To say I was terrified of going to Ponyville was an understatement. I had bad memories of that place, all of them surrounding him and the time that I was traveling with him. To go back was one of the most terrifying things I could think. I never knew how, but he somehow knew everything that was going to happen. He knew where his victim would be, if anyone would be with them, and where was the best place to kill them and how. It seemed like I was always the one on the baiting end of the murder, and after he was done he would tell me to bury them to make sure no one knows we were there.

I grabbed a small knife from the wall, melee seemed to be his biggest weakness for what I could tell. He always expected the pony to carry a gun, as it was always to him more useful than any blade or blunt object, and whenever they didn’t have one he seemed to be in for a much bigger fight than he intended. In the end he always blamed it on Celestia and Luna, just like with everything else he hated.

I never really thought about how much he hated the princesses, I just assumed it was his excuse for everything that went wrong. Now that I think of it, and how Dead Hooves had responded to that raider that tried to kill her back at the raider camp, he talked about it so much there must be more to it. Why exactly did he blame Celestia and Luna for everything that happened? If I somehow ever found the chance to speak again, and was able to ask him, that would be it. Even if it's the only sentence I ever say for the rest of my life, that’s what I wanted to know.

I put the rifle Dead Hooves gave me and put it on the wall in front of me. It was to much using a gun, it reminded me of him and when I killed that ghoul I felt like I was killing a foal. I simply took the small knife and a single saddlebag, hoping that would be enough. I put the knife in the saddlebag and waited for the others to grab their weapons.

I didn’t show it, but I was surprised to see White Light here of all places. I don’t know if she remembered me or not, I never really had the opportunity to talk to her when she lived in Manehattan. It shouldn’t be that surprising though, considering that I never really was given the chance to talk to anyone unless it was to take down a “target”. I didn’t know she was a Dashite, guess that must have been why he killed those Enclave soldiers all that time ago. Guess he at least had some heart.

Even just saying that, I could tell somehow that she was telling the truth about being Stitch’s sister. I never know how, but I guess you can say I got a knack for find lies. In many ways I used that in the past to help make things seem really. I didn’t act smart or smarter than anypony else, I always made sure a situation was possible before stating something, in many ways I’m the reason most of those ponies ended up dead. I didn’t want Dead Hooves or anyone to find out, I had no way of defending myself, and I didn’t want to ruin the first real feeling of friendship I had.

He would do it though, all to get me back, and then probably kill them all. I was the only one who knew we would be walking straight into his trap. He wouldn’t spare anyone, and he knew exactly who would be there. He wouldn’t need to hide himself, we would be easy targets compared to Sharpshot or even Dead Hooves. Still, why did he spare her all the way back then, why did he let Dead Hooves live. I didn’t feel sorry, he never felt anything about anyone but himself, all he wanted to do for some reason was kill.

“You know just as well as I what's waiting,” I turn around to see White Light talking to me, she did remember who I was. “You better hope that knife will be enough. No one's coming to help us,”

Somehow I doubted that sentence, somehow I knew that was a lie. Somepony would come to help us, but how come she didn’t tell us? It was most likely because she didn’t want to make Stitch worry anymore then she would be. Having somepony show up unexpectedly to save her sure is better then having that pony in the same position we would be in. It didn’t feel right not telling her, but if White Light wasn’t going to tell her I surely wasn’t going to.

“All ready,” I look behind me to see Stitch carrying a 10 mm. Pistol in a saddlebag on her side.

“You really sure that’s all you want to carry with you?” White Light looked at her worried. “Sure you’ll be very light and won’t have to worry about being weighed down but bringing just a pistol is not a very good idea, especially such a weak one like that,”

“I’m not just going to stuff my saddlebags with loads of guns,” Stitch said not getting the point. “That’s inconvenient, a waste of space, and there are more useful things to carry such as medical supplies,”

Stitch might have been right, but White Light wasn’t going to let her argument go. She saw something I didn’t in Stitch’s words, it wasn’t a lie, since what Stitch say was true, but she was hiding something in those words I didn’t see. White Light walked up to her sister and stood there in front of her, examining her face by the looks of it. I had no idea what was going on but I was going to quickly find out something told me.

“When working on machines you have to focus on the small details,” White Light says. “You don’t know when something as small as a single bad wire or a loose bolt can make something explode or fail. The thing about it though, is that you can also see those kind of things in living beings, whether it be ponies, griffons, or ghouls. In your face, I see the look of my sister scared of the thought of her killing another intelligent being. I see the face of a pony who has had someone close to them die without knowing it, and a pony die in a gruesome way. Your rushed words, the look of fear and angst in your eyes, and the tension in your muscles all speak things that lead me to that clue,”

Stitch looked down at the ground in response to this. “You don’t have any idea what the last seventy-two hours have been like for me,” She tells White Light, wanting her sister to think differently. “I saw the two ponies I know the most die right before my very eyes in the span of two days, and these last few hours a lot has been going through my head. I don’t know what to do, I thought that coming out here was the right decision… But suddenly I’m not so sure if I should have ever left. I never thought anything could be harder than saving lives,”

“Many ponies like to think that we are done with wars after what happened seventy-five years ago,” White Light says. “Many ponies don’t see the Bloody Angel as a one stallion army, but I know how he acts and why he’s doing this. Even when you aren’t fighting a war with guns and swords, you are still fighting to stay alive. You want to know why ponies say war never changes, I think it is because everything we do is to fight against death. The never ending battle to survive and live forever, even though we know we will never when,”

She didn’t realize it, but I sure did. The realization on Stitch’s face as she heard those words. The fact that she called him a one stallion army, the fact that she said she knows how he acts and why. I saw Stitch’s head rise and looked as her eyes locked onto White Light’s. Her expression seemed to change from fear to anger as White Light looked at her confused.

“What?”

““One stallion army”?” Stitch says repeating her sister’s words. ““I know how he acts and why he’s doing this”? Tell me something White Light, how do you know this stuff? No one in the wasteland knows his gender or why he is killing all these ponies, but yet you claim to know it from the words you just said. We know that every pony that has ever gotten close to that monster has died, yet you are trying to tell me somehow you didn’t. Why do you know this stuff, and I want answers now,”

White Light didn’t run from the question, in fact she didn’t seem to move or change expressions. It was if she didn’t care that she had might have just jeopardized Stitch’s trust in her, or had expected Stitch to find out. She wasn’t trying to hide anything, even though her earlier “What?” would have said otherwise.

“I will answer that,” White Light said understandingly. “But while I know you want me to answer right here I can’t. It’s not safe for me to say anything about that here, but trust me when I say that as soon as we get on out of here and into Las Pegasus I will willingly answer and explain everything,”

The two were completely silent for a moment, simply staring at each other for what felt like an hour. I started to see the look on White Lights face grow more and more serious as time went on, starting to scare Stitch. Slowly, Stitch backed away from her sister, and looked away from her after getting a bit more distance. She took a glance at White Light after a second and then looked away, sighing as she did.

“Okay,” Stitch finally said. “But don’t think I’ll forget it, I’ll tell you that I still have a very good memory and I intend for it to stay that good for a long time,”

“Don’t worry,” White Light replied assuringly, her tone and face changing, becoming more calm as she did. “I have no intentions on hiding it, I never did. You would probably find out sooner or later no matter what I said, I just decided that it’s better now than later,” She walked back up and in front of me, stopping and turning around as she came right up to the door, “If you really don’t want to take another weapon I won’t make you, just remember I warned you when you end up with a hellhound ripping you apart,”

I could tell what White Light was trying to do, and it seemed to succeed as I saw Stitch’s eyes widen at the image of her being ripped apart. She looked at the pistol, and then at the wall of guns behind her, and quickly ran to it. She grabbed what seemed like an old fashioned rifle, probably made for hunting rather than killing ponies. She put it in her saddlebags and walked back up to us smiling. I looked back to White Light to see her shaking her head at her sister, but didn’t say anything. She simply opened the door and walked out.

Stitch and I followed her out and down the hallway. For such a big base, the crew was definitely somewhat small, at least as far as I saw. Not including those of us who just joined there was around eleven or twelve pegasi that was taking part in it. It might sound strange, but considering the groups I’m use to seeing it was clearly much smaller than usual. Most ponies form groups or stay together as a family in order to survive out here, in a way this was much smaller than the groups or even families I’m use to seeing. This was one thing I remember my old “traveling partner” actually praising instead of getting annoyed at. He always said that there was strength in numbers, and then he would probably kill about twenty or so ponies in the next hour making me wonder if he was right.

No one seemed to care that much about what we were doing or where we were heading, most of them probably summing it up to White Light’s background and everything. We got outside of the base very easily and at that point nopony was around. It was getting somewhat later in the day, so most of them were probably inside eating. Still, we didn’t stop moving until we were a good distance away from the airfield. Once we did, we stopped and Stitch turned to White Light with an angry look on her face.

“Time to spill the beans,” She say. “I want to know everything: why you know him, why he’s doing this, and who he is. You said you would say everything so I expect you to,” At first White Light didn’t respond, she simply looked at the sun setting into the sky around the destroyed city.

“The Bloody Angel is an earth pony going by the name of Dread,” She says. “We met a couple years before he started this mass killing spree, but even then I know he has a reason. He’s not the kindest ponies you would ever know, with what he did to stay hidden for this long, but he kept me alive from the Enclave soldiers pursuing me,”

“So he’s a friend and you just let him kill innocents who did nothing wrong?” Stitch said not able to believe what she was hearing.

“It’s more complicated than that,” White Light explained. “I don’t know exactly why he wants to kill all these ponies, but I know that they all had something in common. He has a list, a list with more than one hundred names on it, and they are all offsprings of former members of the ministries, or the ministry of arcane science to be more exact,”

“What is it he has against them so much?” Stitch asked, her previous disbelief turning to confusion.

“In order for the mega spells Equestria had made to be built they had to run through the ministries and the princesses,” White Light continued “Without the consent of the princesses especially the project would illegal and to some it might seem like terrorism. They needed the princesses to agree on the idea of making them in order to have the mega spells legally built. In other words, I think he’s killing all these ponies because he believes they are alone responsible for something related to the mega spells. I’m not exactly sure what, but that’s definitely why he’s doing this,”

Stitch seemed to lose her anger as she heard this. “So not even you know the full reason behind why he’s doing this?” White Light nodded in response to the question. “But at least we know something. We know who he’s targeting and that is a good spot to start, not to mention the fact that we have a name,”

For some reason, White Light didn’t mention anything about me and how I was involved with him. Was it possible she didn’t know I had any involvement with the murders, I guess that could be entirely possible considering the I hadn’t seen her for two years. In truth, I actually knew less about why he was killing than White Light did. Dread never really told me anything about it, and trust me I tried to ask him. That didn’t really go over well.

“I know you probably don’t trust me all that much,” White Light says after a few seconds of silence. “But I wouldn’t be part of the Angel Hunters if I wasn’t trying to stop him. I don’t want to kill him, but I do want to know fully why he’s doing this. What he’s doing isn’t right, it isn’t right, it never was. I want to stop him, I need to stop him,”

She may have been against the idea of killing Dread, but I surely wasn’t. After everything that’s happened to me, after what he did to my parents, I want to see him dead. I was never brave enough to confront him all on my own, but know that I have some ponies beside me I wasn’t so afraid to take him on anymore. At least I feel that way, I truly don’t know if any of us were prepared to take him on, but I wanted to believe we were.

“Don’t worry,” Stitch said. “I don’t know why but… I know you're on our side. I don’t know how or why I know this, but I do. I still don’t know wether to believe you're my sister or not, but I guess for right now I will believe you. You're the only one I think may actually know what happened, but why weren’t killed like mom and dad,”

“I was never there to begin with,” White Light answered. “It was… about twelve years ago. I was five and you were only two I’d say. I wasn’t at home when you left, I came back to see soldiers standing in front of your door, and told me how my family had left for the surface or something like that. I ended up as an orphan, and after a couple of years I couldn’t stand being separated by my family. I told them I was leaving, and most of the next twenty-four hours is blank in my mind. I found myself on the surface in an unfamiliar world, it took me five years to find you, and by then you were all dead. That’s when I met Dread, he told me you were still alive but he didn’t know where you were. He said that you had been stolen from you mom and dad and that the mare who took you killed them,”

I remember that day, the day we had met White Light for the first time. She was standing in front of two skeletons crying uncontrollably. A few days earlier, we had seen an earth pony, the same earth pony that Stitch had called Granny, enter that exact same cave. I remember her coming out of there not long afterward with something in a basket she was holding in her mouth. I don’t remember hearing gunfire, but when we came back and saw White Light standing there a few days later, both me and Dread knew exactly what had happened. When she had mentioned her younger sister, and I saw that only two full grown skeletons were in the cave, we realized that the basket might have contained her sister. It seems we were correct.

Suddenly, I realize something about this, and I look to Stitch to confirm what I had realized. Her eyes were wide in horror as she heard the words that White Light had just spoken. I never really gave thought as to what would happen if she found out what Granny had really done. She had just learned that the pony who had cared for her for as long as she can remember had just killed her parents.

“W-what?” Stitch stuttered. “Granny killed… no. No!,”

She suddenly darted off towards the ruins of the city, White Light and I running after her. I watched as White Light leaped onto Stitch, both of them tumbling onto the ground. Stitch was trying to escape, but White Light held her down to the ground putting all the strength she had into holding Stitch’s front hooves. However, that didn’t keep her down. Stitch used her back hooves and kick her sister’s stomach, White Light falling down to the ground in pain.

I looked to Stitch to see her get and start running away, but she had forgotten about me. I quickly dashed after her, aim to get close to her tail. I wasn’t as strong as White Light and I’m pretty sure Stitch was stronger as me to, but that didn’t me I could turn her strength against her. I slowly got closer and closer to her tail, waiting until it was close enough for me to grab ahold. I finally get close enough and smile, this is the first time I’ve done this in a while.

I bite onto her tail, seeing Stitch drag my hooves along the ground as she continued running. Without a second though, I turn around - tail still in my mouth - and yank her tail in the other direction. I saw as she fell forward in pain a few feet in front of me, some of her tail hairs gripped in my mouth, separate from the rest of it. I had managed to stun her for a moment, as she stood up in pain. I ran up to her side and pushed her onto the ground, putting my front right hoof on her neck. I didn’t apply a lot of pressure but if she tried moving I wouldn’t hesitate to do that. With that, I grabbed her main in my mouth and held it to make sure she wouldn’t get away again.

“Willow Wisp!” She said surprised, I guess she must not have thought I was the one that did that. “What did you just-”

I pull on her mane a little bit, my much more cruel side showing to her. I had so much rage burning in me from my time with Dread, being able to let a little bit out was so relieving. Sure, I felt bad that I was taking some of it out on Stitch, but at least I was keeping her from escaping. I looked behind me as White Light got back up from the ground and staggered over, clearly still feeling a little bit of pain.

“Willow let go please,” I heard Stitch say “You’re hurting me,”

I held onto her a little more as White Light slowly made her way over to us. Once she was right next to me I finally decided to let go of her mane, Stitch’s head fell to the ground. She was breathing heavily, guess I may have overdone it just a little. She effortlessly got up and I fell onto the ground, unable to hold her down. She looked at me and then to her sister, I could tell that she was rethinking what she was trying to do.

“Sorry,” Stitch apologized, looking at the ground in shame. “It’s just… the pony you're talking about said my parents were already dead by the time she found me. She was the one who raised me and told me that it was time I learned the truth. I just can’t believe it was her that killed them, it doesn’t seem right. It feels like something straight out of a fairytale,”

“I should be the one apologizing,” White Light replied, “I didn’t think about that, and I should have been more careful about what I said,”

“Everything has just been one big surprise so far,” Stitch says, sitting down. “How did you even know I was your sister?”

“It’s too difficult to explain,” White Light admitted, showing that not even she fully understood it. “But part of it is the fact that I heard you talking about your parents to one of the other soldiers, and how they are did and were part of the Enclave. I know it’s a stupid excuse for a reason, but that’s the easiest explanation I have for it,” I suddenly saw her staring off into the distance, and I follow her gaze to see red clouds coming towards us. “Looks like we have an ash storm coming our way,” She announces. “We’re still somewhat close to the Smokey Mountains so they are somewhat common around here. Lets try and find some shelter for the night, will pick back up tomorrow morning and make our way to the train station. Hopefully the train will still be there,”

Stitch and I nodded in responce and followed her into a nearby building with a fading sign read “Misty Moon Apartments”.

Author's Notes:

I just want to say real quickly that I won't be able to write for a while. Next week I'll be going to music camp and will be staying with one of my grandparents during that time. The more long term thing is that I can't find the keyboard to my iPad meaning I will have to walk to the library and every time I want to write. In other words, uploads are going to be less frequent until schools starts when (ironically) I will have more time to write since I get dropped off at the library every day from school. With that, like, comment, follow, and check out my other stories and I will see you all in the next chapter.