harm the innocent in pursuit of a goal, no matter how just.” My voice trailed off as I realized what I had been saying. I was a hypocrite. The medallion on my chest buzzed at that thought. A rush of magic flowed through it. My memory of that weapon to end all weapons came back to me, my memories of Maidenpool shelled half to splinters, and the mangled bodies of my parents before they were inturned. “No, no!” Startling everyone in the room with my exclamation was a terrible business. “Get it off of me, please!” I motioned with my magic and tried to pull the amulet out of my clothing. A gunshot was fired that travelled just a few centimeters off of my chest. My magic died as I felt more and more of those visions. The hospital, the trenches. A world set aflame by hundreds of those weapons-

“Are you mad?” Crescent asked me as I felt my skin crawl. This is what would happen again if I didn’t succeed. All of the ponies I had ever known would succumb to a death. There was no other way-

I opened my eyes as I felt a jerk from around my neck. Crescent Moon had wrapped a hoof around the necklace around my neck. She pulled it up and off of my body. My memories ceased playing, but I instantly felt weaker. Darkness swam at the edge of my vision again. Breathing became harder. I felt my muscles deaden.

“What is this?” Crescent Moon asked me as the obsidian hung loosely from her hoof.

“Don’t put it on,” I managed to say before consciousness left me.

I yelled when I felt the cold water splash over my face. My eyes darted around me. Crescent was standing above me, a cup lifted over my form, with her guards around her watching me intently.
“Enough sleeping, tell us what Icepick is planning. Now!” Crescent yelled at me.

“I have no idea. I would have assumed a banzai charge at the weakest point in your lines, but given your questioning, I would assume you’re worried about more than that. She isn’t captured or dead, is she?”

“No, she attacked our lines before running off to the east,” I nearly smiled that that. She could be a very dangerous mare.

“There’s nothing out there, only a few oil derricks to my mind,” I told her before thinking more clearly. “You should know this, there are ponies here that have spent more than a hoof-full of days in this village.” She left the room, leaving me with the guard stallions who were at this point in a state of semi-relaxation. Some of them smoked acrid tobacco, the same kind that the ponies of this town did, many others played games of dice while others merely sat there clutching their weapons, with a glassy look in their eyes. They had fought hard and well, but that didn’t mean they went without losses of friends and ponies they had known for their entire lives. I couldn’t speak their language, I knew little to nothing of their culture or their struggle… I knew this though. Perhaps Sombra had manipulated me in a number of ways, perhaps he had been subtly messing with my mind for a long time. But, the feelings of war, the hell it wreaks on a person… I hadn’t needed manipulation to remember my time at the front. Crescent trotted back in with purpose after a few minutes.

“You were right, there are a few oil derricks out there to the east. Icepick fled there, she’ll be caught soon enough,” I looked at her when she said this. Crescent Moon was probably correct. Tegarni was ruthless, and we were disarmed- I was quite literally in fetters.

“Will we stand trial? Or will it be summary executions? Will you lead many of these town’s ponies off in chains?” I asked in rapid succession, so much so that my lungs were trying to catch up with my words.

“If I have any say in it, you both will be tried and likely imprisoned. You were a guest among us before you escaped,” she said before shaking her head. “I don’t know about Tegarni though, he will given a chance to rectify a mistake he made years ago, a mistake that reminds me of your escape actually. Icepick was once captured in a raid by him, she was knocked unconscious by a grenade blast and captured. Days later, she broke out and killed half a dozen of us, she’s a monster–”

“Do you know what it’s like to be a prisoner? You’ve never been one before. You’ve never been on the edge of dying. You don’t know how it feels to be powerless,” I responded. This wasn't the whole story. I knew there was more here. Maybe I would have a chance to ask her about it, help her make peace. My eyes felt heavy, and moments later I felt a tear drip down the bridge of my nose.

“I don’t fear death, but I will regret it; I know now that I have things to atone for. I was given a chance to help someone heal, some divine purpose, if I were to believe in anything other than enchanted rock.” My eyes locked onto hers. Crescent Moon could hardly meet my eyes.

“As one warrior to another, I promise to protect the innocents as best I can. I’ll try to get a trial, or at least a chance to say goodbye to Icepick. She is the reason for your tears, is that true?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I’m sorry,” she began to say before we heard an earth shattering explosion. It shook the very foundation of the domicile. Every head in the room looked to the east, I was barely able to glean more than a flash of light from my position. Crescent looked around the room and said a command in Arabian. All the stallions armed, and steeled themselves. Moments later a secondary explosion rocked the room, and a peel of smoke began to drift into the air above the site of the derricks. My mind called back to a conversation I had had a day ago. There were more than just derricks there. There were thousands of barrels of oil stored there too.

A stallion ran into the room with a radio on his back. In his hooves was a crude telephone hoofset. He hoofed it to Crescent Moon, I knew in some part of my mind that the explosion was the best opportunity for me to escape. Not that it was a good one – there were still half a dozen stallions in here, armed and scared, which were not exactly a good combination for an escape.

I managed to pull myself into a sitting position though, bracing my back against the wall behind me. My eyes watched Crescent Moon as she listened to the telephone. Her expression went from worried to dour. The conversation continued and I tried to think if I could possible subdue the guards in the room or make a run for it. Magic wasn’t my forte, and I knew deep down that I had been borrowing a lot of my strength from that obsidian chunk.

“No!” I heard her say into the communication device before dropping it on the floor. She yelled in Arabic at the stallions around her. The stallion carrying the radio set it on the ground with hesitation, before leaving the room with the rest of them, marching out seemingly to try to make some kind of defensive action. As soon as they left the building she ran over to me, desperation written across her face.

“Destroy the radio, please?”

“What?” I asked suddenly. She must be going mad!

“Do it if you want the ponies here to live; we don’t have much time.” If this was a way for them to fake my escape as a way to kill me, well, I didn’t have much of a choice. My horn flared as I put enough charge through the radio to fry the most sensitive elements. I nearly passed out from the exertion, but when I reopened my eyes she was leaning over my legs, a key in her mouth.

Moon unbound my fetters as I tried to realize what was going on. If they wanted to shoot me why were they letting me go? Some kind of sporting chance in their honour code?

“What are you talking about? Do you want a reason to kill me?”

“Do you have a numbness in your skull? Tegarni is going to put this whole town to the sword for the defiance displayed by the oil workers and Icepick. Once he gets back here, the ponies he left under me will join him and follow his orders.”

“I don’t have much reason to trust you, but if you’re telling the truth I have to help.” I didn’t feel like I needed to add that if this was a ploy they could’ve killed me anyway. “Why the change of heart? Did you not realize that Tegarni was a monster until now?”

“We all make mistakes, Permittivity. I’m sure you’ve made your unfair share of them,” she said as she ducked undernearth my forelegs to undo my hind leg fetters. Maybe under other circumstances I would’ve found the position of her under me arousing. But, I didn’t really have the blood to spare. The Fetters fell from my legs and I came to my hooves. My legs were weak and my breathing was heavy, but I knew that I could keep going with the aid of adrenaline. I cast a glance to the open window, and all I could see was a cloud of acrid smoke billowing out from a fiery center.

“Alright, there should be a train stopped a few miles to the north of the town, hopefully you people haven’t noticed it yet,” I said to her. Hey eyes widened and she swore something.

“First she kills three quarters of our fighting men before running off into the desert with the workers, now you’re telling me you were implementing an evacuation plan?”

“If this is a ploy, I will boil your innards before I stop drawing breath,” I added resolutely. “The original plan is back on, then.” My voice wavered as I realized we had basically no ponies left to draw their attention.

“What is that plan?” Moon asked me, suddenly worried.

“We distract your soldiers, while the civilians run to the train. Now, things are more complicated though. I need you to tell your soldiers to go to stay away from the south, and to tell Rosetta–the Doctor–to get all the remaining ponies and run to the south.”

I found my guns and equipment lying in a pile in the next room over. This had been their general occupation building. It was roughly in the center of town, and spared by the violence. Now, as I searched through my bags, I realized that I was about to put myself in harms way once again. Maybe the only way I could ever live with myself is by dying for some other pony, some ideal. I was beginning to realize that if I didn’t risk my life for others… That was when I couldn’t live with myself.
“Found them,” I said under my breath as I popped open the hardened plastic. I floated two of the pills into my mouth before swallowing the rest of my water. The next few minutes consisted of me examining my equipment. Everything was intact, though I could see an exit and entry hole bored through my clothing. And then there was the mostly dried blood covering it all. It didn’t matter, maybe it would give me an edge, them seeing a stallion dressed in bloody rags and fighting like a demon.
I felt the stimulants begin to affect me shortly thereafter. My rifle still had a number of magazines, not surprising considering my late entry to the firefight. My magic racked the slide and chambered a round. There was no signal, I only hoped that a rough estimate of ten minutes would be enough time for her to order her fellow Arabians and get Rosetta marching.

I moved on legs that were steeled. I wasn’t sure when the plan was going to start. The question to my mind was this: did I want to try to ambush the surviving elements coming back from the oil explosion? Or did I want to start a firefight to the north western corner of the town?
The wound in my chest ached as I pulled around the corner of the building I had been sticking close to. I spotted a pair of Arabian stallions smoking and guarding a building. The closest one to me saw my form and barked a command when he saw the rifle levitating in my magic beside me. The three round burst from the rifle threw him to the ground, even as the stallion beside him bolted to the other side of the building. As I fell back around the corner and waited for him to return fire, I realized that if Tegarni and the survivors weren’t already going full steam ahead towards the town, they would be now. That was alright though. My magic rifled through my bag and found what it was looking for, lifting it up to my muzzle.. The pin was pulled a second later, and after cooking the high explosive for a moment I tossed it behind the other stallions cover.
My ears rang at the explosion, even from meters away. Splinters and shrapnel shot through the air. It may be that Icepick had the shrapnel cutiemark, but I could toss a bomb if I had to. I turned my head and looked at the house. The stairs were gone, and shrapnel and splinters peppered it and the surrounding buildings. In a moment a home was now marred, perhaps forever. On the bright side, if my ears were ringing from the bomb, everyone and their mother would’ve heard it too. The horrible thing was, all the most defensible buildings in this town were already gone.

I made a snap decision. I ran to the east. The hotel Icepick and I had stayed at was that direction. And it presented a fitting target; get there draw their attention, pop some shots off, and pray…

I had found a few sentries rushing towards my position, and with a bit of luck I was able to put them down. When I made it to the outer eastern perimeter of the village I was truly able to see what had been started by Icepick. A massive column of fire still spewed into the air, probably from an oil well itself set aflame. I knew sunrise wasn’t that far off, but in the mean time it cast a ghastly pale across the town. It didn’t need the help. The streets were empty and full of burned buildings, with cartridges and anything that hadn’t been nailed down from the multitude of homes destroyed. I had seen this before. I had been in the offensive into the northern Celestian lands. We had done this to them, it had been an orgy of violence and looting. I had seen enough of this. The ponies involved changed, the miniature changed. But the substance didn’t. Lives were ruined.
In the course of a few hours I had snuffed out half a dozen lives, and had had mine nearly snuffed out in turn.
My ruminations stopped when I spotted a pair of stallions staggering out from the east. They seemed to be trying to run, but they didn’t have it in them. Haggard and bleeding, I could make out the limping nature of their strides. My body pushed up against the little outbuilding I was huddled against. I raised my rifle before pushing the stock against my shoulder. They were perhaps two hundred meters away. The rifle rocked against my shoulders as I put several rounds into the closer one. My grip loosened as I watched the other stallion bend over his companion. I could only make out his movements as because of the fire burning brightly over the horizon. He rolled his friend over, and checked his breathing. He didn’t run, he just watched as his friend expired from the three or four bullets I had run through him.
I couldn’t watch any more of it. My legs carried me south, inside the outermost edges of the town. I hoped to find Tegarni. Him I could kill without remorse. That other stallion watching as the one pony he had hoped to escape the horror with died… I couldn’t kill him.
Minutes passed, and the deadness of the town that I had spent days examining was only more apparent. I hadn’t heard a single gunshot since then. Only the wind and my pounding heartbeat filled my ears. The uncertainty involved with all of this was eating at me. Obviously there hadn’t been a mass attack on my position, but then again, I hadn’t seen more than those two stallions coming from the east…
I heard the crack of the gunshot as it passed a few centimeters forward of my hoof. I spun around as a follow up shot peppered the air above me. Moments later I was pressed against a building as the shots stopped for the moment. I had been lucky to not be caught out in the absolute open, and luckier still to be fighting opponents that weren’t very drilled at marksmareship. They had been firing from the central square of the town. I was only a single stallion, therefore I could be flanked at any time.
I turned myself around and ran to the other side of the building, peeking around the corner I saw nothing. And so I bolted to the next corner. What I saw inside made my stomach churn. About half a dozen Arabians stood around near the barricade that had been the source of so much fighting. The tallest one stood in the center, unflinching as his subordinates aimed their guns at me. I ducked and primed a grenade with my magic as I waited for the inevitable gunshots.
They never came.
“Permittivity, you’ve made a mess of things,” I heard Tegarni’s voice cross the distance without any kind of strain or difficulty. “But please present yourself. You’ve proved yourself hard to harm, perhaps because of your learned skills, perhaps because of a peculiar piece of volcanic glass you were wearing.” Shit.

The guns weren’t aimed at me when I looked back at the circle. Sitting near Tegarni were a pair of ponies that I could recognize. Rosetta looked wounded and bloodied as he sat there stoically. Next to him sat a seemingly unharmed Crescent Moon. When she turned her head, I saw that she had a blackened eye socket. I don’t how they were captured, but some part of me was pleasantly surprised to see that there weren’t many Arabians left under Tegarni. And it was only two ponies left under them, hopefully the rest got away and were walking towards the train-

“No words for me, none for the Destroyer Of Equestrians? Or have you already given up trying to save their lives? Accepting things as beyond your control has never been your strong suit, but maybe you’ve gotten over it? The number of wonderful things this rock can tell a pony like me- Well, it can change the world. Not that I had no mechanisms to do that before now, but this certainly greases the wheels.” I stepped out into view. My teeth were grinding against one another as I held my rifle, my pistol, and a grenade in my magic.

“Oh, the suicidal hero! He shows his face. Well, I don’t know how you want this to end. There are six of us. And that armour won’t protect these two ponies.”

I had gotten close enough to speak to him comfortably.

“Palaver with me Tegarni. I know this won’t end well for either of us if it comes to blows, because I won’t make the mistake of not shooting you first a second time.”
“So we’re at an Impasse, but let me make an offer. Give yourself up to me. I treated you better than you’ve treated prisoners in the past. Give yourself up to me, and I’ll let these other little ponies go. Even the one who betrayed me,” Tegarni answered after a few seconds. I watched Rosetta’s eyes as Tegarni spoke. There were still fire in them. I knew that he was just as likely to shoot them the moment I disarmed as I was to send enough current through his smarmy form to give his grandchildren blisters. At this point, I think that they would have been content to give their own lives.
“They got away didn’t they, the townsponies,” I said to him. My magic was beginning to strain. Peels of sweat were beginning to run down my face. “If you hadn’t asked Crescent Moon to do that, you still would’ve succeeded, but your hatred and vulgarity led to your failure. Even if I die right now, and so do they, you’ve lost. Icepick knows where your base is. You’ll still lose. Only losers hurt those who are weaker than themselves. There is never a good reason to hurt others like that."
“I know what you came here to do. Now you are just afraid that someone else will have that power,” Tegarni looked at me before laughing. “You brought a god into a world bereft of them, the killer of gods himself, into a world that self-immolated-”
“Sure he did, and he’s also got a pair of wings under that body armour,” I heard a voice yell from behind Tegarni, up walked a number of armed and dirty ponies, and my knight in silver armour. “Now, I heard all of it, and I gotta say, your arithmetic is wrong. Between Permittivity, Me, Axis, and her ‘friends’, we got about twelve guns to your six. So, I’ve got a fair deal for you. You can let Rosetta and the other mare go… Keep your guns on them as you walk away… And we’ll let you leave. Mare’s honour. It’s the best deal you’re gonna get,” Icepick yelled through her armour speaker as the first peel of dawn began to break over the horizon, rapidly outshining the burning well.
“Icepick, my old friend,” Tegarni began, before seeing the light glinting off so many firearms aimed by irate ponies. “I will accept this for now. Just remember, our next meeting will end in blood.”
And so, with tension that would not be replicated for a long time, Tegarni and his surviving cohorts stalked off with their tails between their legs. A number of the oil ponies surrounding us trailed Tegarni ‘till he was far enough away we were sure he wouldn’t circle back. Icepick ran at me as soon as they cleared the nearest buildings. She tossed her helmet off as my legs buckled beneath me. I took a deep breath as I fell to my knees. The pills were wearing off.
“Perm!” she yelled at me before falling to her knees and holding me with her hydraulic gauntlets. “I-I thought you were fucking dead, so don’t you dare die on me now!” Her blue eyes were filled with tears as she tore off my helmet, letting it rest on the sand in the same manner as she had left her own.
“I-I don’t plan on dying,” I told her weakly. “I nearly did Icepick, but unfortunately we both have to live with that kiss-” Icepick cut me off by bending her head down and pressing her lips against mine. My own forelegs held onto her steel shoulders for support as I let my lips open. Her tongue followed instantly. I felt a warmth and comfort I had lacked for so long, something I had denied myself, something I hadn’t deserved for so long. My tongue tried to keep up with hers, but all it did was slide and play alongside hers. It was still nice. We broke apart a few seconds later. She was smiling and I spotted a tear or two going down her muzzle.
“You better not die on me. I plan on getting laid again sometime this decade-” Icepick stopped for a second as she heard a cough from the mare she had called Axis.
“Icepick, I think the stallion deserves a bit of a rest,” Axis, my saviour and newest acquaintance told her in a neutral tone.

“I loved that Icepick, I love that you saved us, and I love you, but I’m barely staying conscious right now,” I told her and her expression shifted.

“I’m so sorry, I wasn’t thinking-” I laid a hoof on her cheek as I pulled myself back to my hooves, groaning and straining as my muscles fought back against me. I pecker her on the cheek before walking over to Moon and Rose. She had a glassy look in her eyes, the thousand yard stare. Rosetta looked between her and I, in much the same way.

“Permittivity, we did it,” he started before tears formed at the corner of his eyes. “They’re saved. We can go home-”

“Speak for yourself, Colonizer,” Crescent Moon interjected.

Author's Notes:

Sorry it took so long guys. Things have been rough.