“What did you want to see me for?” I had just slipped into Spitfire’s office.

“Well Silver I want you and your new friends to do some work for me. We have plenty of work around here that needs done. You can make some caps to buy a few new throwing knives for that wing of yours.” Spitfire was fiddling with a safe in the wall.

“I make them myself. Nopony gets to deal with the wing unless it is their death that is happening. I just need a forge and some clouds to make more.” I stood in front of her desk avoiding the chair that was there.

“Well a good forge isn’t going to be cheap. You’re going to need enough caps to buy that at the very least. Besides I think that group of yours has plans to settle down eventually. I doubt they want to stay here though. Think about the offer alright.” Spitfire put a painting on the safe before turning around to face me.

“I’ll think about it. In the end it isn’t up to me. I’m not the leader of that group I’m just a well trained angel of death.” I shuffled my wings a bit.

“We did train you to be an unstoppable killing force. But don’t get cocky you’ve seen what happens when soldiers get cocky. Much as I still dislike you I don’t want to see you dead.” Spitfire stood pushing her chair backwards.

“The feelings mutual. Don’t get yourself killed. I don’t think this town is ready to lose it’s leader.” I stood at attention.

“Dismissed.” She saluted me then went to work with a few papers on her desk.

I walked out of the office to the group waiting for me.

“So what did she say?” Midnight was the one to greet me.

“She offered us many jobs. There are many things to do around this town to make sure that nothing like what we’ve just lived through happens again. So what do you say Midnight? Are you willing to stick around here long enough to prove your worth?” I raised an eyebrow at her.

“I don’t need to prove anything, but we could use the caps. Well I guess we’ve got nothing better to do at the moment so we might as well work for her. But don’t you still hate her?” She raised her own eyebrow at me.

“I don’t hate her anymore. I dislike a few of the things she has done but I do not wish death or harm upon a former commanding officer.” I would never wish any harm upon them.

“Sounds to me like you are developing feelings for her.” Harmony stepped forward.

“Harmony I would suggest you hush yourself on talk like that. Silver here has other mares chasing after him. I doubt he would even want a mare of my age.” Spitfire pulled open her office door and stepped out.

“No offense Spitfire but yeah. You are at least twenty years older than me. I’m all for a mare who is a little older but that is stretching it to the extremes.” My instincts kicked in and I stood at attention.

“So what do you have for us to do?” Midnight stepped forward nudging me.

“Well Midnight we have a problem with raiders around here as you’ve seen. I would like you to take out a few of the surrounding camps. This would be a strategic advantage to us if we could hold these bases and use them as outposts for our soldiers.” Spitfire rolled out a map on the floor in front of us.

“What’s the pay like?” I stopped standing at attention and went to work looking the map over.

“What do you expect me to short you for your work or something? You know I’ve got a higher code of honor than that Silver. You worked with me for over five years. I always keep my promises.” Spitfire put pins on all of the outposts surrounding the town.

“For once you’ve said something that I agree with entirely. You do manage to make sure all of your promises are fulfilled. So I ask again. What’s the pay?” I knew she was on the level.

“One hundred caps for each base you take out that we can use. Twenty for any base that you completely destroy. You might want to get to work. There are over thirty bases surrounding this place.” Spitfire had pinpointed all of the bases with pins.

“How many miles out are they?” I kept an eye out to see if she was going to place anymore pins.

“Most are less than five miles out. Some are farther than that. Leave nopony standing.” Spitfire saluted.

“Understood.” I saluted her back.

“Dismissed” She grabbed the map and took it back into her office.

We walked out of the main office area and found a map to look at.

“Twenty bases. That’s what she said right?” Midnight was programming a few waypoints into her pipbuck.

“Thirty. These raiders obviously have something they want from this city. It is well defended and would serve well as a main base. Could use a bit more defense from aerial assaults but other than that anypony would be lucky to call this place their home base.” I thought over where the best place to place turrets would be.

“So which camps are we going to take out first?” Midnight looked up from her pipbuck and waved me over.

“Well any of these camps will be hard to take down alone. We need to be in groups of two or three. With proper stealth we might be able to take the first few in groups of two.” I pointed to a few of the bases she had waypointed.

“Alright. I’ll go with Harmony. Demo and Onyx you up for a mission into enemy territory?” A hologram of the map appeared and she pointed to one of the waypoints.

“They won’t know what hit them.” Onyx nodded and started hovering.

“Good. Now Stone you're with me. We leave in fifteen minutes. We need to take out as many of these camps as quickly as possible so they can’t attack us again.” I pointed to one of the camps and Midnight nodded.

“Understood.” Midnight made the hologram disappear.

“Alright everypony you’ve got your orders. Now get to taking down those camps.” I pushed open the front door.

They all nodded and trotted out the door.

“You sure I can be of help to you?” Stone was standing off to my right and behind me.

“Seeing as how you tore into those raiders I think you’ll make a fine soldier. You just need a little training and some new weapons. You’re in luck though. We are marching into an enemy base and you can take all the weapons you want.” I put a hoof on his shoulder.

Stone’s eyes lit up. “Then what are we waiting for?” Excitement was creeping into his voice.

“That’s what I like to hear.” I took off into the air and pulled Stone along with me

Midnight and Harmony’s POV

“That’s a lot of them.” Harmony had a pair of binoculars she was using.

I was staring at her flanks while she wasn’t looking. “Nothing a couple of badasses like us can’t handle. I’ll start picking them off from here. You sneak down there and kill off as many as you can. If you get spotted just shoot a flare into the air. I’ll be down there in less than a minute.” I kissed her. “Good luck.” I tapped her flank.

She started making her way down the hill towards the camp. We had been looking over the camp for an hour or so before we decided to attack.

“Let’s do this.” I looked the camp over once more before taking a shot at one of the three ponies in towers.

The closest guard tower was empty at the moment. The tower farthest from me was the shot I took first. The guard had moved just slightly so the bullet shot past him. I followed up with a second shot. This time the guard dropped.

I looked down to the edge of camp. Harmony was hiding behind a wall preparing to go in once the towers were empty. I took aim at the second tower. I pulled the trigger and the guard dropped. The third tower guard had seen what had been happening. He jumped off the tower and was heading for an alarm.

“No you don’t.” Another shot and another dead guard.

After that one the entire camp was alive with movement. Harmony leapt over the wall she was hiding behind. Raider after raider fell to her. She was an unstoppable force. I snapped out of admiring her and started down towards the camp.

The trip down to the camp was short. The entire time I was coming down the hill I could hear nothing but the gunshots coming from the camp. I really hoped that nothing had happened to Harmony.

“Why did you send her down here alone?” My voice was filled with anger and disgust.

The gunfire stopped for a few moments. I stopped to listen for anything else. After what seemed like eternity the gunfire started up again. I was hopeful and charged on into the camp.

Bodies were scattered around the camp. Harmony had made short work of most of them but it was evident she couldn’t win this battle by herself. I wandered through the camp looking for her. She was nowhere to be seen. I felt a hoof grab a hold of me and as I spun around I found nopony there.

“What the buck?” I looked around for anypony.

“It’s me. Come this way we need to hide for a few minutes.” Harmony dragged me towards a building.

We retreat into the closest building. Inside ponies were laying dead all around us.

“Did you cause this?” I was staring at all the corpses.

“Midnight I only killed three or four ponies so far. All of these raiders have been killing each other. I don’t know why they have been but if this is what’s happening at all of the camps then we will have an easy time capturing them.” Harmony kept a hoof on my shoulder.

“Well that should be a good thing. As long as you don’t get hurt I could care less about anything else.” I leaned in to kiss her.

The door behind us burst open.

“Midnight don’t trust that thing.” A second Harmony burst in.

“Harmony.” I looked at the two copies of my lover. “What the buck is going on here?” I looked back and forth between them.

“It’s pretty obvious that she is a changeling. We need to kill her before she kills us both.” Both of them were in unison.

“Don’t listen to her Midnight. I’m the real me and she is a changeling.” The Harmony closer to me tapped her chest.

They were standing staring into the other’s eyes. I was worried about having to decide who was who. I had to think for a second. I came up with an ingenious plan to figure out which one was the real Harmony.

“When’s my birthday?” I waited but no answer came.

They both stared at me confused for a few seconds.

“I have to figure out which one of you is real somehow. I figure this is the best way to do so. When is my birthday?” I tapped the floor a few times.

The second Harmony spoke. “You never told me when your birthday was.”

“Two days ago. We had so much fun that night.” I saw her wink at me.

“Ok one point to Harmony number one. Next question. What happened when we first met?” I smirked as did the Harmony who had dragged me in here.

“Umm.” The second Harmony was starting to back away.

“I spied on you while you showered. It was a very good time for me.” Her smile only got wider.

“Well that settles it. Harmony number one is the real Harmony.” I drew out my pistol and aimed it at Harmony number two.

The second Harmony changed back into it’s natural form. It made a few noises that I guessed would be words to us if we could understand the snarls and growls of changelings.

“Now look it’s not you. Actually wait it is you.” I shot the changeling in the head. A few bits of brain scattered across the wall behind him leaving a very interesting mural.

“Well you knew exactly how to get out of that. How did you know I would remember those things?” Harmony stepped over the dead changeling and trotted over to me.

“I knew you would because you are a caring mare. You are one of the most loyal ponies I know.” I hugged her.

“Well thank you. Now what do you think about getting out of here before we have to deal with more of those things?” She broke out of the hug.

“Sounds like a plan to me.” I leaned in and kissed her.

Silver and Stone’s POV

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Stone was looking over the diagram I had drawn in the sand.

“Stone I wouldn’t have suggested it if I knew it wouldn’t work.” I was flicking my left wing around.

“Still seems like I should actually help you out. But if you want to do this alone then I suppose I can only ask you not to.” Stone sat down and stopped looking over the diagram.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes you stay here and cover me.” I tossed him a rifle that I had pilfered from a corpse on the way here.

“Alright.” He opened up the bolt and then slammed it closed.

A few minutes later.

“Well that was fast. Did you roll in their blood or something?” Stone deposited the rifle into his saddlebags.

“No I didn’t that’s what happens when you use a wing as a sword to cut ponies heads off.” I looked myself over.

“Well you do look quite intimidating. Might come in handy someday. So how are the others doing?” Stone looked off into the distance.

Onyx and Demo’s POV

“That is quite a few of them. Might be best if we call the others to help us out here.” I set the binoculars down at my side.

“Silver said we should be able to take this base by ourselves.” Demo was looking at the base through a scope he had pulled off of a rifle.

“Well Silver is a highly trained combat ready soldier. How much military training have you had Demo?” I looked over at him.

“None. But how hard can it be to actually kill these ponies.” He set the scope back in his saddlebags.

I raised my eyebrow at him. “Much harder than you think. I’ve had to kill a few ponies before and I’ll tell you that it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I don’t think I can kill ponies like Silver does. I hope to never have to.” I pushed a bit of dirt out as I stood up.

“Understood but don’t you think we should try. We might not be highly trained soldiers but we have worked well as a team. You know how well we work together when alone.” He stood up smiling.

“Not the time for that.” I pushed him away.

“Then when is the time? We haven’t done it in weeks.” Demo tapped his hoof on the ground waiting for my response.

“I know that. It’s just.. I haven't been feeling up to it lately.” I hung my head.

“You can talk to me about these things. I am your partner in this crazy world.” Demo put a hoof over me.

“We’ll talk about this once we get back to New Appleloosa. Until then we’ve got a job to do.” I looked down to the camp.

In the few short minutes we had been talking many of the ponies in the camp had been killed.

“Onyx I don’t think stuff like that is supposed to happen.” Demo had grabbed the scope and was scanning the camp.

“Agreed. Follow me. We need to figure out what happened down there.” I started down the hill.

“Follow you. With pleasure.” His response made me stop.

I hit him playfully before walking over to the camp. The bodies were mutilated. Parts of them were hung up like trophies. In the center of town a pony like creature stood.

“What the buck are you.” It turned around and hissed at us. “You are the ugliest looking motherbucker I’ve ever seen.” I stared at it disgusted.

It stopped for a second before charging at us. It was on top of me before I could pull out my gun. The creature tried to bite my throat out and I had to use all my might to prevent him from killing me. Demo had been a bit stunned but respond quickly by smashing into the thing on top of me.

“That spot is reserved for me you bastard.” Demo slammed one of his hooves into the creatures face.

“Again now is not the time Demo just shoot it. Also who rides who again?” I grabbed my gun from my saddlebags.

Demo stared into my eyes as he shot the stupid thing. “You know who rides who.” I winked at him.

“Yeah I do. I just wanted to make sure you knew it as well.” Demo kicked the creature once before returning to my side.

“You two are disgusting.” A stallion was standing staring at us.

“Did we say anything to a boar bucking raider like you?” I spun towards him with my gun.

“No I just wanted to let my presence be known before I kill you.” The stallion levitated his gun out next to him.

Demo and I looked at each other. We turned to the raider and shot him.

“Seriously you two are gross.” Midnight’s voice sounded behind me.

“Oh hey Midnight. What are you doing here?” I had my gun in my hoof.

“Preparing to eat your soul.” The mare’s voice turned dark.

“Ok so you aren’t Midnight then. So what are you called?” I held my gun in my hoof and waited.

“We are changelings. No more questions please. I need to eat you two.” The changeling bared it’s fangs.

Demo had snuck up behind it. “Nope.” The bullet went clean through the changeling’s skull.

“Ok so are any other changelings present? I don’t believe that Silver is standing before me.” I watched Silver carefully.

“Well if I were a changeling I would have killed you by now. So I think that proves my innocence.” Silver stood unmoved by my questioning.

“That is to be determined later. For now lead the way to our meeting spot.” I put my gun back into my saddlebags.

“Follow me.” Silver took to the air and we followed shortly behind him.

One hour later at determined meeting spot.

“Midnight I need to talk to you over there.” I grabbed ahold of Midnight.

“Ok. What’s the deal Onyx?” She shook free of my grasp.

“I think the Silver who we brought back might be a changeling.” I kept my voice to a whisper.

“What do you have to base this on?” She looked over my shoulder at Silver.

“He just seems off to me.” I looked back at Silver myself.

“Well maybe you just haven’t gotten to know him well enough. He might just be starting to warm up to us and now you accuse him of being a changeling.” Midnight poked me in the chest.

“I just want our group to be safe. I don’t want anything to happen to any of you.” I looked into her eyes.

“One second.” She called Silver over. “So Silver I have a question for you.” Midnight looked back into my eyes.

“Ok go ahead.” Silver shifted his wings around.

“What did you hear when Harmony and I were in the house?” She glanced back at me every few seconds.

“A lot of disturbing noises. I could tell before I got to the window that you two were doing it.” Silver shook a little bit while he remembered the sounds.

“Well that settles that. Silver is not a changeling.” Midnight glared at me.

“I’m still not fully convinced but if you say it’s him I’ll listen.” I looked him over before looking back to Midnight.

“Good because I’m not a changeling. So now we need to take out a few more of those camps. We’re going to need ammunition and some new gear. We’ve barely made three hundred caps. To keep ourselves well armed we’re going to need at least double that. Unfortunately we can’t take on the rest of the camps in groups of two.” Silver trotted back towards the rest of the group.

“Yeah we almost got killed.” I spoke for Demo and myself.

“Same here.” Midnight seemed a little more calm than I thought possible.

“Well that settles it we are not going to split up for the rest of the camps. Now follow me I have one more camp that needs our immediate attention.” Silver trotted off towards a large cliff.

Midnight’s POV

The last camp Silver wanted to take out for the day was about half a mile from the meeting location. This camp was built into a cliff making aerial assaults useless.

“So we have to take this one out purely by ground. That cliff is going to make any attacks from the air easy to counter. I’ll hold this hill and use it to snipe a few of the ponies down there.” I was looking at the camp through my rifle scope.

“Onyx and Demo should move in from that side of the camp while Harmony and Stone attack from the left.” Silver hoofed the binoculars over to Stone.

“And what about you Silver?” I took a second or two to look at him.

“I’ll go up the middle. If I can distract them enough for you all to get in this should be an easy takeover. Any objections to this plan?” Complete silence. “Perfect. Everypony get to your positions and let’s make quick work of these assholes.” Silver stood next to me.

Everypony split off and headed to their places.

“So Silver I have to ask why stick around with us?” I was looking the camp over seeing what shots would be wise to take.

“Well Midnight I saw something in all of you. Something I haven’t seen in many years. You remind me of ponies I use to know. I saw most of the ponies who I grew to know die. I was devastated as each of them was slowly ripped from my hooves. I didn’t want to see another group of ponies like that to die for no good reason. I couldn’t just let you wander the wasteland alone.” Silver’s voice was somber.

“Well I appreciate you staying with us.” I drew closer to him.

He brushed me off with one of his wings.

“I can’t lose another group.” The fear in his voice shone through like a diamond. He wrapped one of his wings around me. I smiled.

“You won’t lose us. I promise.” He didn’t do anything for a few seconds.

“They’re all in position. Time to do some work.” Silver folded his wing back down to his side.

“Ok. Get down there and create a distraction. I’ll see what I can do from up here.” I got my rifle back into position.

As soon as Silver had descended down the small hill I was overlooking the camp. There was no guard towers to speak of but the walls were heavily defended. A few large machine guns were spread around the walls. Nopony was currently using them but I would have to take anypony who was trying to use one down. The main gate opened up and a few ponies covered in magical power armor stepped out.

“What? That’s not good.” I looked down as Silver approached the gate.

The ponies in armor had very heavy weapons in their battle saddles. The one on the right had a minigun and what I guessed was a rocket launcher. The other two had interesting looking miniguns.

Silver had stopped and was waiting for me to take the shot. I aimed for the pony wielding a rocket launcher first. Silver’s wings flared as I pulled the trigger. The armor seemed to slow the bullet down but I could tell I had scored a good hit on him.

“I would suggest you stop shooting if you want to keep your head in one piece.” I turned around to see a mare standing over me.

She had a bat grasped in her magic. I set my rifle down on the ground and turned to face her fully.

“And if I don’t stop shooting you’re going to bash my skull in.” I was laying on my back.

“Ye-Yes.” She stuttered a little bit.

“I’m going to call your bluff.” I was very to the point.

She swung the bat at me and I dodged it easily. I slipped the bat out of her magic and hurled it down towards camp.

“Now I suggest you leave unless you want to die.” She stood there staring at me. I pulled out my .44. “I said leave. I don’t want to kill you if I don’t have to.” I had the gun right at the base of her horn.

“No. I will not sit idly by as you kill ponies who don’t deserve it.” Her voice didn’t carry any weight.

I pulled the trigger. “Sorry but I have friends to protect and you’re keeping me from doing that.” I grabbed the rifle again and went back to overlooking the camp.

Silver had pulled his shield up to avoid being killed by the dual minigun wielding stallion. The gun fired bursts of brightly colored what I guessed was magic. I pulled the trigger hitting the guard in the throat. He fell to the ground and started struggling to get up. I took a second shot and this one hit him right between the eyes.

Silver looked back and dropped his shield diving further into the base.

I checked how Harmony was doing. She was hiding behind a wall as one of the large guns was firing at her. One second later the gunner was sliding backwards to the ground in a puddle of his own blood. A few more raiders exited the camp heading her way. Stone had her flank and killed the raiders as they charged her.

Onyx and Demo weren’t having such good fortune getting into the camp. While there was no guns on that side most of the raiders had shifted to that side to make up for the lack of guns. Twenty or so raiders were shooting at them as they ducked between what little cover there was. I had three or four bullets left before I had to reload. Out of those four shots I killed two ponies and wounded another.

Reloading this rifle was slow but understandable since it fired a large bullet. In total the rifle could hold ten shots before needing to be reloaded. I slammed the bolt closed and started shooting again. Shot after shot found their marks hitting some raiders in the chest and others in the head. Out of the next ten shots I only missed once and killed five more raiders.

I loaded and unloaded the rifle two more times before the raiders stopped firing at Onyx and Demo. I was down to a box of bullets for my rifle. I stowed the rifle for now and drew my .44.

I galloped down to the opened front gate. One of the guns had been destroyed and the wall around it was currently burning.

A raider jumped out in front of me and I shot three times hitting him once. The raider stood his ground for a few seconds before falling dead.

I continued into the camp before more raiders jumped out in front of me.

I ducked behind the closest cover and started taking shots. Shooting from behind cover I was lucky that I actually hit any of them.

Harmony came to my rescue killing two of the three remaining raiders as I reloaded. The raider had tackled her and was preparing to shoot her. I shot the raider twice to make sure she was dead.

“Good to see you Harmony.” I offered her one of my hooves.

“Likewise. Where is Silver at?” She graciously grabbed my hoof.

“I think he made his way over to Onyx and Demo. They needed some help since most of the raiders had been moved to that side. Let’s go they might still need some help.” I pulled Harmony back onto her hooves.

“No need. Silver got over to us and killed the rest of them. He needs to clean himself off desperately. Have you seen how much blood he gets covered in? You would think that he just rolls around in pools of blood for fun.” Onyx was applying a bandage to Demo’s right flank.

“It’s not that bad Onyx. If I do go and roll around in puddles of blood it would be much worse than this.” Silver’s entire left side was covered in the blood of ponies he had killed.

I had to agree with Onyx it did look like he had been rolling in puddles of blood.

“Not to side against you Silver but it does look like you flopped down onto your side in a puddle of blood. The color doesn’t fit very well with your coat.” I looked for any spot on Silver that wasn’t covered in blood.

“I don’t care let’s go back to New Appleloosa and get paid for our work.” Silver took to the air.

“Let’s go then.” We left the camp.