Doctor Camphor led our group out of Harvest and Marigold’s homestead once we were adequately prepared. Wick refused to tag along while Molly still rode atop Camphor, but Willow assured us that he’d find his way to us later down the line. We were back on the road, having passed a battered green sign half a mile back notifying travelers that the next exit would deliver them to St Mare’s. It had also finally designated this strip of concrete that forged its way through the wild swamplands: Route 40.

Behind the cloud cover was a full moon, and the pale glow filtered through strongly enough to give the landscape a ghostly luminance. It was sufficient to navigate by while Willow's horn and my PipBuck’s light further aided our eyes in the darkness. Around us were the same sounds I’d heard my first night; countless insects trilling and chirping, the distant calls of egrets, and the monotonous crunching of leaves and twigs beneath us.

Willow bantered with the doctor while I trotted alongside Marigold, draped in an old blanket that the doctor had lent me out of his saddlebags. It was threadbare and smelled faintly of rubbing alcohol, but it provided a sufficient ward against the cool evening breeze. The painkillers that Marigold had provided were beginning to wear off, and as they subsided the chills and aches had begun creeping back.

“I’ve been wondering for years, Doc… why’d you leave Buckwater?”

Camphor nodded. “I’ll admit, my departure was a bit sudden. I don’t know if you were old enough to remember it all, but one day a family of ghouls arrived at the town. They’d escaped from a local band of slavers, and were on the run looking for safe haven, Buckwater bein’ the only real settlement ‘round these parts. They begged and pleaded at the front gate to be let in.” He frowned. “But they were turned away.”

“I… tink I recall somet’ing like dat,” Willow pondered. “And how were you connected to dis?”

“As they galloped back into the wilderness, the colt of the family kept checkin’ over his shoulder at the town’s wall, expecting somepony… anypony to change their mind an’ let him in.” He took a deep breath. “I just…couldn't sleep that night. Somethin’ in Buckwater had changed since I first arrived; compassion had mutated into indifference. Coulda been the potential threat of slavers, what with everythin’ that’s brewed in Neigh Orleans for the last decade. Maybe it was the common fear of ghouls turnin’ feral, or maybe it was just the wrong moment for their charity to be tested.

In any case, the next day I just packed up and left at nightfall. I didn’t even bother lettin’ anypony know since they wouldn’t sympathize with my reasonin’.” Camphor’s face was grim as he continued. “Took me three days to catch up to the ghouls... three days too late. The slavers had recaptured ‘em, killed the parents an’…” He paused, and I could see his jaw quiver slightly. “... An’ the children had been abused within an inch of death.”

Willow let out a barely audible, “Oh, no…”

Camphor swallowed, clearly distraught at the recollection. “After I dealt with the slavers, I helped nurse the young ones back to health. They were good kids put through a living hell for how they looked, with some of the purest hearts I’ve ever encountered in my life. When we parted ways, I realized that there was an entire Wasteland out here filled with ponies just like them with nobody to turn to for help. I’d been sittin’ comfortably inside Buckwater’s walls while others were sufferin’.”

“Dat why you never came back?”

Camphor nodded again. “Started wandering the South, movin’ from tribe to tribe an’ aidin’ all that I could. I learned which ones were friendly, which to avoid, an’ a great deal about how to deal with these kinda ponies who grew up in the wilderness.”

“You’ll be glad to hear dat Buckwater’s a little more welcoming of ghouls nowadays,” Willow remarked. “But I can’t say de same for goremot’s.”

With a wistful sigh, Camphor slowed, giving his pet a fond smile. “Figures. I usually hafta leave Molly outside settlements an’ tribes. Misunderstood little critters, they are.”

‘Misunderstood,’ my flank.

Willow voiced the question that had surely been on all of our minds since the doctor arrived. “You didn’t have it back in Buckwater, so… when… how… did dis happen?” She gestured to the odd duo beside her.

“I was leavin’ Tacksonville about three years back when a big ol’ monsoon swept in. I ducked into some ruins for shelter an’ came face-to-face with Molly here,” answered Camphor. “She was soaked, her wings battered by the rain. Spooked the daylights outta me, but Molly just sat and watched me, not tryin’ to attack or anythin’.”

Molly seemed to flit her wings at the mention of her name.

“I’ve always been fascinated by insects, goremoths ‘specially. I started studyin’ her anatomy, an’ she kept still. Eventually I got close enough to touch her, an’… I did.” Camphor smiled. “Molly was totally friendly. When the storm cleared, she started followin’ me, an’ we’ve been travelin’ together ever since!”

“Huh.” Willow’s voice was skeptical. “Dat’s... some story.”

The doctor gave a shrug. “You know how some ponies just have a connection to animals? I think Molly an’ I understood each other the moment we met.”

Willow sneered, “Next you’ll be tellin’ me you chat wit’ her.”

“I do, actually.”

“You’re kidding,” the guide snorted.

Camphor looked offended. “I’m not! How else d’you think we became such a synchronized team? There were these creatures ‘fore the war called falcons, an’ they could be trained just like Molly.”

“Uh-huh...” Willow nodded slowly. “So what d’ya even feed it? You don’t let it... drain you, right…?”

Camphor stopped her with a wave, reaching into a saddlebag and withdrawing a vial wrapped in a protective cushion of gauze. As he unwrapped it, my PipBuck’s light shone through the glass, illuminating the red fluid within. “I make full use o’ my cadavers.”

I blanched, and heard Marigold make a disgusted noise. Willow shook her head. “You’ve got a screw loose, Doc.”

“Au contraire,” Camphor responded. “So what’ve you been keepin’ up to since I left, Willow? An’ what’s with the big coat?”

“She says it’s comfy,” I muttered.

Willow scowled. “It’s… I’ll have to explain it to you later, Doc,” she snapped. “I’ve mostly been busy leadin’ customers to and from de Rift. Rich n’ ignorant types come west from Mareami needin’ somepony who knows how to get dem to LaFarrier, or some merchant needs an escort to Buckwater, or a bounty hunter’s lookin’ for a mark in de sticks. Now I've got a Steel Ranger wantin’ to reach de northern border.” She indicated at me.

“A Ranger, huh?” Camphor shot me a look, but quickly turned back to Willow, seemingly disinterested in my affiliation. “Well, I’m glad you’ve got a steady source of income.”

“It’s… fairly steady,” Willow replied.

As we exited the dense foliage, the ruins of St Mare’s lay before us, a relatively small town that was halfway reclaimed by nature. Many of the houses on the outskirts were completely overtaken by moss and vines, their wooden frames rotting and collapsed. The road leading into town was blanketed with leaves, and reeds had sprouted in the countless potholes marring the pavement. A faint glow emanated from the far side of town, discernable only due to the immense darkness that blanketed the surrounding swampland.

“Here we are...” Camphor muttered. “Slavers an’ malignant tribes keep resettlin’ this place like worms feastin’ on a carcass.”

“Wish we had a balefire bomb to wipe dis place out for good,” Willow added.

Marigold anxiously rubbed her foreleg with a hoof as she asked, “So what’s our plan?”

Turning to us, Camphor bit his lip. “Well…” He glanced at me quickly. “Sorry, Quillwright, but priority one is still findin’ Harvest. After we free him an’ anypony else they’re imprisonin’, we’ll find a way inside the pharmacy and get you treated.” He looked at Willow with a knowing glance. “But ‘fore we do any of that, we need to find some place we can rendezvous if there’s trouble.”

We entered town cautiously, searching for a structurally sound refuge. Many roofs had caved in over time, while several buildings were inaccessible due to locked or boarded-up entrances. After finding the post office’s front door to be jammed shut, Camphor took a moment to check in on me.

“How’re you holding up?” he asked.

I reiterated my still-present symptoms. When the doctor acknowledged this, I figured I’d ask him a silly question that had been on my mind for a while. "Why's it called typhoof?"

"Pardon?"

"Typhoof; it doesn't have anything to do with hooves. Something like hooferia I understand, but this... the name just doesn't make any sense."

Camphor shrugged. "Beats me. I ain't the pony that came up with it."

"Well, whoever named it clearly never contracted it..." I muttered, feeling frustrated and needing something to channel it towards.

Close to the town’s main street we found a well-preserved laundromat; its front door was still attached to its hinges and the front windows were coated with calcium deposits but intact. Marigold entered first, pushing the swinging door which creaked and popped on rusty hinges.

The interior was dark and chilly, the floor covered in dried mud and dust. Several washers and dryers hung open and were filled with brush and foliage, suggesting they had once served as nests of some kind. Empty bottles labelled “Vim-Vam-Pop!” were piled in front of a matching vending machine that sat open and looted across the room. Its elegant green-and-white logo with red highlights was the same one on many of the caps I’d earned from Tough Sell.

Just inside the door were flyers like I’d found within the Ministry of Image hub, below a poster taped to the wall. Its background was a harsh and jagged pattern of black-and-white stripes, overlaid by red text chiming “Help To Protect Your Home; Report The Monochrome!” There was a basket beneath offering a couple of the flyers, which were titled, “How To Root Out Zebras and Zebra Sympathizers.” I stashed one quickly, my compulsion to study pre-war materials still present even through my illness.

Rows of tables were interspersed through the middle of the room, covered in pre-war barding, shirts, and dresses that had been hastily folded or strewn about in a rush. After relocating an overflowing hamper in my way, I eased myself onto a wide wooden bench against the far wall. A sigh escaped as my smarting back was relieved of its burden.

Willow and Camphor had hung around outside for a moment before they entered. As the doctor slid off three of his four saddlebags and sat them on the table before me, he spoke up. “Willow an’ I have decided that it would be best if we went on ahead, while you two kept this place secured.”

I objected. “No. No splitting up.” That lesson had been learned in full within Stable 56.

“I didn’t come all this way to just sit around uselessly,” Marigold agreed. “I’m not waiting here.”

Camphor seemed to have a response prepared, but Willow answered faster. “Quill is sick and you got no experience wid dis kinda ting, Mari.” She hefted her shotgun with her magic, slinging it across her back. “Dis isn’t a discussion.”

The settler shook her head. “I’m not a foal.”

“Please,” Camphor sighed. “I know you want to find Harvest, but we have no idea what we’ll be walking into, an’ it’s best if we keep quiet until then. If we don’t return within an hour, then...” He paused, frowning. “Then come look for us.”

Marigold glared at him, and then at Willow. Her eyes darted to the ground, where she seemed transfixed on a pile of dust bunnies. After a few moments she finally shut her eyes. “Fine. Just… hurry,” she resigned.

The doctor and guide readied their weapons and departed, entrusting Camphor’s unwieldy saddlebags to our care. As Willow reached the door, she took notice of the anti-zebra propaganda, slowing her pace. She briefly examined one of the flyers before she stomped her hoof atop it and dragged the paper through the pile, scattering them. Her telekinetic aura then ripped the poster from the wall quite vehemently, crumpling it into a ball and tossing it aside.

In its delirium, my fevered mind entertained an outlandish idea: is Willow a horned zebra? Do those even exist? The question of why she insisted on wearing her coat at all times or why she lived outside of Buckwater had never left me, only growing the more I was around her. She had to be keeping her appearance secret for some reason; in fact, she didn’t seem too keen on letting me know anything about her.

The thought of Willow Wisp actually being a zebra had stirred a feeling of… well, it was hard to place. Resentment? Mistrust? I wasn’t fond of zebras; in fact, I didn’t know a single Steel Ranger that didn’t hold some sort of reservation for the race that had destroyed Equestria. Aurora Tide might have been an exception, but the stripes were universally despised by all Wastelanders for ushering in the apocalypse.

Ponies hadn’t been the aggressors. On the contrary; Equestria had been a thriving hub of commerce, richly diverse in races and cultures, with a loving populace known for its collective geniality; a stark contrast to the secluded and xenophobic zebra empire. Their belligerence and opposition to the ideals of ponykind were what sparked the escalating arms race that ended in balefire. Zebras had murdered the Wonderbolts. Zebras had massacred foals in Littlehorn. Zebras were the ones conducting assassination attempts, many of them successful.

While I’d never personally known a stripe, as they were so uncommon in this day and age, the idea of unknowingly taking orders from and surrendering every cap I could scrounge up to one was offensive. These thoughts swam around in my fading consciousness as I tried to stretch out on the flat bench. Marigold had taken to pacing back and forth, quietly whispering to herself as she occasionally checked the size of clothing articles she neared. Feeling relatively secure, I started drifting off to sleep. Just half an hour and I’ll feel better.

I pulled the blanket up to my muzzle, trying to cover as much of myself as I could. As they rubbed against my fur, the frayed threads revived a memory long-buried in the recesses of my mind as I passed into slumber...

A dirty, skinny beige pegasus huddled beneath the wagon’s wreckage, draped in nothing but a ratty blanket and silky shadows. Her leg trembled with pain, a twisted gash running from the base of her hoof to her knee. It had been slowly but steadily bleeding for well over an hour and she was beginning to feel light-headed.

A buffeting wind swept through the canyons of steel, glass and stone above her. Haunting moans and screeches echoed past, reminiscent of the radhogs that had nearly maimed her. She’d ran until her lungs nearly gave out, lost in the winding maze of downtown. When her leg had started to shake in pain, she’d instead taken to wing, but that wasn't helping to slow her bleeding. After scrounging a blanket out of a suitcase buried inside the wagon, she had taken some time to evaluate the situation, curling up to stay warm.

She was so utterly, unfathomably alone. She had known that the Wasteland was empty, but it had proven to be so much more expansive and barren than she expected. Manehattan had stood as a potential bastion of civilization, but if there were any ponies left here, she hadn’t seen a single one. After encountering those horrible mutated creatures, the city had enveloped her in its winding passages and endless displays of ruined storefronts and rubble-covered streets.

There was nopony she knew that could help her now. The realization of her isolation had hit her and filled her with terror. The pegasus couldn’t stand being by herself; the only company she had was a pessimistic voice that had manifested itself in her mind, whispering forlorn thoughts. She hated it.

The sound of approaching voices caused the filly’s ears to swivel around. She raised her head to see multicolored beams of light cutting a swath through the evening sky as a group passed by a few blocks away. After a very short internal debate, the pegasus lifted herself into the air and carefully moved down the street, ensuring that she remained out of view of the group of strangers. She didn’t know where their allegiances lay or if they were even safe to confront, but at this point she was too desperate to be choosy.

Once the filly had caught up, she peeked around the corner of an intersection to see the group arrive at the front of an ornate, fancy-looking building. A granite welcome stone identified it as the Manehattan Public Library. Focusing her ears, the filly listened in on the ponies’ discussion.

“... One outside. Defer to Missive’s judgment once we’re inside; this place is big, and there’re more books in there than you could ever read in your lifetime.”

The curiosity of the pegasus was perked. She watched with intent as a unicorn telekinetically hauled apart the double oaken entrance doors, which were practically gates. One pony remained behind, a large metallic form that panned a headlamp to and fro across the front lot. The filly watching the figure was hesitant, unsure whether the stranger could be trusted not to shoot her on sight. Her throbbing leg soon trumped her misgivings, however, and drew her limping out of cover.

The imposing figure before the filly was completely encased in burnished silvery armor. While fearsome, it also inspired a sense of security, as if a knight from one of the pegasus’ storybooks had stepped out from the world of paper and ink and into hers, intent on rescuing fair maidens and slaying horrible monsters.

Having advanced from the side, the filly managed to reach the stranger without being spotted. Gathering her courage, she spoke up. “E-excuse me, Mister Knight?”

The metallic pony jumped slightly, but wasted no time in turning a battle-saddle-mounted laser rifle towards the filly. “Who the…?” The voice was feminine, scratchy and artifical through the speakers of her helmet. “Damn tribals…” She faced away, resuming her patrol for more substantial threats.

“Um…” the pegasus ventured. “Missus Knight? Can you help me?”

She was met with impassive silence.

“I’m hurt, and lost, and I need help…”

The Knight continued to ignore the pleas.

“I…” the filly wasn’t sure why she didn’t even seem worthy of a dismissal. “I don’t know exactly how…”

“Piss off,” the armored earth pony deadpanned.

The filly’s ears flattened, but she was insistent. "Please, I... I don't need much, just a bandage..."

"Are you Goddess-damned deaf?" the Knight snapped, cocking her laser rifle. The weapon began to hum with a dangerous, low-pitched whine as the barrel was directed at the filly’s wide-eyed face. "You've got five seconds to clear out 'fore I paint the lot with your birdbrains!"

"Key Lime!" shouted a stern voice. "What are you doing?"

Both ponies turned to see a unicorn emerge from the library's entrance. Her coat was a beryl blue, and her jet-black mane glittered with streaks of iridescence. She was dressed in simple robes, the fabric a pale yellow color with pink accents.

"This doesn't concern you, Aurora.” The Knight shook her head subtly. “Civvies..." she muttered.

The unicorn’s face was disapproving as she walked closer. “Lime, you know full well that dealing with Wastelanders is my ‘concern’ .”

“Don’t you have more important things to worry about right now?”

Aurora Tide’s horn flashed, yanking the end of the Knight’s laser rifle skyward and away from the filly’s head. “Don’t you have bigger targets to save those cells for?”

The Knight scowled behind her helmet. “More runaway Enclave scum, I reckon.”

"She's just a filly!” Aurora retorted. “She doesn't even have her cutie mark yet!" She turned to the pegasus, leaning down to the same height. "What's your name, little one?"

"I’m… Quillwright."

Aurora echoed the answer with a warm smile. "That's a lovely name. Now why don't you come inside and let me take a look at that leg?"

Quillwright’s eyes darted to the imposing Key Lime who still loomed behind Aurora, but the unicorn kept herself between the two and the attention on herself.

“Come now. It’s alright.” She guided the filly towards the door; Key Lime grumbled but let them pass.

The interior of the Manehattan Public Library was a sight to behold: an almost perfectly preserved bastion of pre-war knowledge and learning. Quillwright gaped as she took in the several thousand colorful book spines that surrounded her. The shelves spanned two floors, curving in an elegant, wavy layout. Thick stone pillars supported the soaring ceiling, sculpted to resemble towering oak trunks.

Beautiful gilded carvings of scenes from popular folklore hung between bookshelves. The floor was covered in a vibrant mosaic of tiles illustrating a forest floor, divided by a creek which led to a long-dried fountain, rising tall in the center of the room. Its centerpiece was a gracefully posing unicorn surrounded by swirling books, and the stone pony’s horn ended in a spout which once arced a stream of water over visitors’ heads into a smaller pool nearby.

It was the single most incredible scene that Quillwright had ever witnessed.

Clearing several of the ground-floor shelves were a dozen or so ponies clad in drab scarlet-colored robes resembling Aurora’s garb. A few sat and sorted through the masses of reading material, quickly scanning the covers before gently setting them aside. Quillwright could see two more metallic ponies across the room, in addition to three that were more lightly armored, their heads and tails unconcealed.

Aurora guided the filly over to the fountain, where she eased the injured pegasus onto the flowing benches carved into its sides. She politely pulled the blanket off of Quillwright’s back. "Now," Aurora Tide began, “Let’s see what the damage is.”

She gently lifted Quillwright's leg with her hoof, eyes scanning the cut. The unicorn's horn began to glow with a brilliant spectrum of colors. "Just relax." The wave of healing magic flowed over the filly’s leg, encircling it and caressing it as gently as a summer breeze.

But instead of feeling my wound seal up, there was another sensation. Something being shifted, removed...

The memory was interrupted as my heavy and unfocused eyes fluttered open to find Marigold lifting my left foreleg. Her hooves were struggling to grip the sides of the PipBuck while she studied its form.

“What’re you...” I began, before she located the release latch and hooked the edge of her hoof on it. I tried to pull away, but the earth pony mare was far stronger than I was. The device swung apart as it was unclipped from my foreleg, and the E.F.S. faded out​ as the magic disabled itself. “M-marigold, what are you doing...?” I coughed, trying to grab her tail or do anything that might keep her from leaving.

She attached the PipBuck to her own leg, her features framed in resolve. Without saying a word, Marigold managed to reboot the PipBuck and headed towards the laundromat’s front door.

“Don’t... leave…” I rasped, trying to drag myself off the bench after her. The mare grabbed her saddlebags, slung them over her back, and exited the building, briskly trotting down the street. My legs proved to be shakier than I anticipated, and as I tried to rise from the bench I wobbled and toppled onto the tile floor, groaning in agony. The floor was filthy but cool against my hot, sweaty hide, and I simply laid there, shivering with sickness and too weary to return myself to the bench. I coughed, my delirious brain still trying to fathom why Marigold had just stolen the PipBuck and abandoned me.

I wasn’t sure how long I was sprawled there; my consciousness drifted in and out constantly, my body feeling the worst yet. My muscles were drained, the act of quivering agonizing even as a subconscious action. Having been outstretched, my empty stomach awoke and cried out for something… anything... to fill it.

Eventually I came to as my ears picked up the sound of scratching against the glass of the front door. I was too exhausted to even turn my head as I heard the door creak open slightly. Panting and clicking approached me, and I felt hot breath on my mane. With effort, I managed to roll over and found that Wick was scenting me.

“Hey, you… you finally caught up!” I scraped out.

His wet nose moved in close to my face, dabbing my muzzle with moisture, and he whined quietly. The dog circled me, sniffing my hooves, tail, flanks, and mane, and then returned to my face and licked me. I coughed as dog breath invaded my sinuses.

“Wick, back,” I couldn’t help but giggle in mild delirium as the dog’s sad eyes kept staring at me with unflinching interest. Wick whined again, bobbing his head.

Though I’d curled back into a fetal position, the dog sat down beside me, resting his head on my forehooves. I couldn’t help but feel a little safer with a companion nearby as I began to drift off again.

When I next came to, Wick had excitedly hoisted himself to his paws, tail wagging as he made for the front. I noted that I felt a little better now; perhaps my fever had finally broken. There was the telltale creak and pop of the door opening, and I twisted; through the dim light I could see the silhouette of a unicorn. Their horn flared with golden light and spilled over my prostrate form, forcing me to shield my sensitive eyes.

“Where’s Marigold?” The hurried voice belonged to Willow.

I coughed, propping myself up. “S-she took the PipBuck and… went out by herself.”

Willow growled, stomping the floor with a hoof. “Of-fuckin’-course. I told him dis’d happen…” I could hear her mutter, “Mule trapped in a pony’s body…” as she absentmindedly ruffled the fur of Wick’s head, who had greeted her eagerly. The unicorn trotted up to me, helping me right myself.

“And where’s Camphor?” I asked of her.

“He…” Willow started, but stomped again, her voice strained with rage. “We took out a few perimeter guards wid a knife and his goremot’, but den…” she shook her head as she finished. “We were spotted. Few patrollin’ tribals saw us and started firing; one hit de Doc in de leg, his mot’ flew off into town, and... and I had to leave him, yeah?”

“Crap.” Could today get any worse?

“... And now dere’s a group of tribal hunters chasing me.”

Please stop speaking so soon.

We moved to retrieve Camphor’s saddlebags, and I groaned in surprise as I tried to heft one onto my back. How many bricks does he carry around with him? I had to give him credit; the doctor was a lot stronger than he looked. Through the front windows we could see beams of light and accompanying voices making their way down the street. Cursing, Willow spun and led us through a back hallway. We came to a heavy iron door, its engaged lock steadfast against Willow’s desperate shoves. Uttering a constant stream of foul language, the guide looked to me. “D’ya know how to pick a lock?”

Memories of an old friend, Scribe Scold, briefly resurfaced. While he’d been oddly experienced at handling bobby pins, he was an invaluable asset, able to pry open most any container the Knights hauled back to the Citadel. Despite requesting him to pass his skills on to me, it wasn’t something that I’d ever been able to pick up, figuratively or literally. While I could create flowing and elegant calligraphy upon parchment without magic, my teeth weren’t quite dextrous enough to tinker with delicate tumblers. “Nope.”

“Shittin’ hell…” Willow seemed utterly overwhelmed by the situation, putting a hoof to the side of her head. “Okay, just… mais la!”

I sought about the darkened hallway for a solution, my eyes catching on a dull blue sign. “The bathroom?” I suggested.

The creak and pop of the front door caused the three of us to jump; somepony else was in the building with us now. Wick’s ears were practically molded to the shape of his head, his tail as straight as a plumb-line.

“Yeah, go,” Willow urged.

We slipped into the cramped restroom, which absolutely reeked of mold. I was having a hard enough time breathing with my sickness, and this oppressive atmosphere threatened to inflame my sinuses; I had to scrunch my nose and pin my nostrils shut with my hooves to stifle a building sneeze. Willow stood at the door, keeping a sliver pried open to peek through, while Wick hunkered against me fearfully. For half a minute there was nothing but silence, and then Willow drew back from the door as I saw a weak flashlight beam pass over her. There were echoing hoofsteps as somepony moved down the hallway towards us.

I could feel my pulse increase, but as I moved to position myself next to the door, Willow held me back. Unable to see her or ask what her plan was, I was pushed backwards until my rump met the crooked sink behind us. As the hooves outside slowed down, I tensed up, certain that we would have to fight our way out. The door swung open, and in the split second before the flashlight was aimed at us, I saw Willow dip her head forward and a very low thrum came from her horn. The hunter’s light went dark.

The pony groaned in annoyance. I heard him take the device out of his mouth, rapping it against a​ hoof in an attempt to relight it. He tried for a few seconds, but quickly grew frustrated. He pulled away from the door, muttering something in another language, and let it swing shut. I heard him clip-clopping back down the hall at a more leisurely pace.

Willow let out a breath and relaxed, her horn briefly flashing; the soft burst hung around in the air like the afterglow of a lightbulb. We waited for several minutes, until the front door creaked and popped again and the voices had faded away. Creeping out of the restroom, I sighed in relief as fresher air cooled my windpipe.

“Did you and Camphor get a lay of the land?” I asked.

Willow nodded. Her voice was slower and less frantic than it had been before we hid; whatever magic she’d just utilized must have drained her reserves quite a bit. “Dere’s a school on de west side. Got fortifications around it, and a tennis court outside serving as a slave pen.” She led us back into the main room, still cautious of lingering tribals. “Harvest could be dere. Didn’t have anyting to unlock de gate wid’, short of shooting it open. Might be a key on a tribal or in de school.”

Wick sniffed the floor inquisitively, presumably picking up the scent of the wild ponies who’d nearly discovered us.

“Mari didn’t mention where she was headed, no?”

“Nope.”

The unicorn sighed. “I don’ really know where to start. We could try and get de slaves out now, or find a way inside de school and investigate...” She trailed off, and I realized that she was asking for my opinion.

I weighed the options. Without knowledge of where Harvest, Marigold, or Camphor were, there wasn’t a clear best choice. The school would be filled with tribals, but the slaves could prove difficult to free without raising an alarm. In the end, I suggested, “How about we go for the slaves first?”

Willow agreed, and we left the building, cautiously making our way down the street heading west. The shops lining both sides of the path were covered by vegetation, windows busted and brick sides covered in layers of graffiti. At the first intersection, Willow looked down the street that led south back into the wilderness, and then turned to Wick.

“Go, Wick!” She clicked her tongue, pointing a hoof at the outbound path.

The dog slowly considered her indication, and then looked back to her with all the immediacy of a turtle. He made a questioning moan as his paws remained rooted to the ground.

“Go!” Willow repeated. “Get!”

More splitting up. “Are you sure we need to send him away?” I asked.

The unicorn nodded. “Dere’s no way we’re getting t’rough all dis wit’out a fight, and dat ain’t what he’s here for.” She made another shooing motion. “Go!”

Wick finally obeyed, albeit with slow, downtrodden steps. His pitiful eyes kept begging Willow to let him stay, but she was undeterred. Once Wick was sulking a block away, the guide turned back to me. “Let’s keep moving.”

I gazed about the town as we picked our way down the street. At one intersection I could see the sizable remnants of a military convoy fallen close by, the dull green wagons somehow still standing at attention on their wooden wheels. One carried a recognizable shape, even if it was draped in a web of flowery creepers and moss, with metal plates a shiny teal from exposure: a massive sentry bot. I’d seen one before in Equestria, an active one; they were fierce enough to even make a Knight think twice about engaging.

At the end of the main street, I blinked in surprise at the establishment we paused at. Though vines spilled over the roof and veiled much of the front, I could still make out a red thermometer on the sign. A poster half-peeled from the window offering free vaccinations all but confirmed my hopes.

“Willow!” I hissed. “The pharmacy!”

The unicorn lingered to cast a look back at me. “Can dat wait ‘til we get de ot’ers back?” She sounded annoyed.

A small, selfish part of me wanted to just find the medicine now and ensure that my sickness would be cured, but doubted I could actually properly identify exactly what I needed or prescribe myself a safe dose. That wasn’t the main reason I wanted to duck into the building, however. “I can’t keep carrying these, but we can stash them inside,” I explained as I rolled my shoulders, indicating Camphor’s bags. My weary muscles threatened to give out beneath the weight dangling from my sides.

Willow conceded. “Fine, but let’s keep it snappy, yeah?”

The door was shoved inwards with a crack, raining splinters as the warped door was pried out of its frame. We quickly tucked the bags just inside the door, behind a chair in a waiting area; lightly hidden from the wrong eyes. Before we left, Willow’s light washed over the rest of the pharmacy, and my spirits nosedived as I caught a glimpse of the barren shelves. Hopefully whatever stock was in the rear of the store hadn’t been looted yet.

Back outside, we cut through a side street. Past a beaten-down chain link fence at the end were a hundred yards of open field separating us from the school, the uncut grass nearly at chin level and swaying in the wind. We snaked our way across the expanse, sufficiently out of view within the wavy shrouds of green.

The road leading to the school merged into a roundabout which had once allowed wagons to drop students off at the front doors; nowadays it was surrounded by a wall of dumpsters and overturned wagon frames with fire barrels ringing the perimeter. The gate was simple but effective: a yellow school wagon, parked sideways. A pair of guards were within, conversing with a group of hunters that had collected outside, possibly the same group that had been searching for us only minutes ago.

My attention was stolen by an effigy of a dun-colored unicorn stallion that was propped up outside the entrance. It had been stitched a red horn and wore a crown composed of twisted wire. Various offerings were piled at its base, items such as flowers or caps and smaller, assorted knick-knacks that I couldn’t discern.

“You seeing this?” I asked Willow, still entranced.

The guide shook her head, impatient. “What, de idol thing?”

“Yeah… who is it supposed to be?”

"Honestly, Quill,” Willow huffed. “Who gives a shit?"

... Me, whined the little pony in my head.

“Looks like they're worshiping it.”

“Most o’ dese tribals ain't got two brain cells to rub toget’er; dey’re superstitious enough to worship anyt’in’.”

We reached the wall and began to skirt it, keeping ourselves bathed in darkness and out of any eyes that might be directed our way. As we neared an open window, a painful scream, that of a mare, sounded from above us. It was muffled yet unmistakably a cry of pain, and my blood turned to ice as I imagined Marigold being tortured by the tribals.

I turned to ask Willow what we should do to find her already at the window, climbing over the sill as her shotgun floated beside her. Following, we both slipped into the dark school hallway. Stacks of cherry-red lockers greeted us, occasionally interspersed with water fountains, benches, or waste bins. A wide variety of posters were plastered across the white concrete walls. Between an advertisement for an upcoming hoofball game with the Tacksonville Timberwolves and a recruitment sign for the school newspaper was the same anti-zebra poster from the laundromat.

We headed towards the rear of the school, hoping that there would be less concentrated amounts of tribals at that end. Rounding the corner, we ducked back as we witnessed a tribal pony cantering down the center of the hall, away from us. Hugging the wall, we followed until we reached an inset stairwell. Ensuring that nopony was waiting at the top for us, we cautiously worked our way up the stairs, treading lightly to keep our hooves from echoing too loudly. At the top, we found ourselves in a candle-lit hallway.

Following the sound of Marigold, we briskly trotted down the drafty hallway. The cries of pain only grew more agonized as we approached a heavy wooden door with a short etched sign reading “BIOLOGY” attached to the front. Taking positions on either side of the entrance, I nodded after drawing Riptide, and Willow shoved the door open, her weapon quickly locking onto the pony closest to her.

Yet there was a moment of hesitation as we took in the scene before us. I expected something horrific: a blood-covered room filled with flayed and mangled corpses hanging from hooks, a chained-up Marigold being cut apart by savages, her still-beating heart pulled from between her ribs…

This wasn’t any of that. Lit by several luminous lanterns, the room was surprisingly clean, the grey and white tile floor covered in various old homework assignments and science reports. Alembics and beakers were intermittently arranged atop the wide stone tables ringing the edges of the room. On the walls were smeared chalkboards and diagrams of male and female ponies of every race, along with various animals, some of which I recognized and some I couldn’t identify.

At the far end of the room, a mare sweating profusely with a face twisted in pain lay on her side atop one of the tables, heaving and shouting. She was ringed by tribals, most of whom were unarmed and seemed to be eagerly observing as Doctor Camphor sat before the mare, ready to…

Wait. Camphor? The mare was in labor, and the doctor was helping birth a foal?

Everypony before us had turned to address our sudden interruption with a mix of confusion, shock and anger. The nearest tribal, her face painted with the same design seen at the diner, began to speak up when Willow’s shotgun cut her off. The slug punched into the pony’s chest and hurled her backwards into one of her friends. In an instant, the room exploded into chaos.

The only tribal with a firearm drew his rifle, but Riptide was able to put him down before he had a chance to aim. His rifle spun out of his magic and landed beneath a nearby desk as Willow decapitated another foe. With a war cry, one of the tribals charged me, brandishing a used-looking machete. The blade whooshed towards my head and I barely backed out of the way, trying to find room to line up a shot. My attacker growled and stabbed forwards as I hopped back; the blade’s tip missed my skin by a hair’s breadth, instead slicing into the edge of my barding and snagging in the fabric.

I just bought this! I punctuated that frustrated internal exclamation with two shots at close range, forcing the tribal back. As he fell to the floor, gurgling through a hole in his neck, I tried to wrest the blade out of my clothes. Next to me, Willow Wisp telekinetically lifted a heavy-looking microscope and struck a tribal full in the face with a savage thud. She tried to bring her shotgun to bear on the last tribal, but the foe reached out with her magic and gripped the weapon.

The two unicorns struggled for control over the barrel’s direction for a heartbeat, but Willow forced the weapon to the floor and instead charged at the tribal, lowering her head. Both ponies locked horns, engaging in a lethal dance, each trying to twist the other to the ground.

I couldn’t risk a shot lest I struck Willow, so I was forced to keep my distance as the pair shouted and snarled, their horns sparking as the opposing magical auras scraped against each other. The tribal seemed experienced at horn-to-horn dueling, and continuously feinted to the side, forcing Willow’s hoofwork to be flawless to keep from tripping.

Both combatants drove each other through stools and chairs, oblivious to all but the immediate fight. Hoofmarks were scuffed into the tile floor and glass shattered as beakers and chemistry tools were knocked from tables. Just as the tribal had paused for a moment to catch her breath, Willow retaliated.

Willow's horn overloaded with magical energy and burst in a blinding flash of golden light. The tribal mare disengaged and reeled back, half-blinded by the unexpected move, and Willow charged. Her opponent never even saw her death coming as the guide ducked and drove her slender horn up through the underside of the tribal's jaw and into her skull with a sickening crunch.

Shaking with adrenaline, Willow threw the twitching corpse to the floor and turned to Doctor Camphor, who had been shielding the pregnant tribal with his body. Both were unscathed, but as he backed off of his patient, Willow’s voice was accusatory.

“What... de hell... are you doing?”

Camphor returned to his prior position, surgical mask hiding his mouth’s expression but brows displaying resolve. “She's been in labor for well over a day. One o’ the tribals recognized me an’ brought me in to help; they’re convinced she’s gonna birth some sort of holy child.”

Willow’s magic retrieved her shotgun, breaking it open and replacing the one spent shell. “Move.” The unicorn’s voice brooked no debate, but the doctor didn’t budge.

I joined the guide, looking over my shoulder at the door we’d entered through. “Somepony had to have heard all this.”

Camphor was still busy as he continued, “I know some of the ponies here; they must've been merged from other tribes. Might help explain the boom in their population…”

Willow was completely out of patience. She stormed up to Camphor and tried to pull him out of the way, but the heavier earth pony stood fast. “I’m not leaving her.”

“She’s a savage! I’m not letting her spawn anot’er one of dese animals!”

“The foal is innocent.” Camphor had risen to his full height, towering over the unicorn.

“Fuckin’ stallions and dere chivalry...” Willow growled. “... Takes a mare to shoot a mare.”

There were distant shouts past the half-opened door. “Guys…?” I warned.

The pregnant mare groaned and then cried out again. Camphor instinctively gravitated closer to her but didn’t dare turn his back to Willow, whose shotgun was still trying to get a bead on the tribal.

“We don’t have time for dis! Marigold’s missing and Harvest is still out dere somewhere!”

“I started this, and I’m finishin’ it. I won’t let any patient of mine come to harm, no matter who they are.”

“And what d’ya tink dey’ll do to you once you’ve finished? You’ve killed several of dem already!”

Camphor didn’t immediately answer. “This is different,” he stated, his voice containing a slight tint of uncertainty. “I’m still a doctor, first and foremost.”

“And here I was, still wondering whether you’d taken the Hippocratic oath or not…” I muttered sarcastically as I fit fresh bullets into Riptide's cylinder.

“De fuck do hippos have t’do wid anyt’ing?” Willow scowled and finally gave up as she turned her attention to the door. “Oh, Luna rape me wid…”

Another scream from the tribal cut her off as Camphor returned to his post, speaking to the mare in their language. Willow shut the door, but she could only knob-lock it; that measure wouldn't last more than a minute. “Maybe you don’t care whet’er you live or die, Cam, but I do,” Willow said, telekinetically overturning a few desks to create a partition in the room and shoving a few in front of the entrance. “Quill, I need you to leave. Find de slaves and get dem out.”

I thought I'd made it clear before that I didn't like splitting up. “I'm not leaving you two again.”

Willow whirled to face me. “We need more den us if we're standing any chance against a whole town o’ dese inbred morons. Rally de ponies dey've captured and we just might make it outta here alive, yeah?”

There were kicks at the door; the tribals had arrived.

“Quillwright, go. If dey don’t see you, dey won’t know to look for you.”

Every part of me felt wrong to abandon these two in such a dire situation, but the little pony in my mind was right. Willow’s plan was solid, and in truth it was the only plan we had. I chewed my lip and hurried to the open window, poking my head out and over the sill. It was a twenty-foot drop onto concrete, but there was no other way out. I clambered out and spared one last look at Willow, who had raised her shotgun at the pregnant tribal and was decently defended behind a row of desks. Doctor Camphor was urging the mare in their language; the foal had to be close to birth.

As the door reverberated with what sounded like a hammer strike, I let go. My wing spread instinctively but only spun me around so that my front gracelessly whomped into the ground, my weak legs unable to take the impact. I avoided breaking anything or knocking myself out, so I considered my landing a success.

Above me I heard the door burst open and Willow shout, “Don’t fuckin’ move! I’ll shoot her!” She added something else in the tribal’s language, likely a repeat of the Equestrian sentence. I hesitated for a moment, but there were no gunshots; they were safe for now, but she surely couldn’t keep the pregnant mare as a hostage forever.

I set out around the school’s perimeter, keeping close to the wall and blending into the shadows as best I could. I halted as a fire exit door ahead opened, several ponies rushing out. Only some were dressed in the tribal robes, and none had purple facepaint. Though it was difficult to tell in the darkness, there appeared to be two foals in the evacuating group. They all headed for the fortifications at the front of the school, where there would surely be a massing group of tribals.

It would only be a matter of time before the whole town was brought down on Willow; I had to act quickly. I subconsciously reached for my foreleg to activate the E.F.S., but my hoof instead only poked the soft flesh of my leg. With a groan, my tired memory finally caught up and reminded me that the bracelet was no longer in my possession. My short time with the PipBuck had seriously spoiled me.

Once I reached the corner of the school, I could spot the slave pen across the playground. I checked to make sure the coast was clear, forcing myself to stop waiting for the E.F.S. overlay, and then darted out towards a seesaw. From there, I slunk behind a slide, and then crawled through the playground mulch over to a roundabout. Now that I could see the pen in better detail, I noticed that it seemed to be a combination of a tennis court and a cloudball court, with tall fences surrounding the perimeter of both rectangles.

A gate in the center was padlocked shut, and a few dozen silhouettes were moving about or prone within the enclosure. Three were up against this side of the fence, within earshot of the action taking place in the school. I snuck over to them, and as the figures came into view I noticed that all of them were earth ponies. A yellow stallion who stood against the fence did a double-take as I slid up close. “Who’re yew?”

“A friend,” I whispered. “Listen, I need to get all of you out of here.”

The buck grinned. “Yer tellin’ me! Yew e’er…” he trailed off, his expression falling. “Ah, shit…”

“Oi!”

I flinched as I heard somepony call out behind me. The ponies before me had all backed away, and as I turned I espied an earth stallion tribal approaching, a pistol in his mouth. Riptide was still in my saddlebag, and it would take far too much time to find it and draw before the tribal shot me dead.

The tribal’s eyes were narrowed in suspicion. I noticed he wore the same dusky robes and purple facepaint most other tribals had been clad in, but an eye-catching necklace also dangled around his neck. It was crafted from thickly coiled twine, with bones, feathers, and beads along the sides and a crudely-hewn ruby secured in the center. “Qui es-tu?” he managed to ask around his weapon’s grip.

I didn’t know what that meant, but it likely wasn’t anything good. I raised a hoof in a passive gesture, grinning. “Uh… hi…?”

“Tourne-toi!” he shouted, making a circular gesture with his pistol. Assuming he wanted me to turn around, I complied. As he neared, I could see the panicked expressions of the slaves. Here I was, perhaps the first glimmer of hope they’d seen since being abducted, about to be disarmed and thrown in with them. The tribal reached out and pulled my saddlebags off, tossing them to the side. He gestured towards the gate.

I nodded and began to turn. In a blur, I extended my wing and spun, the edge of my primary feather clipping the barrel of his pistol and knocking it from his grasp. The gun sailed through the air in a wide arc but was surrounded by a deep purple aura of magic, almost black. The telekinetic energy struggled to keep the weapon aloft, but while it dipped low, it rotated to aim at me without touching the ground. Confused, I quickly searched for the unicorn I must have overlooked.

My jaw and ears fell in unison as I realized the tribal’s necklace was now floating in the air before him. His eyes were alight with violet flames, identical to the magic surrounding the pistol.

An earth pony was demonstrating telekinesis before my very eyes. I’d admittedly been a bit skeptical of Willow when she’d mentioned the existence of black magic, but here before me was hard evidence that it was real. The tribal seemed to be exerting himself to reach so far, and thanks to that I was able to snap myself out of shock quick enough to lunge at the tribal as he fired the pistol. The bullet sliced through the spot I’d just been standing in, my flank able to feel the wind following the projectile.

I headbutted him in the windpipe, lamenting for the millionth time that I wasn’t a unicorn. The tribal choked as he stumbled backwards, and his magic sputtered and died. The necklace went dark and fell from the air in tandem with the pistol. I dove through the dirt, jaws clamping down on the pistol’s grip as I rotated onto my back. My foe hollered and ran forward, intent on trampling me, and I fired thrice, the last shot finding its mark between his eyes. The tribal’s corpse fell towards me, but I rolled out of the way to avoid his body as it landed with a thump and an accompanying cloud of dust.

I let the pistol slip from my numbing mouth as I clambered upright to face the slaves, who were watching with awe. I grinned, panting heavily. “H-hey, that… that was kinda badass!”

Several members of my impromptu audience gave quiet cheers and lightly stamped the clay court in applause. The yellow stallion seemed particularly thrilled as he pointed at the dead tribal. “He’s gotta key!”

Sure enough, a quick search of the corpse rewarded me with a small ring of keys. I brought them over to the gate and in two tries the padlock was off. The gate had barely been unlatched before a stampede of ponies began to pour through it. “Wait! Please, everypony, I need to speak to you first! Just a minute!” I called over the ruckus.

Several slaves bolted straight for the wilderness as they exited the pen; I tried calling after a few, but realized it was meaningless. If they were too afraid to simply wait around in St Mare's, they certainly wouldn't have the will to stand and fight their former captors. Roughly forty had been held in the court, and close to thirty still hung around to listen to me, including the eager yellow buck.

“Thankee, miss, thankee!” he cried, fervently shaking my hoof.

“You’re… welcome…” I struggled to say, my headache flaring up. As politely as I could, I extracted my hoof and peered around at the group before me. “Um… is anypony here named Harvest?”

The slaves looked around at each other. The yellow stallion shook his head. “Ah don’t think there’s a Harvest here,” he mused. “A group’o us got shipped out to Goddesses-know-where back ‘round noon. Hope ‘e weren’t wif’em.”

Based on Marigold’s story, that had probably occurred around the same time their homestead was assaulted. It was doubtful that Harvest would’ve been immediately added to a slave train without taking some time to judge his value.

“Anywho, mah name’s Okra! Yers?”

“Quillwright,” I answered quickly. “Okay, look. I have two, maybe three friends trapped inside the school right now. I know I just freed you, and I wish I didn’t have to ask, but…” I grimaced. “I need your help to save them.”

Okra looked amiable. “Well hay, least we can do tuh repay yer help is save yer friends!” Most of the group murmured agreement, but one voice spoke up over them.

“I ain’t helpin’ no sky-dweller!” I heard a few half-hearted agreements from the crowd.

My ears went rigid and I opened my mouth to dispute his assertion, but Okra was faster. “Howzat got anythin’ tuh do wif anythin’? Quillwrigh’ jus’ freed us!”

“S’bout two hundred years late for ‘em pegasi to start helpin’!”

Okra was growing livid. “Ah don’t give half a damn if she’s got wings or not. She’s a pony who risked ‘er life tuh free us, complete strangers to ‘er!”

His outspoken opponent finally broke away from the crowd, a filthy light-blue stallion with a blonde mane. Two mares were following him anxiously. “Count me out,” he scoffed. “We ain’t takin’ part in no suicide mission.” The mares nodded vigorously.

“Slitter.” Okra frowned in disgust. “Figures you’d be th’ first tuh turn tail. Worst guard Ah had th’ misfortune o’ hirin.”

“An’ you’re the most…” Slitter paused briefly as he sought about for an insult. It quickly became clear that he didn’t have an extensive vernacular. “... Stupidest caravaneer I’ve ever worked for!”

I was unable to mask my annoyance as my tail brusquely flicked at the air. “You don’t care about any of your fellows, do you?”

Slitter didn’t even look my way, instead simply nickering as he led his pair of acolytes into the wilderness. One of them kept glancing back at us, guilt and a look of internal struggle painted across her face.

Okra turned to me. “Mah ‘pologies; lotta grudges still run deep ‘round ‘ere. The rest of us’d be willin’ tuh help, but we need sumpthin’ tuh fight wif!”

I retrieved the pistol I'd dropped and presented it to him. “Here's one to start. Now, does anypony know where the tribals might have an armory?”

There was another chorus of no’s, but Okra gestured towards the school. “Ah think they keep most errythin’ up in the school wif ‘em.”

“Alright then…” I looked back towards the school, hoping against hope that Willow and Camphor were still alright. “Let’s go.”

As the crowd of slaves began to move, I went to retrieve my saddlebags. Stepping around the dead tribal, I caught a subtle glimmer buried in his ruffled robes. Pausing to examine him, I swept aside the dark fabric to reveal the voodoo necklace that still encircled his neck, reflecting the moonlight from above.

Even in spite of the low visibility, the ruby center seemed to captivate me, shimmering with an impossibly deep refraction. Before I knew what I was doing, I checked to see that nopony was watching and snatched it up. Tossing on my bags, I stuffed the necklace deep into my belongings and then galloped to catch up with Okra.

We reached the back of the school without encountering any tribals; it was safe to assume that they were preoccupied with the hostage situation inside. The rear entrance was less glamorous than the front, but the doors were unlocked and our little militia was able to slip inside. The dark hallway we found ourselves in ran the length of the school, both sides covered in lockers.

With Okra and myself leading the way with our pistols, we peeked into every classroom we came across. All were vacant, though most showed signs of being lived-in, with bedrolls, lanterns, and articles of clothing scattered around on the floor and desks. The tribals had kept their living quarters far tidier than I’d expected, and if I hadn’t known better, I could’ve even believed that this school was home to a group of traders or normal Wastelanders.

A few slaves equipped themselves with appropriated flashlights and lanterns to help us navigate the gloomy interior, since we had neither magic nor the PipBuck to provide any light. We didn’t find any weapons, but I acquired a cord that allowed me to secure Riptide around my neck and keep it within reach.

As we reached the end of the hallway and rounded the corner, my ears perked to the sounds of aggressive shouting upstairs. Collectively hurrying forward, our group pushed through a double door and into the dark, cavernous gym. The bleachers had been pulled out, and in the center of the wooden court was a table identical to the ones in the biology room upstairs. It was relatively clean, but my dread tripled when I saw dark stains imprinted into the laminated wood beneath it. Blood, and lots of it. At least none of it is fresh.

Okra growled something behind his pistol and sprinted to the far exit. We joined him and shoved through another pair of doors to find ourselves in the school’s entrance. Flanking both sides were staircases that led down to display cases filled with cobweb-laced trophies and framed photographs of students and athletes. Above hung gold and purple pennants, surrounding a large banner that exclaimed “Go Fruit Bats!” with a cutesy titular mascot in the middle of a cheer. Ahead of us were the front doors, through which well over a dozen tribals were currently backing out.

“Dat’s right, assholes!” Willow spat. “Outside!”

Willow was advancing on them deliberately, about to reach the base of the stairs. In her TK field floated her shotgun and the newborn foal, still drenched in his mother’s blood. He wailed and whinnied as he dangled above Willow and several feet off the hard marble floor, kicking his legs in a futile attempt to escape. I realized that Willow was using the foal as insurance; if she was attacked, her magic would falter and the resulting drop would easily kill the newborn.

Mere minutes out of the womb and the foal was already experiencing the horrors of post-apocalyptic Equestria. My gut tightened at how disgusting the situation was, but my conscience reminded me that we’d all be dead or worse if not for Willow’s quick thinking.

The last tribal to back out was a tall, imposing looking unicorn with a hellhound-bladed knife floating in his red magical aura. He glared equally sharp daggers at Willow with intense but intelligent eyes. As his foreleg cleared the threshold, the sight froze me in place.

He was wearing the PipBuck.

Willow lowered her shotgun and pulled the doors shut quickly, latching them. She kept the foal hoisted far above her head as she threatened the tribals through the glass, her voice hoarse and cracking with anxiety.

“You even breat’ wrong and de foal dies!”

I spooked her slightly as I called her name. She turned, beginning with, “Quill, you’re...” and then took in the two dozen slaves flanking me. “Dat’s... a damn good improvement.” She sounded relieved, though not by much.

“Yew gottem all out?” Okra asked.

“All of dem, yeah, ‘cept for dat pregnant bitch the Doc insists on helping. You find Harvest or Mari?” Willow asked me.

“No.” I tilted my head questioningly, removing Riptide from my mouth so I could speak easier. “Though I have to ask… is Harvest an earth pony or a unicorn?”

“A unicorn…” Willow began to respond, and then noticed the distinct lack of any horns behind me.

Okra looked concerned. “Yer lookin’ fer a uni? Th’ tribals always took ‘em inta th’ school 'ere.” He looked back towards the other slaves. “We ne’er saw any o’ ‘em come back out, either…”

A rapid clattering of hooves descending the stairs echoed through the foyer and Camphor came into view, his surgical mask still on. The doctor took in myself and the slaves, and then locked his eyes on the foal.

“Alright, they're out. Hand him over,” he demanded of Willow.

The guide sighed and shook her head as she floated the screaming newborn lower. Camphor withdrew a towel and wrapped the baby in it, cradling it in a foreleg while he hop-skipped back upstairs.

“Willow, that last tribal had the PipBuck,” I said.

The guide went rigid. “He… he did? Shit, I didn’t even see… it was yours?”

I nodded. There was no mistaking the battered and bulky old frame, flaking olive paint, and amber screen; it was the same 2000 model I'd worn out of Stable 56.

The unicorn turned back towards the entrance. “Marigold…”

We were surrounded now, with a mostly-unarmed group, a recovering tribal upstairs, and still had two missing ponies. I felt a new wave of exhaustion pass over me; in spite of everything we'd done, the situation hadn’t improved much.

Okra began addressing the slaves. “We need tuh cover all th’ entrances if’n we’re gettin’ sieged.”

“Schools like this should have safety locks you can engage at every door,” I chimed in. “And make sure all the windows are shut,” I added, recalling our original infiltration point.

Okra nodded, and I turned my attention back to Willow, who was still transfixed on the milling group of tribals now surrounding the idol out front. “Willow, I think Harvest is still in here somewhere. If he was only taken today, he could still be alive.”

“You… you tink?”

“I do, but we need to hurry.” I followed her gaze, trying to choose my words carefully. “There’s still no evidence that Marigold has come to any harm. Once we’re all assembled, we can focus on her.”

The guide gave a half-hearted nod. “Yeah.”

Half of the slaves set out to locate and lock down every entrance, while the other half spread through the hallways, searching any classrooms still uninvestigated. We tagged along with them, and eventually found ourselves outside the cafeteria. Walking past the entrance, Willow halted and stared inside, catching my attention in the process.

There were several vacant pony-sized cages stacked within. They looked the right size to be dragged along by a strong buck, and marks on the floor leading to and from were evidence enough to lend credence to the idea. Tables bore stacks of chains, ropes, and collars; everything you’d need to move a group of noncomplying prisoners. Willow’s light panned to and fro, and with every new clue my disturbance grew.

“Is it common for tribals to deal in slavery?” I asked quietly.

Willow sighed as she circled a cage, inspecting it. “Mulisiana's oldest form of currency...”

Living outside of the Fillydelphia nightmare had been a daily reminder of how truly well-off I’d been. “One of the slaves told me that some of their own had been shipped off earlier today. If none of them had seen unicorns leave the building, then the tribe must be saving them for something else.”

“Well, where else…?” Willow’s horn passed across the wall behind the food line. Behind the smudged sneeze guard her light glinted off of the shiny silver doors of the freezer.

We pried the thick door open and the guide shone a beam of light inside. Sure enough, she illuminated two unicorns who were embracing in fear. Their expressions shifted to confusion upon seeing my Stable barding, though they were still flattening themselves against the far wall. As I stepped inside the fridge, I assuaged, “Hey, it's alright, I'm here to…”

A pipe swung out from my right side, and I reared back, the weapon striking my shoulder painfully. I retreated to see an auburn-colored unicorn wielding the pipe, but Willow spoke up.

“Harvest! T’ank de Goddesses you're alive…”

The unicorn prisoner halted his attack immediately, his face brightening from grim desperation to fond recognition upon hearing her voice. “Willow! Oh, wow… you... “ He grinned, though he had an air of worry around him. “You’re here…?”

“Here to get you out,” Willow completed.

Harvest winced as he looked at me, tossing aside his makeshift weapon. “I’m really sorry. I wouldn’t have hit you if… if my nerves weren’t so fried.”

“Eh, what's one more bruise?” I groaned. I was just glad he hadn’t landed a blow to my head; I would’ve been out cold.

“But if you knew I’d been taken…” Harvest gave Willow a fearful glance. “Where’s Marigold?”

“She’s…” She exchanged a look with me, a useless gesture thanks to her long hood. “Missing. De tribals might have captured her, yeah?”

“Oh no…” the auburn unicorn began shaking his head, running a hoof through his mane. “No, no, no… she…” His eyes lit up. “These tribals; they’re cannibals of some kind!”

The blood I’d seen in the gymnasium had already hinted at this being possible, but Willow seemed to have expected it herself as she uttered, “I knew it.”

“They hauled us unicorns out week after week, strung us up an’ pricked our blood!” One of the mares behind Harvest spoke up, her voice raw with fear. “They’d mix it in this ritual an’ then choose one of us at random, cut out their heart, an’ feed it to one of their own, a pregnant unicorn!”

Those words hitched the rhythm of my heartbeat. The mare upstairs, the one Camphor had so desperately defended and cared for, had consumed pony flesh. I felt sick.

Willow was frozen for a moment before she drew her shotgun, wordlessly setting into a brisk trot back towards the entrance. I moved to keep up, Harvest following alongside. I tried to fill him in on the situation as best I could as we returned to the second floor, reaching the biology room at the end of the hall.

Willow stormed in and once again aimed her shotgun at the tribal mare, who was nursing her newborn. She and Camphor had been conversing, but the stallion immediately rose and shielded her when he caught sight of the guide. The dead tribals’ bodies had all been neatly arranged in a row on one side of the room in the time since we’d been away.

“She ain’t getting any mercy dis time,” Willow growled maliciously. She halted just before the doctor, who looked down on her disapprovingly.

“I thought we discussed this, Willow.”

The shorter pony didn’t seem intimidated. “We did, yeah. And now t’ings have changed.”

“How so?”

Willow inclined her head over her shoulder. “We found Harvest. Found a few unicorns, actually. Dey were all locked up in de cafeteria of all places, ready to have dere hearts cut out,” she jabbed a hoof at the new mother. “... And eaten by her.”

Camphor balked, “Yeah, right.”

“It was all centered around her child,” Harvest spoke up behind us. We turned to see him glaring at the blissfully unaware foal. “They fed her unicorn hearts hoping that it’d somehow… I dunno. Reincarnate their deity or whatever.”

With a harsh scowl, Willow tried floating her shotgun to the side to aim around Camphor. The doctor managed to reach out and force the barrel downwards. “Regardless of what she’s done in the past, we can’t just shoot her now.”

“Why not?” Willow spat. “Dey’re cannibals and slave traders! Give me one reason, Cam, one fucking reason why dis tribe or anyone in it is wort’ sparing!”

Deja vu of the worst kind struck as I witnessed Camphor and Willow once again at each other’s throats. This wasn’t going to end well either way; one would be spurred into action against the other, or they’d argue so long that they’d forget the impending threat of the siege. “Hey!” I snapped at them. “Enough!”

With a snort, Willow rotated her head to me. “Yeah? And what’s de Steel Ranger got to say about de sanctity of a cannibal’s life?” She addressed my title with bitter mocking.

“She…” To be honest, cannibals didn’t deserve to be spared. She’d partaken in something utterly despicable, a subpony act so vile that most, like Willow, would shoot her without a second thought. My time in the Steel Rangers had constantly taught me that savages like her had no value. They had nothing to contribute to Equestria, nothing to offer that could enrich other ponies or help our race advance in any way. She took up resources and was a vehicle to ending the lives of those who might’ve one day provided something to the Wasteland.

The survivor side of me had only a sliver of pity for her. If what Camphor had said earlier was true, she may have been from another tribe, a peaceful group, that was taken over by this one. A stallion took a liking to her, and when she became pregnant, she was forced against her wishes to take part in this sick ritual, if only for the sake of giving her foal a chance at life. If she’d ever had the opportunity, she might have escaped and never looked back.

But those were a lot of ifs. To be honest, I wanted nothing to do with this whole ordeal, but here I was, forced to play intermediary between two ponies to decide the fate of another. I just want to go home.

“... She deserves to be judged,” I stammered, trying to collect my thoughts. “By the slaves. But this is neither the time nor the place.” The tribal was watching us intently, fear and hatred mixed equally in her blue eyes. She couldn’t understand us, but undoubtedly knew we were discussing her fate.

“Time? I’m not gonna fuckin’ draw it out or anyt’in, Quill, it’s just one trigger pull! Quick and painless, more den I could say for what she’d do in our stead.” Willow nickered, her voice rising. “And place? We’re surrounded; if we're dying here, we might as well take her wid us.”

“You aren’t in charge here, Willow,” Camphor settled. “Back off.” He placed a hoof on the unicorn’s chest, trying to push her back.

“Don’t... touch me...!” With a sudden movement, Willow knocked his outstretched leg away and ducked around the doctor, her shotgun whipping forwards. Camphor pounced, his hoof whacking against the barrel as the weapon discharged. The shot burst into the concrete wall only a few feet beside the tribal, who screamed in terror as she sheltered her child from the flying debris. The foal began bawling as Doctor Camphor wrestled the shotgun from Willow’s grasp, breaking it open and pulling out the second shell.

“The hell’s gotten into you, kid?” He shouted at her furiously, his expression a mix of disbelief and disgust. Willow shook wordlessly, but had no response. My eyes followed Camphor as he tossed the shotgun shell across the room, using the gun butt to ward the guide back to Harvest’s side.

“You ain’t the same filly I knew in Buckwater,” he continued. I heard the flare of activating magic as Willow… wait. Willow’s horn was dark as she trembled with what must’ve been quiet sobs, and Harvest’s was similarly inactive as he watched the guide with concern.

“Restez là!”

We turned as one to see the mother shakily aiming a rifle at us; I recognized it as the one dropped by the first tribal I’d shot in the room. She’d retrieved it from beneath a nearby desk, and her magical aura flickered in her weakened state as it pointed the gun at Willow.

The color drained from Camphor’s face as his patient clutched her son tightly. “Baisse ton fusil, Posey,” he began cautiously. “Tu es en sécurité.”

The tribal shook her head, white flakes of concrete drifting out from her brown mane. “Pas près d’elle,” she emphasized while jabbing the rifle’s barrel towards Willow, sliding off the table and onto her wobbly legs.

Willow said something in the tribal language behind me, but paired with her unique accent and her speed I couldn’t distinguish any individual words in the sentence. The mother’s darkening expression and Camphor’s growing unease gave me the feeling that it wasn’t helping to defuse the situation.

“Nous ne voulons pas nuire à votre fils,” Camphor urged as the tribal tried moving forward, intent on reaching the door behind us.

“C'est pourquoi ta amie m'a tiré?” the mother shot back. She told us to move aside with a wave of her rifle; Willow stood fast and spoke another low, dangerous sentence while the rest of us backed away. The guide’s dialect proved to once again be indecipherable to my ears and agitating to the mother, who briefly looked past Willow in worry as if she could see through the school’s walls.

Just then a staccato of weapons fire rumbled beneath us, followed by muffled screams and shouts. We collectively glanced downwards, straining our ears to listen for indications of which side the burst had originated from… all of us besides Willow. She lit her horn and her pistol began to slide out of its holster. The mother’s keen eyes caught this, and her rifle drew in close to aim. Camphor had been paying close attention, and begged something as he rushed forwards to intervene.

“No…!”

There was a loud crack and a red ribbon spurted out of Camphor’s side. He exhaled violently and collapsed to the floor as Willow fell to a knee, clutching a foreleg and crying out in sudden pain. The mother’s face was frozen in horror, clearly distressed that she’d shot the doctor. It quickly transformed into fury and loathing, however, when her eyes flicked back up at Willow, her intended target, who was only injured.

The guide’s horn lit up, reaching for the pistol she’d dropped, but I knew she wouldn’t have enough time to direct it and fire in her injured position. Harvest was unarmed, stock-still as he watched the unfolding attack. I, on the other hoof, still had Riptide hanging from my neck. The tribal and I briefly locked eyes, and I knew that one of us would be dead within the next three seconds.

The mother’s magic pulled the rifle’s bolt back, an empty shell springing from the breech.

I reached down and grabbed Riptide, raising the weapon.

The rifle bolt was clumsily thrust forward and locked back into place.

Aiming swiftly, I bit into the trigger and felt the hammer buck as a bullet rushed out of the pistol’s muzzle, zipping across the room...

... Straight into the base of the mother’s neck. She gagged, her TK weakly imploding and fizzling out, the reloaded but unfired rifle clattering to the floor. Though mortally wounded, she still had the consciousness to pull her foal close and fall backwards to cushion her collapse.

Camphor was gasping, hooves clutching his chest as a deep red blossom began saturating his thin grey shirt at an alarming rate. His eyes were shut and his teeth were gritted together, yet as Willow flew to his side, the first sentence he wheezed was, “Don’t… kill… her…”

The foal was wailing, disturbed by the thundering shots that had reverberated through the classroom. Snapping out of my post-kill stupor, I carefully retrieved him, holding him steady and trying to quiet his distressed cries. Goddesses, I hope the gunshots didn’t deafen him. As I backed up, the foal’s mother was in full view. She convulsed on the floor with short, violent gasps as blood leaked from her neck, her eyes becoming unfocused but watching me with a desperate hatred. I felt hollow inside as I watched one last wheeze rattle out of her punctured throat before she went still, her deadened eyes forever frozen towards myself and her child.

Of every life I’d ever ended, this one hadn’t felt justified. There was no sense of victory, of overcoming a great opponent; she was simply a mare who’d probably never been in a firefight herself, judging by her lack of discipline with the rifle. My gaze was drawn to the foal in my foreleg, wriggling and streaming tears down his reddening face. Had I killed his father, too? Had I just orphaned him? My stomach twisted into knots as I reconsidered every action I’d taken in the past hour.

“What do I do, Cam?” I heard Willow ask behind me, her voice straining. In a daze, I rotated to find the guide on her haunches next to the doctor, ignoring the blood that dripped from her sleeve. Harvest stood close to her, still shaken by the recent exchange.

“B-bag…” the doctor replied, still grasping at his blood-soaked shirt, trying to diagnose his own injury. “Rib snapped, twisted into... “ he coughed. “Need two stimpaks. Then three p-potions, then... bandages. Lots of… bandages...”

Willow searched her saddlebags. “Uh…” Her one good hoof withdrew a poultice, and then two glass bottles half-filled with the ruby-colored regenerative fluid. Placing them around Camphor, she rooted around frantically, her horn joining the search and floating out a stimpak. “I’ve got one.” She shook her bag in frustration. “Where in Tartarus are my bandages…?”

“My… saddlebag…” Camphor groaned. “S...surgical-grade gauze and…” A cough. “Stimpaks…”

“Which one?”

“Yellow… Ministry…”

Oh no. My voice cracked slightly as I spoke up. “Willow… the bags are still in the pharmacy.”

There was a tentative pause. “Can we… do you tink we can reach dem? I don’t tink dis...” The unicorn indicated her scant collection of supplies. “... Is enough.”

“I’ll get them,” I assured her. “Try to stop the bleeding as best you can.” The foal had quieted significantly, and I gently set him aside. “Both Camphor’s and your own,” I added.

“Quillwright,” Harvest got my attention as he retrieved the tribal’s dropped rifle. “I’ll help.”

I nodded, but longingly gazed at the healing potions Willow had conjured. My eyes were fighting to stay open, my body felt distant and numb, and my head was heavy with stuffy sinuses and a headache. Each knee had been skinned after jumping out of the window, my shoulder was bruised from Harvest’s attack, and my gums were sore from firing weapons. I had a second coat of dirt and mud over my fur, mane and tail both sweaty and disheveled. Every muscle was sore from shivering, and my raw throat was dry as an Elder’s sense of humor.

There was no way I could make it across town and back like this.

“I need a potion or Med-X,” I rasped as Willow telekinetically applied the poultice to Camphor’s wound, still holding her foreleg.

The unicorn nodded. “Go ahead.”

While health potions didn’t sit well on empty stomachs, my body was able to regain some of its vigor, and with that the chances of me surviving this excursion rose by a few percent. A Med-X on top would’ve been even better, but healing my bruises and cuts had still elicited a relieved sigh from me.

As Harvest and I headed back downstairs, the recently liberated unicorn asked, “How… how was Marigold doing the last you saw her?”

I was hesitant to detail his wife’s forceful commandeering of the PipBuck. “She really wanted you back,” I decided on answering.

Harvest sighed, grinding his teeth. “She’s got really bad anxiety. Seeing me get taken... I can’t even imagine.” He raised an eyebrow. “The tribals didn’t burn our house down, did they?”

“Nah, we fought them off. Even did some light renovation to the place while we were at it.”

Even in the midst of our plight, Harvest had the capacity to laugh. “I’ll have to see about compensating you once this is all over!”

I was tempted to make another joke, but remained silent just in case Harvest was actually serious.

As we came off the foyer staircase, an exchange of gunshots echoed down the halls. Something high-caliber was mixed in with the smaller shots.

“I bet those tribals are getting their flanks handed to ‘em…” Harvest’s optimism clashed with my internal hopelessness. While I prayed that the slaves had managed to arm themselves, I knew we were still outnumbered. Everything depended on their ability to hold the entrances, and if needed, to force choke points throughout the school.

Quickening our pace, we went east and came around the corner to find an emergency fire exit. Peeping through the small clouded porthole in the center, Harvest gritted his teeth. “I, uh… don’t think there are any tribals this way.” He double-checked his rifle, looking at me with concern. “You ready?”

“Born ready,” I croaked, grabbing Riptide and checking the cylinder. Four shots.

Harvest nodded grimly, placing a hoof on the safety latch and cracking the door open. Humid air rushed inside, and when silence followed Harvest pushed it fully open, leading our escape. We had exited the school to face the center of St Mare’s, separated by the large overgrown field. We barely had time to start towards our objective when a group of hunters trotted around the corner of the school, searching for an entrance. They halted upon spotting us, and for a moment everypony held their breath.

“Run!” Harvest shouted as he let off a shot, dropping one of the tribals. I needed no convincing, sprinting as fast as my aching limbs and inflamed lungs could carry me. Shots rang out as bullets zipped past, but I reached the field and was enveloped in the tall grass. Panicked, I clumsily tried to navigate the range, ducking low but raising my head periodically to remain on-course towards the town. The relentless arms fire behind me eventually died down but I was too frightened to check behind me for pursuers.

Exiting the grass onto a street lined with stone benches, I looked both ways in an attempt to remember where the pharmacy was relative to my position; the darkness muddled my sense of direction. As I lifted my head to search for familiar waypoints, my ears picked up rustling in the field. Praying to Celestia that Harvest would emerge, I backed onto the street, not willing to let my guard down.

“Please, please, please…” I chanted under my breath.

My wariness paid off as a hunter burst from the overgrowth, his horn lighting up and shining a beam in my face. Breathlessly, I fled into the town, cutting my way through alleyways and across streets, all the while searching for anything I could recognize in the moonlight. The tribal’s foreign tone was taunting as he pursued, reverberating down the streets behind me.

Leaping a fence and down a side street, I skidded to a halt as I found myself before the massive sentry bot I’d seen earlier. With a landmark to work from, I located the main street, but I still needed to shake my tail before entering the pharmacy. There was a wildly overgrown pocket park half a block to the right. Without anywhere better to hide I dashed into the dark cluster of trees and greenery, ducking behind the widest trunk in the grove. I felt horribly exposed from all sides, unsure of where the hunter had vanished to. In the confined, gloomy jungle my only reliable senses were my ears, which were pulsing with my distracting heartbeat.

I could hear sustained gunfire from the direction of the school, battles waging between slaves and tribals. Every second longer I took was another second that Camphor was losing blood. Torn between continuing through to the other side and waiting to ensure my safety, I backed away from the trunk, readjusting my grip on Riptide. After waiting for several seconds, I turned and launched into a half-gallop just as a beam of silvery light flared on behind me.

“Je t’ai eu!”

The hunter gave a cruel laugh as something snared my rear legs and yanked me to a sudden halt, causing me to spill forwards onto my barrel and drop Riptide. As my mouth grabbed for the revolver, the tribal’s magic tugged me out of range. Unable to think clearly through my feverish panic, my hooves were driven into the soil instead of trying to collect my weapon. The useless attempt to halt myself did nothing but carve a pathetic pair of furrows.

The magic gripping my rear legs hauled me in front of the unicorn. He roughly flipped me onto my back, his glowing silver horn lighting his cruel features. Leaning over me, his knees pinned me down and pressed me into the dirt. I fought to bite him, kick him, anything, but the stallion’s strength and weight was overwhelming against my flagging energy. His breathing was quickened, eyes alight with either bloodlust or regular lust; it was too dark for me to distinguish. Riptide was torn from its cord and tossed into the nearby shrubbery as he leaned down.

“L'autre était tellement plus forte...” he purred, puffing from flaring nostrils only inches from my face.

I whimpered, raising my legs for a kick, but felt magic restrain them. Ultimately I could only manage to wriggle forwards an inch or two as he raised his head, transfixed with my figure. Oh Goddesses, these are the same ponies who caught Marigold… what was she subjected to?

Dimly illuminated motion behind the hunter caught my attention. A wide tree maybe four feet away began to morph, pieces of the bark spreading outwards like a large pair of wings. They looked eerie as they were highlighted against the darkness, covered in thin red rivulets of veins and identified by a familiar blue tag. I screamed as loud as I could, thrashing fiercely. The tribal chuckled as he ran a muddy hoof down my face, tracing my features while keeping my head still.

“Oh, alors tu peux lutter après tout!”

He froze as a distinctive vibrating chirp began behind him; his eyelids snapped wide open as he recognized the sound. He turned his head just in time to behold Molly’s terrifying full wingspan before the insect launched herself from the tree trunk and landed on his withers, her pincers open wide. With a shriek, the hunter reared back, his magic abruptly dissipating in confusion. My legs came up and then shot out, connecting with his chest, and I felt a wet pop as at least one of the unicorn’s ribs fractured behind my hoof.

As the hunter clumsily toppled onto his side, Molly violently ripping a chunk of tender flesh from his neck, I bolted out of the park and across the street. Galloping through a wet, narrow alleyway, I burst out onto the main street, the pharmacy still sitting inconspicuously to my right. I felt a surge of confidence carry me towards my goal. Almost there.

The interior was suffocatingly dark, and I sought about for the spot where the saddlebags had been stashed. Feeling around, my hooves found the chair and then searched behind it, pulling out a satchel. I held it up to the window, allowing the faint shafts of moonlight to reveal I’d picked up the wrong one, a gator leather bag. Returning it, I grabbed the next and inspected it.

“Pink butterflies... Peace,” I murmured, reassuring myself that I really had found the correct supplies. I allowed my body a few precious moments to steel itself while I checked the bag's contents. I could see dozens of bandages packed inside, along with the protruding dials and gauges of stimpaks. Though there wasn’t enough light for me to comfortably take inventory, it was certainly more than enough to fix Camphor’s injury.

I slung the bag over my back and turned back to the front door. Hooking the handle, I pulled the crusty door inwards…

... And found myself face-to-face with a tribal hunter, the one wearing the PipBuck. He shoved the door the rest of the way open, his dark red magic lifting his hellhound blade high, poised to strike. I screamed, caught off-guard, and tried to rotate to kick him. His weapon was too fast; as my body spun lateral to him, the dagger plunged downwards.

The blade bullseyed Camphor’s saddlebag directly through the trio of butterflies, easily running through the bandages and piercing the hide just above my cutie mark. The tip nearly reached my hip bone before the hilt was stopped by the sheer thickness of the bandage rolls. With a cry of agony, my rear hoof instinctively shot out and clipped his knee, just above the PipBuck. He grunted in pain and backed up, his magic releasing the dagger, and I fled deeper into the pharmacy.

Scampering behind a row of empty shelves, I bit into my hoof to keep from whining, tears already spilling from my eyes. The dagger was still embedded in the saddlebag but had mercifully rebounded out of the wound in my flank. My right leg was now tingling, casting fears that I might lose feeling in it. I pulled my fetlock from my mouth as I heard the hunter slam the door shut fiercely.

“Tu vas mourir pour avoir mis mon fils en danger!” he called out, seething hatred replete in his tone.

I heard a click and the golden glow of the PipBuck’s screen was activated, breaking over the top of the shelves. He knows how to operate it? This unicorn couldn’t be a dimwitted tribal like Willow had so dismissively cast his type as; how in Equestria could he know how to use Stable-Tec technology? He began trotting down the aisle next to me with slow and careful hooves.

Feeling around my front, I recalled that Riptide had been abandoned in the park during Molly’s attack. As light pooled around the corner, spilling across the tiles and rushing towards me, I scuttled backwards and dodged into the next aisle, keeping to the shadows and to safety.

What if he has the E.F.S. active?

I needed to get out right now. My mind groped for solutions; perhaps I could lose him in the alleys, or maybe draw him into Molly...

The hunter was close to the rear of the building now. With my breath held, I continued to circle with him, nearly back at the entrance. The front door was in sight; if I moved fast enough, there was a slim but present chance that I could still escape. Knowing I could be about to die but desperate to escape, I braced myself and bolted out from the shelves, galloping for the front door.

I struck the wood, pushing with all my might, but it held fast, having been slammed shut so hard that the crooked shape had wedged itself within the frame again. It didn’t yield an inch against my efforts, and I could feel my final seconds of life slip away with every weakening push I gave. I whimpered quietly as I heard slow hoof clacks behind me. Turning my head, I found the stallion smirking with cold satisfaction. It had been his plan for me to corner myself.

A hunting rifle floating beside him, he raised his foreleg. He was going to finish me off with S.A.T.S., watching gleefully as my head exploded in slow motion. His eyes narrowed in victory as his hoof held down a button to activate the targeting spell.

... But nothing happened.

His expression twitched as it dawned on him that time hadn’t slowed down. The smirk twisted into a startled gape as I charged at him, having taken advantage of his arrogance to pull the dagger free, charging towards his heart. The tribal backpedaled as he fired his rifle, foregoing S.A.T.S. to ward me away.

The bullet struck the left side of my neck, slicing off a chunk of muscles. I screamed in agony, my pace faltering for a moment, but clamped down on the dagger’s handle until my gums ached, still aiming for the tribal’s chest.

The hunter’s telekinetic field fumbled while attempting to chamber the next round. With a whinny of sudden panic, he began to rear back, hoping to fend me off with a kick. The long blade met him first, the tip plunging through his robe and hide like butter. I could feel it grind past his ribs and jab something soft within, and then the hilt thudded against his chest, keeping the blade from burrowing completely into his body.

He cried out hoarsely as my momentum carried us back and into a shelving unit. It bent inwards with a groan and toppled over, taking us along with it. I tumbled onto my side, watching as the tribal landed on his back. The buck feebly pawed at the handle of his dagger as if pulling it free would somehow save him, but in mere seconds he was stone-dead.

I panted with exertion, struggling to stand and balance while fighting the stars that burst across my vision and temporarily blinded me. I couldn’t feel my flank, and the typhoof festering deep within was trying to drag me down. The desire to simply lay down and give in was immense.

You can’t! If you pass out, Camphor dies! came the little pony’s voice. And if he dies, you can kiss a cure goodbye!

Stumbling forwards, I tried pushing the door open again only to be met with the same resistance. Ready to let out all my boiling resentment on the belligerent door, I tried yanking it back to shake but yelped as the hinges instead obeyed and swung inwards, lavishing me with yet another layer of dust and splinters.

Bloody door isn’t labeled as a pull… the little pony within groaned, just as fed up with this whole day as I was.

I loped down the street at the fastest pace I could, beads of sweat stinging my eyes and itching beneath my barding. My wing’s weak attempts to boost me forwards only inflamed my sore back, and my lungs burned with exertion. My pace slowed as a thick phlegm-y cough seized my chest. My neck fur clung to my hide, heavy and damp, as the bullet wound throbbed excruciatingly.

The saddlebag constantly tested my balance as another wave of lightheadedness washed past. My legs quivered uncontrollably, threatening to bow just a little too far with every step. I had just reached the last street, the school visible across the field, when my hoof snagged on a pothole and I keeled forwards onto the pavement.

I laid there, unable to even summon the strength to lift a foreleg. My rigid back muscles began to relax as my body shut down. Whatever hidden well of energy that had somehow kept me moving since the laundromat was now bone-dry; I had nothing left to tap into, try as I might. My vision rapidly blurred, my eyelids feeling as though they were being pulled down by an unseen force. The last thought that flashed through me was the sight of the tribal mother in the same position, clawing to intake a few final breaths as lifeblood trickled out of her neck.

I’m… I’m so sorry…

As I was overwhelmed by fatigue, I swore I felt breath on my mane.

Footnote: Level Up.
New Perk Added: Adrenaline - When you’re at the end of your line, you can draw upon every ounce of strength you didn’t know you had. When suffering from illness or a crippled limb, you gain +20% extra AP.

Author's Notes:

There are two rules in life that everyone should take to heart: never get involved in a land war in Asia, and never trust a thing Nyx says in the author's notes.

The hero of the day week month is Typoglyphic, who provided some incredibly helpful feedback on this behemoth and has so generously offered his assistance with the rest of the story. This should help things progress faster, but of course if I make any promises they'll be broken at least twice.