...Where do you go when you have nothing left to find, when your heart is weary, when you have nopony to lean on. For somepony like me, such a place has never existed. I travel between places like it, sure, but to actually have a place that I call home? Well, the life of a trader has never been one for somepony who is bound to one place. No, for me home is not someplace you make it, it is who you make it with. We might not have much, but at least we have each other...

Camden.

The long flight home had been nearly halved in time and distance with the newfound route that Shoari had passed along to us. Where I still harbored a tangible amount of resentment, I had to admit that the map came in very useful to me. I had been flying the long way around the vast majority of my life, flying from town, to town, to another town, until I found my way back to where I wanted to go. Sometimes this would send me, needlessly, weeks out of the way just to get someplace to have a day or two to myself before heading back out to work.

But with Zuri on my back, half gagging, half reading me directions, we steamed back to Hoofington in record time like some kind of Zebra guided Pegasus missile, hell-bent to start a new life. With the glow of the Core lighting much of the night's sky around us, we made our circling approach into Megamart, all the while taking in the various fights that had broken out throughout the town and its outlying areas. Every so often, a wild bullet would whiz overhead, sending us dive-bombing towards the ground for cover. Ah Hoofington... Such a charming city!

"You have brought me to a war zone! You said this place would be safe!" Zuri shouted at me.

"It is safe! Nopony in their right mind would come here looking for anypony, ever! It's too dangerous!"

"What you are saying makes no sense!"

"Welcome to the Hoof, where the bullets are complementary, but dying and clear answers will cost you extra!" I said, while gliding above the rooftop of Megamart before setting down on the front steps of the small trader encampment. Apart from a few new bullet holes, some sizable new windows that had been made by something explosive and the odd bloodstain, the place looked to be just as I had left it. Zuri crawled, then fell off my back and began testing her legs out for the first time in nearly twelve hours.

Where the flight was shorter than the first time, I have to say that is was considerably more unforgiving in terms of comfort. The sheer cliffs and tall mountains meant flying higher than normal, nearly into the cloud layer in fact. It also meant that the wind and updrafts were much more violent that the gentle gusts I had felt back in the desert. Zuri has spent the entire time in a death grip on my back, squeezing so hard at times that I felt like I was going to break a rib. If anything, her wobble legs were less from the ride, and more from being too weak to stand.

I gave myself a shake, clearing the dead bugs from my mane and gave a long stretch to pop my back. Zu on the other hoof was staring at the ground as if she had never seen it before. As I tried to relieve the tightness in my back, I was reminded very quickly that I still had a torn liga... liga-ma-thingy... in my butt. The abrupt pain sent a high pitched yelp from my lips and caused my hooves to give out.

"Joy! Are you ok?"

"Yeah... Just... That torn thing in my ass is killing me." I said, clenching in a futile effort to dull the pain.

"Oh! I almost forgot. Xymol gave me medicines to help you!" She said with almost effortless glee at the prospect of helping me.

"No, no. That's ok, I'm sure I will be right as rain in a moment or...YIKE!" Before I could even get the words out, Zuri drove a full syringe of Med-X into my right butt cheek.

"No! Xymol said... 'In the event that Joey becomes in pain, you must administer this at once!'. I have to listen to him, he is a doctor." She said, doing her best to effect Xymol's dolcet tones.

"ZURI! I can't... I..." I started, but I was already feeling numb.

"Can't what?"

"I..." I started, but quickly was reduced to a drooling heep on the ground with a needle sticking out of his ass.

"Shhh, now. It is ok. Just let me handle things from here." She said, looking around in a near panic.

"Joey!" Came a voice at the doorway. Zuri's head snatched to the sound of Shale's voice and I witnessed that all-too-familiar stance befall my beloved Zebra.

"Oh Celestia! Is he ok!?" She shouted as she ran towards us both.

"Joey!? Shale, is Joey back?" Ah, I know that voice. Soon behind Shale, Caliber ran out of the door, tripped, slid halfway to us both and skittered his way to his hooves. Zuri was already twitching at the charging mare, her every muscle tensing with readiness to fight. Thinking slowly, I reached out and grabbed her hind leg... Oh, what a pretty view I have from down here... No! My mare is about to kill my sister! I have to get it together.

"Zu...Zuizu... Am Joey's sisssstor. Please no kill." I begged. Shale was already at my side, looking me over for injuries, Caliber on the other hoof... Caliber stood dumbstruck at the sight of me on the ground, my eyes both pointing east and west, right next to a Zebra mare.

"This mare... She is your sister?" Zu asked, looking her over.

"Yee... Sheel. She is mah sister..." Oh wow... Med-X has never hit me this hard before! What magical things were they doing to their drugs down there in that Site?

"Yes, Joey is my younger brother... Who are you, exactly? And what did you do to Joey?" Shale said, narrowing her eyes.

"I am Zuri. Your brother, he is injured. The doctors told me to give him medicine when he experiences pain." Zuri said proudly.

"What... Medicine...?" Caliber asked, completely out of breath after his furious battle between him, and his own hooves.

"Oh! You must be the fertile one, no? Joey has told me all about you!" Smooth Zuri... Couldn't have said it better myself.

"I... What?" Caliber said, looking for once, at a loss for words.

"Oh yes, he has told me all about his best friend Caliber and all of the crazy things that you two have done over the years."

"Best friends?" Caliber looked like a little lost colt who had just found his first toy in years at her words. Oh! He just looks so adorkable right now... I should hug him. Trying, but failing, I reached my hooves towards the forlorn buck and motioned my hooves for him to come closer.

"What is it, Joey? Are you ok? Is this Zebra safe to be around?" Caliber said, leaning in close. I reached up and pulled him into a hug, wrenching him off his hooves and atop of me.

"I missed you!" I slurred in my drunken state.

"I missed you too... Hey, what is that!?" He near shouted as he pulled away from me.

"Oh, it is what the doctors gave me to help him with the pain." Zuri said.

"JOEY! DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS IS!" Caliber shouted, pulling the needle from my rump and holding in front of me. The blurry looking syringe was...

"Med... Med-Sex?" I gibbered, giving a drool covered smile to all of them.

"Oh Celestia... Not again..." Shale said, putting a hoof to her face.

"What. The doctors..." Zu started.

"THE DOCTORS DIDN'T KNOW HE WAS ADDICTED TO MED-X! Joey is highly susceptible to a relapse addiction! Not only that, but once you have been hooked on the stuff, the next time you use it it is five times as strong!" Caliber shouted.

"I didn't..." Zu started.

"Well now you do. Did you not speak with him about this first? Ask him if he wanted the painkillers? We have a clinic right through those doors, I could have taken him there to get fixed up." Shale said, her words sounding as sweet as vinegar.

"Shale... Cal... She... She didn't know. Go easy on her." I said, feeling most of the initial rush starting to wear off.

"Joey, what happened to you?" Cal said, now laying by my mangled heap of a body.

"It's a long story..." I think I said.

"Well, better told inside... preferably when the narcotics wear off." Shale said, trotting back to the door.

"Where are you going? He will need help getting inside." Zu said.

"It's ok guys! I got this!" I said, rising to my hooves. I tried for a step forward and succeeded! The next step landed me flat on my face, my rump flew forwards and I landed on my back.

"Your mess. You clean it." Shale said as she trotted inside. Zuri tried to nose her way under me to help me back to my hooves, but it was no use. The second wave of happiness was starting to take hold of all my senses, rendering me a big pile of pony mush. Failing in her efforts, she looked to Caliber who was biting his lip to keep from laughing. No doubt the single most awkward first meeting of Zuri's life, he seemed to be relishing in the moment.

"Fine... I'll get him..." He finally said, moving to my tail. He latched onto it with his magic and began dragging me behind him as he and Zuri worked their way into the large expanse of Megamart.

"So, you really do exist. Joey wasn't crazy after all." Caliber said.

"Yes. I just wish that he had found me sooner. It has been... lonely." She replied.

"GUYS! I can see... CLOUDS! Something is wrong... Why are the clouds down here on the ground!?" I said, my hooves working furiously in the air in over-exaggerated motions. Neither of them paid me a cap's worth of attention as they made their small talk, all while dragging me over the threshold of the building.

"There they go! Bye-bye clouds!" I shouted, waving to them in the air with both hooves.

"And then there were like... FIFTY of these ghoul things that were trying to eat my butt! It was intense." I said, rocking back and forth on the dilapidated couch. They had spent the last few hours sitting and questioning Zuri and I about the last few days worth of events. I on the other hoof spent a large amount of the time drooling on the sofa's leg rest and making pop sounds with my lips. A trick, might I add, that Caliber had taught me. The few times I did manage to pipe up and speak, I would fall into these long ramblings about ghouls and an underground city.

Had it not been for Zu explaining my every detail more... coherently, then I'm sure that they would all think that I was a complete lunatic. Every time that I would get on a roll of insanity, Zu would interject with sweet sweet logic. Granted it was somewhat askew from how I remembered things to be, but the others seemed to be buying her versions of things more than mine. It was a bit irritating, but all the same I saw it as a chance for her to regain some credit after stabbing me in the ass with a tube of narcotics.

"You mean to tell me that a door ate your leg? Wow, Ditzy is gonna love this!" Caliber said, wearing his usual smirk.

"Celestia! What did they do to save the poor thing!?" Valkyrie said from across the room. She had found a safe hiding place after her near brush with death by Zebra. I vaguely remember tripping over my own hooves when I tried once more to enter the small apartment of Shale's on my own. Val tried to catch me by wrapping her hooves around me, the response was a fury of stripped hooves like I had never seen before in my life. Since that moment, she had spent the entire time behind the stove, granted she was still engaging in the conversation where she felt she could. Even now, I still had to put a hoof on Zu's back to keep her calm when she did manage to speak.

"Oh! They took me to the doctor." I said proudly. Everypony in the room sat staring at me.

"Soooo, what happened to you at the doctor?" Shale asked, rolling her hoof in the air for me to continue.

"Oh! I got my leg microwaved!"

"X-rayed." Zuri corrected me.

"They used my blood for science!" I said, making a very spooky face and waving my hooves.

"Toxicity test." Zu corrected again.

"Zu had her... Vagina... Removed?" I said, looking to her questioningly.

"Cervical biopsy." She corrected once more.

"Some mare looked at my weiner... Touched it... That was weird!" I said in a voice of deep concern that Zu would be mad. It was like I had no control over the words that were coming out of my mouth anymore. I hate Med-X!

"And that mare wasn't even a doctor." Zuri said in the flattest tone of anger I had ever heard.

"Tha... What?" Wait... WHAT!? Some mare touched my privates and she is still alive!?

"Joy, we have talked about this..."

"For the last time, she is a nurse!" I shouted.

"IN TRAINING!" Zu shouted back.

"I don't see what the big deal is. It sounds like he was just getting a physical to me." Valkyrie said, finally creeping her head out from behind the stove. "I mean, physicals are normal procedure for anypony who ha... AH!" Her words were cut short by the sudden appearance of a half full waste bin being hurled at her head with surprising force and accuracy.

"ZU! Play nice." I said, trying my best not to laugh.

"I am not a foal. She is a harlot! I do not trust her." Zu said, crossing her hooves and falling back to the couch with her lips pouting.

"Aw... Is Zuzu needing a snuggle?" I asked, batting my lashes at her.

"NO! I'm mad. I do not wish for snuggles." She said, turning away.

"Well... Then maybe you want a..." I started as I lined up my target. "STEAMROLLER!" I shouted as I launched my attack! I rolled over my striped partner with a mighty force and buried her face in my chest. Her muffled cries fell on my deafened ears as I began rolling back and forth atop her. Through a mouth full of fur, Zu did her best to not laugh.

"I WILL NEVER GIVE YOU MED-X AGAIN!"

"I disagree. I like this Joey much better." Caliber said, snotting, he was laughing so hard.

"Are you kidding me, look at him! He is a moron on the stuff!" Shale shouted back to him.

"You are just mad that nopony is 'steam rollering' you right now." Cal said as he fell into a sly grin and began to approach towards my sister.

"Oh no! I know that look!" Shale shouted as she began to back away, only to have her rump stopped by the same stove Val was hiding behind.

"What look? Oh, do you mean THIS ONE!?" He shouted as he lept to the air, coming down right on top of Shale, only to have his groin impaled on her hind hoof. Cal rolled across the floor, gasping for air in pain.

"I told you. I don't like it rough!" Shale said, her words bringing the cacophony of the room to a very abrupt halt. Cal lay on the ground, wide-eyed and shocked, I was glaring in their direction with murderous intent with a now captive Zu under me. Shale just stood there with a look on her face that said she really wished she could go back in time to unsay what I had just heard.

"Joey... It's not..." Shale started.

"Who's hungry!? I know I sure am!" Cal said, now looking as nervous as a colt who just got caught stealing.

"Cal..." I growed.

"Now Joey... I am an adult. I can make my own decisions." Shale said, taking a firm stance. The room fell silent as we all stood, layed and were pinned in a deadlock staredown with each other. It felt like we spent minutes trying to find the words to move on from this awkward moment, but none of us wanting to speak.

"I could eat..." The stove meekly said. That did it. The room erupted in laughter. Somehow, Valkyrie's terrified voice was timed perfectly enough to break the tension and send even Zuri rolling on the floor. Granted it was more rolling for escape, but I managed to pin her in place before she could seek the safety of the couch once more (the sneaky little stripe butt). Everypony in the room was near wetting themselves, all that is, except Shale who was still eyeing the lot of us quizzically.

"Well you all are quite done messing about, I think I will start dinner..." Shale said while stepping over the nearly catatonic body of Caliber. "And I suggest you get some rest, Joey. You are wacked out on pain meds and I'm sure you have been flying for far too long for your own good."

"Awww... But mom..." I said with my most convincing pouty face.

"No excuses!" Shale barked back to me.

"Fine..."

"You damn right fine... Zuri, help him to bed, it's the least that you can do after drugging him up."

"How dare..." Zuri started but was quickly backed down by my sister's death glare. "Yes, I help! I help! Come, Joy."

Zuri guided me to my still shaky hooves and proceeded to march me to the shack's small bedroom. Only managing to bump my head into the doorway three times, I would say that I handled the task rather well all things considered. Not far behind us, I could just make out Shale's words cutting through the room's euforic tension. As she always did, Shale had assumed the role of den-mother before things could get too out of hoof.

"Here, lay here, Joy." Zuri said to me, motioning to the bed.

"Ok..." I whimpered out, followed by a very confident step and then falling face first into the bedding. The smell of stale air with just a hint of vanilla filled my nostrils as I sluggishly pulled the rest of my body (who had decided to not make the journey to the bed with me) into the bed. Mmmm... vanilla! My sister was always covered with the stuff. She called it her "Buck attractant"... EW! And I said I liked it! Wow, this Med-x is strong!

"Joy, are you ok?" Zu asked, crawling into bed by my side.

"I am... yes." I said through the sounds of my newly learned skill of making fish noises with my lips.

"No, you are Joy. And is Joy ok?"

"Never butter..."

"You are a very light drunk. Cute, but very light. Sleep, I will make sure that you do not fall out of bed." Zu said, touching her hoof to my nose.

"Hey! Who are you calling cute, blurple Zebra?"

"Shhh... Rest." Zu said, wrapping her hooves around me and laying her head to my chest.

"Ok... But I'm not cute... I'm badass as hell..." I said through fading yawns. I slowly closed my eyes to the thought of so many things. I was back in Hoofington, I was back with Caliber and my sister AND I was with Zuri. I honestly have never felt more secure or more at ease than I do at this very moment. I guess this is what happiness feels like? Maybe happiness is that oh-so-secure feeling you get when you are with the ones you care about. That or it is that fact that I am higher than the clouds right now. Either way, despite my comfort both physically and emotionally, one question was burning a hole in my mind...

"VALKYRIE! GET OUT OF THE OVEN YOU STUPID, LAME EXCUSE FOR A MARE!"

"But, it was starting to get warm in there."

Ah, question answered, the cute ones ARE stupid... Wait...

I awoke to the sounds of talking in the next room. Despite the shack's appearance and disrepair, it has surprising acoustic dampening. Zu had kept to her word, never leaving my side throughout the night as I slept off the effects of the strongest Med-X dosage I had ever had. Even now after Goddesses only knows how much sleep I had, I was still feeling groggy and sluggish. It was like the high of Med-x but without the fun goofy stuff and the not caring about anything.

In my hungover state, I eased my body from the straw-pack-matris and slowly worked my way to the door's opening. I could just make out Cal's voice, talking to my sister no doubt, about how they should proceed with explaining to me about their... Oh, right, that's a thing now.

Anger filled me at the thought of Caliber and Shale being together. Did she even know that she was in close contact with the world's most fertile stallion and how dangerous that was!? You could use the same bar of soap as him and get pregnant! Goddesses! What if they had already done it!? She could have a baby at any moment! Calm down, Joey. I'm sure there is a logical explanation for all this...

"I don't know why you think we should hide it from him. He is my brother, not my colt-friend." Shale said.

"Look, you know the old Joey, the one from your past. Joey has... Changed. A lot." Cal replied.

"Changed how? From what I just saw, he is the same old Joey."

"Joey isn't... How can I even say this. Joey isn't the same stuck up know it all that he used to be. He doesn't push you away when you open up to him like he used to, I mean."

"Really... Because I have yet to see this. The only pony he has ever gave a damn about, isn't even a pony!"

"You don't mean that, you're his sister, he cares about you. I have heard the way he talks about you to other ponies. Honestly, you would think he has a crush on you or something."

"Pff. Sure. Look, that's all besides the point, how has he changed?"

"Look... Obviously you know he has stripes and that those stripes came from being bitten by a taint riddled pony with a set of hedge clippers for a mouth. I have told you that, he has told you that. What you don't know is the fact that he also had a near nervous breakdown over it. In fact, he actually kind did have one once we got to Tenpony."

"So? He has been doing that since he was a colt. Once he spilled an open bottle of Wild Pegasus and thought that Camden was going to murder him over it. He hid under the wagon for nearly 2 days." Shale said with a unsurprising flair towards my predictable nature.

"No, you do not understand. He completely broke down into TEARS after I got him out of that fucked up place back in Hope. I have never seen him do that before. I think something changed in him down there. I don't know if it was a close brush with death or if it was a sudden realization, but I don't think he is the same Joey you used to know." Cal said.

I'm not the same!? I'm me! I know me and me would have told me if me changed! Sure, I entertained thoughts of love and friendships now... Also cared more about my friends... and family... What kind of cruel bastard was I before and exactly how much had I changed for them to be talking like this now?

"Really? Joey, cried..."

"Yes. Like a foal. He also called me his best friend and not his 'running partner' that he so fondly used to refer to me as. Joey gives a damn about you, about me and we both know he loves that stripped mare friend of his. The point is, give him some credit, he has been through a lot and is just now having to deal with all of this. I mean, finding Zuri after all this time? Dealing with me and all my problems? Worrying about you? Hell, he technically still has a bounty on his head. Joey has never had to deal with actual rejection and now he is going to have everypony in the Hoof after him. Hell, even you had to see that something is different about him after that whole thing with Ember."

"That is if anypony actually cares about that now. That Blackjack has done a great job of pissing off nearly the entire town that she gets into a fight wherever she goes."

"Yeah but don't forget that not everypony here cares about her, there are plenty of ponies looking to collect what they think will be an easy grab of caps. We are just lucky I have already set the wheels in motion to get his flank out of trouble." Caliber said proudly.

Where did he get all of this responsibility all of a sudden? This isn't the Cal I know, I'm used to him rushing it, shooting everything and trotting off like nothing happened. Setting the wheels in motion? Enough with this, I need answers.

"And just what wheels are we talking about here?" I said, nosing my way out of the door.

"Oh, you are awake I see. How much did you hear?" Cal said rather sheepishly.

"I would wager that he came in around the time that you were talking about him changing." Shale said.

"How do you know..." I started.

"Joey, you snore. Nopony wants to tell you because of how self conscious you are." Shale said.

"Whatever. What were you talking about, Cal."

"Oh, as I was saying before you trotted in, I have a plan. A plan that I have already enacted!"

"Cal... What did you do? Tell me!"

"I can't tell you... I have to show you..." He said, hopping from the couch to the floor, motioning for me to follow.

Outside painted a different view from when I had left. Guards had been posted much closer together, merchants were now armed to the teeth and everypony seemed to pay it no mind as they went about their daily activities. Before when I was here, everypony seemed to be giving me the death glare, but now, nopony seemed to care at all.

Cal trotted us to the center of the stores and pointed to the board where my name had failed to come off the list of highest bounties.

"Please, look, if you will, at my genius!" He said, taking a bow.

"Cal, my name is still up there..." I said, failing to notice what he had done.

"AH, yes, you see your name. But I wonder if you can see... perhaps another name on the board."

I squinted my eyes towards the board and...

"Oh for fuck sa... That's just... CAL! Why!?" I shouted, bringing the daily activities to a halt.

"It will work." Cal said with confidence.

"No it won't... It so won't..." Shale said by his side.

"Cal, why did you post a 10,000 cap bounty on Ms. Furnace!?" I shouted.

"Ah, you see... I didn't."

"Ok..." I said, falling to my haunches and squeezing my head between my hooves. "Then what did you do..."

"The bounty is not just for her... It's also for anypony that takes her bounty." He said in his familiar insane tone he gets when he does something this stupid.

"Cal, all you have done is waste 10,000 caps." I said in near pain.

"Oh? Then why do I have a meeting with Ms. Furnace in an hour. She wanted to wait for you to come back to negotiate."

"Cal, of all the stupid, idiotic things you could have done..." I started.

"Actually, this could work." Shale said.

"WHAT!" I shouted, feeling a moment of deja vu and betrayal.

"With Furnace having a bounty on you and Cal having a bounty on her or her collectors, it cancels. It would be mutually assured destruction if either of you tried anything." Shale said.

"Shale, you can't be going along with this..."

"Just hear me out. You could negotiate a truce if you wanted to. Really with that much weight on her head, you could damn near just wait for someone to collect." Shale said.

"Joey, all you have to do is meet with her and all this will be over. What was all that talk back in Tenpony if you are not willing to at least live the words you said. 'Face your problems' I believe you said."

"Oh no! I am not meeting with that crazy hoe-bag! What if she just shoots me out right? What then?"

"Oh I doubt that she would be that stupid." A voice said behind me. I turned to see the face of Bottlecap staring me down. "I mean, without our famed tracker, who will she hire, or should I say barter with to track down Firefly?"

"Who's... Oh, right. Why is Firefly missing?" I asked.

"After everything went down between you and Ember, she went out to try and find you and not in a fun way."

"Great, now she wants me dead too." I said rolling my eyes.

"Joey, If you go to Furnace and offer to track her down, free of charge, she might let you off the hook if you find her." Shale said.

"Oh he will find her, I know right where she is at. I sent her towards Filly, I'd say she is nearly there by now." Bottlecap said.

"WHAT!?"

"Oh yeah, she is dead set on killing you alright. She even bought a new rifle just for the occasion."

"Great... So I have to barter with somepony who wants me dead and my only bargaining chip I have is that I can find their kid, who ALSO wants to kill me... You see the irony in this, right?" I said pleading.

"Joey, It will work. I'm telling you!" Cal said.

"Fine! What the hell! Let's jump down this rabbit hole!"

"Wait... Seriously!?"

"Yeah, I have to fucking go to Filly anyway for some damn reason, might as well well fucking try I guess!" I said throwing my hooves up in defeat.

"Great! We can head over to meet with Ms. Furnace now..." Cal started.

"No! Your baby, you feed it! I'm going back to bed and try and think of how in the hell we are going to pull of talking down not one, but two pissed off mares from killing me!" I said as I stomped back to Shale's shack. " And pull the bounty if she says yes... hell, even if she say no... we will need the money to run with. FUCK! I have become Caliber!" I shouted as I trotted away in anger.

Back at the shack, Valkyrie had taken it upon herself to start cooking breakfast. Zuri had woke up as well and was... helping her? I crepted to the edge of the couch as not to be seen and tried to gauge whether or not Val was in any danger but... were they laughing?

"So you were the one to take the pictures, no?" Zuri asked, sounding positively giddy.

"Yup! You should have seen him too. The black and white pictures don't do him any justice. He was blushing like a little colt the whole time. I swear he even started shaking when I asked him to 'unzip the suit further'."

The two of them were snickering to themselves!? What wild ass thing happened when I left for a few moments for them to be sharing a conversation like this? Wait...

"I was not blushing!" Valkyrie nearly flung the pan to the ceiling when I yelled, causing whatever abomination she had been 'cooking' to splatter all over the floor.

"Ah, there you are. I was worried you had become lost once more." Zu said.

"J-Joey... Good to see you!" Valkyrie said.

"Ok, what gives? First you try to kill her, now you two are cooking together? Is this some strange Zebra thing?" I asked.

"Oh, it is not a custom. I was unaware that this mare was taken."

"So... Mares with colt friends, family and strangers are safe, but Doctors and random mares are not?"

"Yes." Zu said alongside a nodding Valkyrie.

"It makes perfect sense, Joey. What do you not understand." Val said.

"Forget it!" I shouted as I trotted back into the bedroom.

"Geeze, grouchy! Somepony needs to be cuddled with." Val said.

"Perhaps. Would you wish to help me in doing so?" Zu asked.

"What!?" I shouted from the bedroom.

"Uh... Better not... Thank you though." Val replied.

Soon after Zu's failed attempt at whatever lewd thing she was trying to concoct, she found her way to the bed that I had curled up on. I had been awake for less than 15 minutes and already I had both seen and heard both the stupidest thing and the most confusing thing I ever had in my life. It is official, mares, ALL mares are insane.

Bottlecap sent Firefly on a suicide mission to protect me, Ms. Furnace has a bounty on my head but at the same time wants me to work for her, Shale is agreeing with Caliber... That alone says that she is nuts and now Zu is making friends with a pony who she marked as a harlot... Honestly... If it were not for the fact that I don't find bucks attractive and the fact that they smell bad most the time... I could be gay.

Sure, I'm sure it would hurt and I would have to do thing that are repulsive to me, but at least they are easy to understand in their methodology. Wake up, poop, find food to make into future poop, possibly find a mare, drink heavily, sleep, repeat. Replace mare with buck and there you go... Easy stuff!

"Joy? Are you ok?" Zu asked, crawling into the bed next to me.

"Yeah..."

"Ok, good. But are you ok, ok?" Great, another mareism...

"Yeah, I'm just thinking of how much easier my life could be if I was attracted to the same sex as my own..."

"Oh? Are you thinking of bedding with Caliber? You two would make cute couple-"

"Stop...Talking."

Zu had acquired a sense of humor... She even knew how to pick up on sarcasm now. Awesome... And here I was hoping for her to be blissfully unaware of what I was saying and think I was turning gay. She is just so damn cute when she is confused.

"What is wrong? Is it the Med-X?"

"No, it's just... Complicated. Every time I get someplace and start to feel at ease, the whole world has to fall down around me. It's like a knot that I spend all day untying only to wake up to a tangled mess all over again. We leave Stable 103 and all of its issues and now I have to track down a pony who wants to kill me all because another pony wants me dead what's that pony to come back home... It's the very convoluted and never ending story of my life." I said to her as I rolled to her side.

"Ah, it is like a story that I remember from long ago. Would you like to hear it?"

"At this point, why not. I'm in bed, I'm exhausted already and I have only been up for less than half an hour."

"Ok. There once was a very special buck who had eyes for only one mare. He pursued her relentlessly, helped her with her chores and even stood up to some bullies for her. Finally, she fell to his charm and allowed herself to open up to him for the first time in her life. It was then that he confessed his love to her and promised his life to only her. Shocked by the will of his heart, the young mare became fearful that she would not be able to live up to his wanting. So late that night, she ran from him, leaving him to be alone for all of his life. She did not know that it would hurt him so badly.

The special buck spent his life longing for the mare who he had given his heart to. His eyes never saw the sun and his ears never heard the songs that played around him. He became bitter and resentful of others for their happiness, all the while secretly longing for what they had and that he could not. Even when other mares would come to call, he would not pay them heed because he had given his heart to another. Even though he knew he was doomed a life of pain and loneliness, he remained hopeful that she would return to him. He searched for his love knowing he may never find her, but he knew that he could not go on living without her.

He searched far and wide for his love but she was nowhere to be found. Other Zebras called him foolish for doing so, but he knew that one day he would be reunited with the one he was meant to be with. Miles he trotted, wearing his hooves to nubs in search of her until one day, long in the future, he found her.

She was still scared and ran from him, but he followed. She pushed him away, but he waited. She was afraid of his love for her because she did not want to feel hurt. It was then that he told her that life is not worth living in fear or alone and that life without love is no life at all. Finally, she fell to his charm once more and gave him her heart. It was then that the two of them could live happily ever after."

"Zu... That's not a story, that's what happened to us..." I said. Despite feeling that she probably made it all up on the spot, her story did in fact make me feel better. Not great, but, recharged? I felt like I could face what was coming to me but I still had that overwhelming sense of dread that always followed something bad happening.

"No. I did not run from you when you found me. We had the sex."

"Cute... It's a beautiful story, one that shares many similarities to our own lives, but why did you tell me this?"

"It is a story of perseverance. You are very much like the buck in the story. When you want something, you will stop at nothing to get it if it means enough to you. You wanted me, you searched for years and found me. What you want is happiness, no? Then you will have it and I will help you."

"Did I ever tell you that I love you?"

"Yes, many times. And I, you."

"Wait... That story is a little... TOO close to what happened to us. Well, except the ending."

"Maybe it is that when I saw you, I already knew how the story would end and I did not want to lose anymore time with you."

"Well, I guess I need to figure out what to do next then if we are going to be happy."

"What is it that would make you happy?"

"I guess... I really don't know. Maybe, be some place safe? Start a family? Maybe just move you, Shale and Cal somewhere and be happy together? It all feels right but it also feels like a pipe dream."

"This world is cruel. It is a sad place, but it is not so sad if you are not alone."

"Yeah... Hey... You said you did not want to lose anymore time with me than you had to. If that were the case, then why did you leave in the first place, back when we were younger?"

"I do not wish to speak about it. It hurts."

"Com'on now. You told me that whole story about perseverance. I chased you for 10 years, crossed deserts, fought raiders, lost part of my tail, broke my wings several times and devoted my life to finding you once I saw you were still out there. I think I have earned my answer." I tried to keep my voice more towards pleading, rather than aggravation but I'm sure that my annoyance was showing.

"Joy, it is complicated and you would not like what I have to say."

"What, did I smell? Was I ugly when I was younger? C'mon tell me! Tell me, tell me, tell me!" I begged.

"Fine. But you have to promise not to get mad."

"Zu, when ponies say that it usually means they are going to make the other pony really mad. On a scale from one to I'm going to set the world on fire, how mad is this going to make me?" I asked childishly. Zu's only response was a nervous bite of her lip and her eyes darting about the room as if she was looking for an exit.

"Joy, it is not something that you really want to know. It is something that is very personal, not to just me, but also you. You have to promise that this will not make you run from me."

"Oh now I have to know. Spill it."

"Do you remember, when we first met, I told you why I left my tribe?"

"Yeah, something about an evil stepmom or something?"

"No, she was a caretaker. But yes, I remember very few things from back then. But something that I always remembered was that she had a sister." Zuri said but pause to think.

"Go on..."

"She was a sweet mare. I used to dream of living with her rather than the caretaker I was with. When she would come over, she would teach me to read and play with me. Once she even brought me a present, it was a book, the same one I told you about."

"Sea Ponies of Sapphire Shore?"

"Yes! That's the one!" Zu halted her enthusiasm just long enough to gather her thoughts. "One day my caretaker allowed me to do some chores for her as payment for her generosity. She used to say that no good deed should go unrewarded. While I was over at her home, I noticed that she had many pictures of her family. She would laugh and tell me stories of them, she loved them all very much."

"Sounds like a stand up gal to me? Why would this make me mad, also, why is this relevant?"

"While I was helping her clean, I found a picture in a drawer. It was of a her and a pony buck, it had been taken in a hospital not long after she had given birth to a foal. When I asked about it, she did not wish to speak about it at first. Later she told me that the little foal was her son and the buck was her life partner. When I asked where they were then and why they were not there with her, she said that they had been taken from her."

"Ok, that kinda sucks..." I said, putting a hoof on her shoulder.

"She said the only thing she had to remember them by was that one picture. It had been taken long ago around the time that I was born so she guessed that the little colt was about my age." Zuri said, but paused again.

"Soo...? What? Somepony just took them from her and left her without a child or a husband? Yeah, that pisses me off."

"No. It is... More complicated as you say."

"Ok, how so."

"Joy, I ran from you because I recognized the little colt's eyes. They were deep purple, just like yours. His coat was the same ashy grey and his mane the same shade of blue. I did not recognize it at first, but you looked the same as the colt in the picture."

Her words felt muffled towards the end of what she said, only finding my ears through a swarm of thoughts and emotions. Zu, Zuri might have known my mother and was friends with her no less!? In the wide world that is Equis, there is no way that could be true. Even if it was, and there WAS evidence that supported what she said, why would that make me upset? If anything I would want to go find my mother and...

"Zu... What happened to them? Her husband and the colt?"

"Joy, I can't tell you. I know that you are going to have to leave soon and I don't want to lose you again."

"Zuri, I have to know, it is important to me. Please!" I begged. This was as close to opening up to me as she had gotten. This was as close to me as she had ever been in fact. Not just because she was confiding in me, but because if what she was saying was true then her and I had an actual connection. Zu rolled her lip in her teeth, a habit that I rarely got to see when we were together, it was nervous habit.

"Long ago, before we were born, a tribe whose numbers were wilting began allowing ponies to mate with them. It is a common practice and one that continued even after the war. One day, when the tribe had grown once more, the elders elected a new leader who did not share the same values. He cast out the ponies who were without partners and banned pony-Zebra bonding.

He was a cruel, mean Zebra who only wanted pure bloodlines to reproduce. It began with ponies at first, then Zonies later and then whole families that did not agree with him. He even had mothers and fathers killed for failing to meet his demands that they cast out their Zony foals. The only ponies that were allowed to stay were those that served his leadership and those that were close to him.

She, my caretaker's sister, told me that. Her colt was born after the banishment. This infuriated him and he refused to cast them out, but instead have her husband and foal executed to show others that his rule was absolute and not be ignored." Zu fell silent, leaving me to think of all that she said.

I don't know whether I was more dumbstruck or if I was still just moving slow from the post high of Med-x, but the thought of somepon- some Zebra doing such a thing bit me to my core. How could an Equine be so... so heartless to leave foals on their own in the Wasteland out of malice? And all because he did not agree with their partner's choices in spouse? The idea of such a thing should have angered me, and where it did, it was far outshadowed by the thought of defenseless fillies and colts left at the mercy of fate.

Was that what my destiny was meant to have been before boss stumbled across my parents? Was I even from that same tribe? What would my life had been if things had been different and I were to have been allowed to stay with my parents? Would they have loved me the way ponies do? As my life often does, I was being left with more questions with every answer that came to me.

"Zu..." I started.

"Joy, please. I do not wish to talk about this." Zu interrupted. Clearly this conversation had taken a much darker turn than she had intended.

"Zu, please. I just have one question. Please." I said, trying my best not to show the nervous tension I too was trying to hide. Zuri nodded her head for me to continue, I took a deep breath and...

"What was her name?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Your caretaker's sister. What was her name?" I asked again, this time involuntarily curling up into more of a ball than I was already in.

"Malaika..."

I didn't say anything, I just... laid there. I could have a mother out there. Somewhere... suddenly I began to see a larger picture of what the young fillies and colts must have been thinking when they were pulled from their parents... I WAS one of those colts. I had gotten lucky that Boss had been there when he was, otherwise I might not be here today. What a cruel twist of fate that I became a tracker for hire that regularly found fillies and colts that had been lost or taken, but was born too late.

As much as it gave me hope that I might get to meet my mother one day, it pained me to think of what it would have been like to go through such a horrid thing as losing a foal. The closest thing that my life time would allow me to relate to that was when Wheels had died just a few days ago. Had it really only been a week now? And I had already forgotten him as if he were nopony at all.

Hours passed while I waited for Caliber's return from his meeting with Ms. Furnace, for all I know she sat on him and killed him. Zu had found her way back to the kitchen to work with Valkyrie, yet another puzzling thing that I would have to work out later, to make lunch. I had resided myself to the bed, spending the passing moments reading a book I had found about Northern Equestrian animals.

It was always fascinating to look at the picture of what animals used to look like before they had become either very much so dead or very much so... well... monsters. Just about the only animals that seemed unaffected by mutation were some dogs and birds, for the most part anyways. Those green glowing phoenix things looked normal enough even with their green glow of radiation, but you could plug a wire up their butt and power a whole city with the amount of radiation they gave off. I remember suggesting to Ditzy once that she should get one as a pet, a form of both companionship and healing on the go. She was quick to remind me that the majority of her customers would rather not melt while doing business with her. Ditzy... Always worried about the details.

I had read the book cover-to-cover, taking only a break to reread a chapter on both wolves and coyotes. Call me vain, but when you have Coyote as a name, you tend to become interested in them regardless of want or desire. Granted what I found out about them was less than stellar and mostly common knowledge found out by life in the Wasteland. They hunt alone for the most part, rarely socialize outside of their pack apart from fighting and are largely monogamous in nature. They also tend to be loners until they have paired up with a mate... Suddenly that whole living up to your name saying was hitting a lot closer to home than I would like.

Even more hours passed with me learning more and more about various species that were surely doomed to be dead in the next couple of years until Caliber finally returned. Judging by the appearance of a few new bruises, it must have gone great, considering he is not dead. I decided that I would rather he come to me to tell me the news on what crazy thing he had concocted rather than the other way around. I was still feeling off from mine and Zuri's little chat and had done my best to suppress the vast majority of my emotions over the allotted time I had, but I was still dealing with the overall dread of working for Ms. Furnace. The longer I prolonged this, the less I would have to deal with it, right?

"Joey, what are you doing!? We have to get a move on!" Cal shouted from the doorway.

"Just doing my best to not think about anything." I replied rolling to face him.

"Well, Furnace says if we bring back Firefly then she will drop the bounty."

"And what's stopping her from just following us to her and killing us once she has what she wants?"

"Ah, y'see... This is where my genius plan comes into effect."

"You mean your plan of mutually assured destruction... How did she take it?" I said as I rolled off the bed. Caliber took a moment to look himself over, taking in all the new scrapes and bruises that he had earned for his efforts.

"I would say that the mood was a little on the tense side... But there is no chance of her following, catching or tracking us... if we fly!" Caliber said throwing his hooves wide.

"She beat you up, didn't she?"

"No,no,no... Oh ok, maybe a little. But that's besides the point. Either way, we get Firefly, you get your name off the list."

"A little? How could she have just beat you up 'a little'?" I said as we trotted out of the room.

"Oh trust me, you would be surprised. Hey, what were you reading anyhow? Anything good?"

"Just a book about animals. Shale really needs to find some new books, I remember reading this damn thing when I was just a colt."

"Oh! Let me see!"

"No Cal, it's not a book of them mating..."

"I know that, but I will need something to read on the flight."

"Fine, but don't splooge on the pages, Shale will probably want this back at some point." I said, passing the book off to Cal as he gathered his things.

"So you are leaving?" Zu asked, trotting to my side.

"Yeah, but I should be back soon. I just have to fly to Filly to bring back a mare who wants me dead. No pressure."

"Then I shall come too."

"Zu, I would love for you to come, but I can't carry more than one pony on my back and I need Cal for this trip."

"Oh... I see." Zuri looked hurt by my decision, but what was I supposed to do? I needed Cal for this trip, without him, I would basically be fresh meat for Ms. Furnace if she decided to come after me. Granted... Zu is pretty good at handling herself on her own and she is fun to be with... No... Not now. Caliber is coming with me and that's final. "I... I do not wish to be alone here." She said, looking nervous to the idea of spending a few days with it being just her, Valkyrie and my sister.

"Zu... I really want you to come, but it is just not possible. I need Cal to keep a look out for me while I move in for the capture, he has always done that. I haven't had time to teach you what you need to know yet."

"I wish there was a way that I could come too. I feel safer knowing that I am near you to protect you."

"Awww... I feel that way too, Zuri." Caliber said with his head buried in his saddlebags.

"Shut up, Cal."

"Hey, I'm just saying that you sometime need to be looked after, that's all."

"I do not! I worked alone for years without help!" I shouted back to him.

"Oh? Is that why you have stripes now? I forgot that you never got bitten by a radioactive pony with a combine harvester for a mouth."

"Caliber is right, Joey. You do have a tendency to get yourself into messes that you either have to run or fly away from. One of these days you are not going to have that opportunity." Shale said from the couch.

"That was a one time thing! Besides, when have any of you known me to need to be looked after?" Around me, hooves reached for the ceiling as it seemed everyone had a story to tell about how I had screwed up in some way. Even Zuri had her hoof raised. Ok, so maybe I did have a small issue with getting into bad situations when I was flying solo, but come on! Zuri too? All we ever did was have sex and... Oh yeah, there was that whole 'you stay here and let me go into the creepy tunnel alone' thing.

"Ok, fine... Point taken. But if everypony just randomly decides to go, that will mean going on hoof. That also means leaving a trail, more things to deal with on the ground, longer travel times, higher chances of getting shot by Furnace. Do you all really want to risk that?"

"Joey, we all have talked about this. We don't want you going that close to Filly alone. Since you've been gone, things over there have been heating up a lot. There was an escape the other day and Red Eye has everypony out in force searching the area for some slaves that ran off." Caliber said.

"Good for them. I hope they make it." I said, more sincerely that I thought I would. What... I have a soft spot for slaves that want to be free...

"Yes... But bad for you. Or did you forget your little run in with them... over the course of your ENTIRE LIFE." Shale said.

"Ok... That could be an issue... But I can fly, remember?"

"They have Griffons Joey..." Caliber said, placing a hoof to his face.

"What is a Griffon?" Zu asked, now pressing against me as if she were trying to create a Zebra shield to protect me.

"Flying assholes with paws." Caliber replied.

"They are half bird, half giant cat... thing." I said, trying to correct Caliber.

"Oh! Like you! You are half pony and half bird." Zuri exclaimed in excitement about the new knowledge that she had accrued.

"WRONG! They are both of lion and bird of prey descent. They share similarities to both but are of their own species." Valkyrie chimed in.

"And just how do you know this?" Caliber asked. Val only raised an eyebrow in response.

"Stop it, it is just too dangerous not to fly. So unless you all can grow some wings in the next five or so minutes, it is just going to be me and Caliber going." I shouted to the lot of them. The room fell silent once more as I finally started to gather my things for the long trip ahead.

"Actually... I think I might have a solution to all of this..." Shale said climbing off the couch. "Meet me out front in twenty minutes."

"Great! Awesome! Perfect! Goodbye now."

"All of you meet me outside. Bring your gear." Shale said as she trotted out the door.

"Does anypony have anymore crackers? I am out of crackers." Zuri shouted.

"I think Caliber has some left." Val shouted back.

"Fuck off! These are my crackers, get your own!" Caliber shouted.

"But I have eaten all of mine and I want more." Zuri shouted back.

"Shale! She's trying to take my crackers! Do something!"

"If you all don't shut up I swear to Celestia that I will crash this thing!" I shouted back to them all.

"Awww. Is our pilot getting cranky?" Shale shouted to me over the wind.

"Hey! This was your hair-brained scheme! Keep them quiet or I will pull over and beat your ass!"

"What did he say?" Valkyrie shouted.

"I think he said something about pulling over and eating your ass if you don't keep quiet." Caliber screamed.

"He will do no such thing! I am the only one that gets to receive that from him!" Zu shouted back.

Collectively, the entire group fell silent for a brief moment followed by a long collective "EWWWWW".

"Sick! Gross Joey!" Caliber said, poking his head out of the wagon.

"I hate you all!" I yelled into the wind.

Shale had, somehow, came into possession of a old delivery wagon that was built for hauling lumber at one time. It was in great shape, all things considered, but it was still a lumber wagon meant to be flown by a Pegasus... Oh, I wonder who that was going to be. Where I was grateful that everypony was so worried about me and wanted to come along, the first four hours in the sky had proven to be more than I was wanting to put up with. I had long ago switched on my Pipbuck's radio function and was trying to listen to Dj-Pon3 for any updates on the slaves from Filly but the rest of my group were more concerned about who was going to get to eat the last cracker than my sanity. She even had a new song playing that I nearly completely missed out on because of them... I really miss working alone.

"...That was Velvet Remedy singing Fly Like You. I don't know about you children, but hearing that beautiful mare's voice really gets my spirits up. After all of the good news I have had today, I would say that song is just the icing on the cake, wouldn't you agree? Well children, the hits, they just keep on coming and thankfully it is still good news! Now, being Equestria's best and only real dj means that I get to hear about and tell about almost everything that is happening out there. I know that a lot of what I have to say is bad news, but sometimes I get to talk about the good things that are happening out there, like slaves giving old Red Eye a black eye!

But rarely do I get to talk about a little thing called LOVE."

"Change it! He's gonna talk about his assistant banging that maintenance worker again..." Caliber shouted with a mouth full of cracker.

"Shut up! I'm trying to listen!"

"I'm just saying, he really needs to get a life outside of creeping on those two." Caliber said, falling back into the wagon.

...That's right y'all. Not only do I have some good news, but this time it comes two fold! Now, Y'all remember me telling you a story about that great tracker named Coyote Joe? Well, it would seem that after a long hunt, our hunter has found his prey. Early reports from Hoofington are that the lost pony tracker arrived back in town with a dang Zebra on his back, drunk out of his mind! Good on you Joe, I know I would celebrate too If I just found the love of my life.

Uncontrollable laughter erupted from behind me as I felt my cheeks start glowing bright red.

"Shut up!" I screamed as I brought the Pipbuck closer to my ears.

...That's right everypony, it looks like our resident tracker finally earned his stripes, in more ways than one. And don't you think for one second that Ol'Coyote is taken it easy, no sir. No sooner than he found his way back to Hoofington, he loaded up and was off again, this time pulling a wagon full of ponies. Now, I have no clue what he is up to out there, but I can assure you that he is on the hunt for somepony. Before I go, I have a little message for you, Joe. If you are hearing this, don't forget we still have got a little colt out there that needs your help, I'm sure somepony has told you already, but just in case... Be on the lookout for a light purple colt that goes by the name of Fetch, I believe Y'all know one another.

I nearly crashed us into the building I was trying to land on after the next song began to play. My hooves skittered across the broken shingles and years of debris as the cart behind me slammed into and crumbled its chimney, spilling its contents across it. I fell free from my rigging and stood in disbelief at what a monumental idiot I had been.

That watcher thing had gave me the perfect description of Fetch and I just... shoved it aside as if it were nothing at all. I had been so blinded by finding Zu and the prospects of finally having a happy life that I completely ignored something that never gets past me. For Celestia's sake! My job, no, my life revolves around details and I just...

"Joey, what did that thing just say!?" Caliber said, trotting to my side.

"It-it's Fetch. He's in Filly..." I mouthed out.

"WHAT!? How in the hell do you know that from what DJ said?"

"Watcher told me... He said there was a colt that went missing from Tenpony... I just... I had no clue it was him."

"Who the fuck is Watcher? How does he know about Fetch!?" Caliber roared at me.

"Cal, calm down, yelling isn't going to solve anything." Shale said but was quickly pushed away with a hoof.

"THAT'S MY KID OUT THERE! I NEED ANSWERS, NOW!" Cal Shouted at me. I did my best to gather my thoughts and spilled everything I could recall. All told, it took maybe five minutes to tell, but it might as well have been an eternity due to the shame I was dealing with.

"Ok, slow down... Watcher is a sprite bot?" Cal asked, now in a calmer tone. Even though I still could not tell whether or not he wanted to kill me, he was at the least coming back down from his high of anger.

"Cal, that flying sprite bot thing is actually somepony controlling them. I think he uses them to spy on the whole damn Wasteland. One of those things found me in White Saddle and gave me a description of a little colt that ran off from Tenpony, but I was so tied up with everything that was going on that I completely forgot. Call it being freaked out by the damn thing, call it finding Zu, either way, I fucked up, BAD." I said pleading with him.

"Yes, you did." Cal said, trotting back to the cart.

"Cal, please..."

"Not now Joey... Just... Not now." He said as he climbed back into the old lumber rack.

"FUCK!" I shouted as I bucked what little was left of the chimney.

"He will calm down, he is just... dealing with a lot." Valkyrie said.

"Yeah, a lot of it is me, too."

"Look, I know him. I have seen him like this before. Believe me, it is always you." Val said, putting a hoof to my shoulder. It was quickly withdrawn when my knee-jerk reaction nearly sent me flying from the rooftop.

"Joe. Caliber is like a firecracker. Bright at first but he always burns out. The amount of times he came slouching into Stable 69 after a trip with you are uncountable."

"Gee... Thanks."

"No, you are missing the point. He always comes around, he's here now, isn't he?" I looked back to the cart and sure enough there he was, talking to himself as he often did, no doubt about me.

"Val, thank you, but this is a bit worse then me just sending him back home after using him. This is his kid, I don't think he will forgive me for this."

"He WILL because you are not just going to sit here and do nothing, are you?"

"You know I'm not."

"Then what are your going to do next?"

"Well... Obviously we are going to Filly... Tonight."

"Now. We are going now, aren't we?" Val said, giving me a soft smile. Oh, that sneaky little mare... I already knew what I had to do to make this right, but I couldn't see through my own cloud of self angst, yet she also knew and she knew just how to push me in that direction... Now where did she learn that from I wonder... "Might want to tell the others, I know I would." She said as she trotted back to a very approving looking Zuri. Great... Now there are TWO mares in my life that know how to manipulate me, be it bad or good.

"Ok, listen up. I... I fucked up and now we don't have much time. Caliber's kid is lost in Filly and has been for a few days now. I know that this is not the best situation to be in, but we have to try and go and get him." I said in my most authoritative voice.

"What about Firefly?" Shale asked.

"What about her? As far as I am concerned she can rot while she waits. This is more important."

"Joey, without Firefly, you know you can't go back to Hoofington." She retorted in that motherly tone I knew all too well.

"Oh no. We can never go back to Hoofington? Say that is not so!" Zuri said sarcastically.

"Yeah, oh how I will miss the Johns and bullets! How will we survive!" Val added on.

"Quiet you two! We are going to Filly and that's final. If there is any time left when we are done, we will deal with Furnace."

"And if there is not any left?" Caliber said, poking his head out of the cart.

"Then... I don't know, we will kill her or something. Maybe we run away. It doesn't matter." I said, hitching myself back to the cart. "Get in or get left up here." I said as I started lining myself up for take off.

We had been flying for nearly a full day by the time I got back to a safe altitude. Caliber, true to Val's word, was even coming around ever so slightly. Due to the generally unsafe nature of Filly and the increase in patrols by Griffons meant that we had to fly the long way around and find a safe place to perch up for the night.

Nearing the boarders of the Goddess forsaken place, night had fallen and despite the rushing sounds of wind, the rest to of my... What do I even call them? Family? Friends? Team? Whatever... They had all fallen asleep judging by the snoring that both Zu and Caliber was doing. In the darkness I did my best to keep my mind off the searing agony that was wings and my hind leg that I had once again pissed off with my little out burst on the roof. I was tired but I had great motivation to push through the pain now that I was no longer having to meet with Firefly. Truth be told, I much rather be heading to save a kid I know rather than a crazed pubescent mare who wanted to kill me.

I did my best to occupy my time by flipping through my Pipbuck, but apart from a few songs that I'm sure Twisty had loaded up on it, there was nothing new to be seen. Call me a sucker for the classics, but I'll take that Velvet Remedy any day over a band named 'The Bleeding Eyes'. Despite the acrid stench of industry that was beginning to outweigh the normal ozone of the Wasteland, I kept getting hints of a smell I knew too well.

I began looking all around me but I couldn't see anything through the patch work of clouds I was flying in. Flying this close to the cloud layer was dangerous, but I had to do it thanks to Red Eye and his stupid ego complex about never losing slaves. Slowly I crept down from the superficial cloud layer and into the murky air below. Ok, It stinks WAY worse down here. I canted my head down and finally IT came into view. Deciding it would be better to not be shot by surprising him, I instead tossed a round of spent ammunition at his back to let him know I was nearby and slowly advance towards... OH! Ok, them.

"Calamity, hows it hanging?" I said from his left side.

"Why don't ya fly down and have a peak for yourself?"

"Gross... I see you have taken to your new job well, how's the fast paced world of Pegasi taxi service treating you, Mitty?"

"It's been bett... HEY! I'll have you know that I am on a mission!" He stammered.

"Yeah, about the same here. Rough times being a beast of burden, eh? So what are you lot up to this time?"

"If you must know, we are heading to Tenpony... Again..."

"Oh snap... I have a similar place that I keep ending up at, Hoofington. It's all good though, after today I won't be allowed back there ever again."

"Well ain't that just a damn shame." He said, the winds failing to sweep away his sarcasm.

"Been crying for miles now..."

"Say... What's with the cart? Don't tell me... Oh yeah, Hom... Dj-Pon3 said something about you possibly finding that Zebra of yours. She back there?"

"Yeah, one second... Hey! Z..." But my lips fell flat when I saw Zuri staring right into the eyes of... Another Zebra!?

"HEY! When..." I started but was silenced by a hoof to the mouth. "When did you guys find a Zebra?" I said, trying to keep my voice down.

"You'll have to talk to Littlepip about that. She gives me the creeps sometimes, but overall she seems safe enough. Xenith's her name."

"Don't let them fool you, one second you are talking all nice with them, then the next you spend ten years of your life trying to track them down."

"Brother... that's all mares..."

The two of us shared a very immature hoof-bump and I began to pull away, but as I did, I fell back from Calamity to see this Xenith. Upon coming to her window, the battle-worn face and bright green eyes of a Zebra mare came into view. She had scars upon scars across her muzzle complemented only by her exotic patterned stripes. Briefly, I found myself jealous of her patterning and wished my own were more interesting like her's. Celestia, was that a thing with me now? Was I really going to have to deal with something called 'stripe envy'?

We didn't say a word, but instead I raised a hoof to her direction. The gesture was met with something akin to repulsion at first but soon a striped leg found its way to mine in probably the worlds most bizarre hello that she had ever had.

"I'm Joey, nice to meet you." I said sheepishly.

"Protect her." She said back to me with possible the deadliest glare I had ever seen.

"I'm, sorry?"

"Protect her, she is valuable." Again, never breaking her lock on my eyes.

"I-I will..." I said, rather confused by her cryptic speaking.

"Hang on, we are going in to land." Calamity said as they pulled away from us and shot towards the ground.

What the hell? Protect her? I was already doing that! Why would she need protecting? If her combat skills were anything like her bedroom skills, then she could take over the entire damn Wasteland with a bendy straw! Then again, the only thing I had seen of her combat skills were aggression, and where that counts for a lot, it counts for nothing if you don't even know how to throw a punch. For all I know she could be some secret Zebra agent that was sent here to take my necklace in some convoluted plot to blow up the world. Oh who am I kidding, like something like that would ever happen to anypony ever...

We circled Filly for what felt like hours... Actually, it probably was hours now that I think of it. Between the Griffon patrols and the Steel Rangers making their rounds about the area, they were making it hard to find a safe place to land and set up shop all the while being in a tactically advantageous area to sneak into the fucked up place that is known as Filly. Finally, after searching out nearly the entirety of the province, I spotted a old barn that looked to be just right for the picking.

I bucked the cart behind me to wake the rest of the group to warn them that we were coming in for a landing. Unfortunately, the sharp sound of hooves on wood behind me came to me accompanied by Valkyrie screaming "Ow!", Zu laughing maniacally at her, Caliber screaming in fear and nearly falling out of the wagon and Shale groaning. Ah family... Such a beautiful thing.

"Hold onto something, I'm going to land this thing!" I shouted over the gusts of wind.

"Try not to hit a house this time!" Caliber screamed to me as I dipped out of the sky.

"Yeah!" Val added.

"Fine! How about a barn instead?" I yelled back to all of them.

"Ha, ha. Very funny, Joey." Caliber shouted.

I raced for the ground with the cart in tow behind me, all the while keeping an eye open for patrolling Griffons. I lined up my target that was the old barn and began to arc out in my final approach. Just as I was about to start back flapping to slow us down, I noticed something among the shadows just inside the barn. A tall broad figure was standing well within the door frame of the dilapidated tobacco shack. I narrowed my eyes until the figure came into view, soon I saw the long barrel of an anti-machine rifle strung across a pair of wings gilded with metal.

"Hang on!" I shouted back to the group.

"What is it this time!?" Cal asked.

"Griffon!" I replied as I poured on the speed and aimed right for him.

"Oh shit, he wasn't kidding, he is going to hit the barn! Everypony hang on!" Cal shouted to the others.

Now, I have no clue what this Griffon was thinking in terms of how his night would turn out, but I'm sure that when he snuck off with a copy of Wingboner to this barn to have a little 'personal time', he had not planned on being ran over by a 200 year old lumber wagon. The landing was... bumpy, but otherwise smooth, all apart from me trying to catch his rifle in mid flight only to have it clatter off of my skull and knock a few feathers out of my right wing. He never saw it coming, he had been so wrapped up in his porno that by the time he saw us, he was already being crushed by the wagons underside. With a sickening few pops, snaps and a rather disgusting splat sound, we had killed the poor guy long before he could even get his rocks off.

"Go out with a bang... That's what I always say." Caliber said, eyeing the Griffon's mangled body.

"Cal... Dear Luna..." I replied, putting a hoof to my face.

"Hey, at least he died doing what he loved..."

"Cal, stop. Please."

"Playing with his massive..."

"CAL!" We all shouted as we stood about the poor fellow's body.

"Ok Cal, since you love making jokes at his expense so much, take him around back and get him out of here." I said with a smirk.

"AH...ahhhh... Shit."

"Zu, do you think you could get a fire going?"

"Yes, I believe that I can." She replied, dragging her saddlebags out of the cart.

"Joey, you better let me look at your forehead, it is starting to bleed." Shale said, pulling my head down for closer inspection.

"Hey, what do I get to do? Set up a perimeter? Stand guard? Maybe do a little recon?" Valkyrie said, giving us all a starry glare that reeked of excitement.

"I'm kinda hungry actually." I started.

"Me too! Can you cook Griffon?" Zu said, now well into her job of setting the barn on fire.

"WHAT!? You all drag me all the way out here on a mission with you, and you want me to make you dinner!?" Val said in anger.

"I mean... Yeah?" I meeked out.

"No way! I want to do something useful for a change! I didn't leave Flank just to be graduated to a chef!"

"Fine... Scout the area and see if there are any guards around. Do not be seen! Got it?" I said full well knowing that she would not find anything. I had already scouted the place long before we were coming into land and picked this spot because it was devoid of any life... ok, most life, but now it was completely life free. Shale did her best to doctor my nicked forehead while Valkyrie took off on her wild goose chase. Nothing like a solo mission to clear your mind. I envied her.

"Ok, I put Mr. One Bump Chump out back... What's Val cooking for dinner?" Cal asked, trying to brush the feathers from his coat.

"I sent her to scout the place out, she'll be gone for a while." I replied.

"WHAT!? She has the rest of the crackers and that goopy stuff!"

"No pony has answered me. Can you eat Griffon?" Zu shouted, now sitting proudly by her new roaring fire.

"Gross..." Shale and I proclaimed, but we were quickly silenced by Caliber.

"Well... I mean... Yeah. They are made of meat, you can eat meat. Stands to reason we could cook him and eat him."

"For fuck sake's no, Caliber. We already ran him over, we are not eating him. Just... Go into the cart and see if Val left her bags with any food in them..." I said pointing a hoof to the cart.

"So, when are you going to tell us how we are going to get in there anyhow?" Shale asked as she tightened the bandage over my right eye.

"Whoa now, WE?"

"Yes, WE. We did not come all this way to just sit on the sidelines and watch you get hurt or captured or something... Look, you know that you can't go in alone, they will sniff you out in two seconds. We need to have a plan."

"I know... It's just... This whole time I have been trying to think of a way in there, but every time I come up with something it always involves flying in and I know that THAT can't be done. Not to mention every plan I have had has only involved me and Caliber, not... ALL of us."

"What about the tunnels under the town? Could we get in that way?"

"No way, no how! You have read Ditzy's book, you know better than that. Flying is out, shooting our way in is suicide and sneaking in is out of the question. All I know is that we have to get in there as soon as possible. Slavers are not known for their kindness nor their patients with kids. It's just a matter of time before something happens to him... If it already hasn't." I said, pulling away from Shale.

"Look, I know you want to rush in there, I do too, but maybe it would be best if we all took some time to rest and think on this."

"You? You want to rush into Filly?"

"Well, yeah. Fetch is in there and Fetch is..." Shale started.

"Caliber's kid... Speaking of, what the fuck are you doing bedding down with Caliber!? You know his track record with foal production is nearing 100% right?" With everything that had been going on with the day, I had somehow successfully allowed the thought of those two slip from my mind on the flight over. If Shale only knew how dangerous it was to have sex with him... If only she knew that he was Boss's son of all things!

"Whoa! Slow your roll. Who said anything about me 'bedding' with Caliber?"

"Oh please, I know that look you gave him! Are you telling me that you two never once humped while I was gone?"

"NO! I mean, I like the guy and Celestia know's that he tried. But no."

"Shale, don't lie to me..." I said, narrowing my eyes towards her.

"I'm not lying, Joey. Even if I was, it is none of your business." She said to me, running her nose into mine to stare me down. As much as I felt she wasn't being totally honest with me, I had to admit, if she was lying she was really selling it.

"Ok... I'm sorry, I'm just... stressed. And here I thought you and Cal were lip locking and feeling each other up." I said, feeling that cool feeling of blissful acceptance of a situation that was beyond my control.

"Oh we did that. I mean, he's cute, he's funny and he is actually really sweet when he wants to be..." Shale started again. My face fell from its composure and left me feeling that her and my definition of bedding together were severally different. Great... Looks like we get to have THAT talk now.

"Shale..."

"He's helpful around the mart too! Not to mention that I have always had a thing for unicorns..."

"SHALE!"

"You know he can actually be really smart too and he is a good kisser!"

"He's our brother..."

"Oh and he... WHAT!?"

"Shale, Boss wasn't going off drinking or trading when he would leave us with Peach. He was looking for a mare. A mare that he had sex with and gave birth to Caliber. Caliber is Boss's son." I said as I dug in my saddlebags for his journal. Shale paused for a moment before jobbing a hoof sharply to my chest.

"Really mature, Joey. Just because you don't approve of me dating him, you have to make up this whole story about him being my brother."

"See for yourself..." I said as I dropped his journal between us. "Bit Scales told me herself..." Shale began flipping through the pages to the one I had long ago marked, pulling it closer to see the scribbles I had made drawing the connection together. I watched as my sister's face went from the 'I'm about to prove you wrong smirk' to a very... 'Holy shit, I almost slept with my brother'... Look.

"Told you." I said, swiping the book from her.

"I... I..." Shale stammered. You know, there are many times in my life where I have been on the low end of the pole when it came to family. I was the smallest, so I got the shit jobs around camp. I never got the best choices when it came to guns. Shale would embarrass me in front of mares whenever she could by calling me her 'cute widdle bwuder'. There were also times where she was really sweet to me and patched me up and took my side when the others were against me. I always did my best to repay the favor when I could by being just as sweet and kind to her in return... This was not one of those times.

"Say it."

"I..."

"Say it Shale..."

"I..." She started again.

"Say it. I... Kissed... My... Brother... With-tongue."

"I.. He's my... Oh Celestia..."

"GROSS! Joey, don't tell me you have been macking on your own sister! That's just gross!" Caliber said as he trotted out of the cart.

"Didn't you bang a sheep once?" I said with a smirk. That's right Joey, just cover that ball of pain up with a layer of jokes.

"Allegedly. Why?" Crap... I forgot that you can't ashame somepony when they have no shame. Caliber trotted past us, looking very confident in his remark as he headed for the campfire.

"Have you told him yet?" Shale whispered to me.

"No, not yet. I just found out before I left for White Saddle."

"You NEED to tell him! This is important, and, I think he needs this right now."

"Yeah, he needs to find out that the buck who forgot about his kid is really his brother..."

"You don't understand... Look, Cal has been going through a lot since you have been gone. When this is all over, you and I need to have a talk about him, but in the meantime, you need to find a way and a time to explain this to him. I mean, the fact that you haven't already is just beyond me."

"I know, I know... It's just... I have been waiting for the right time to tell him. Every time that an opportunity comes up, somepony puts a bounty on my head... Or we are having to find away into a damn prison to extract a kid of ours..."

"Just promise me that you will talk with him about this... He NEEDS to know this. Until then, maybe it would be best if you had a rest. Maybe Valkyrie will find something out there that will help you get in there."

"Oh, so NOW it's me and not WE..."

"Oh get over yourself. You know damn good and well that I will be watching over you from a safe distance... Maybe with that shiny new rifle of yours..."

"Oh no... Not my..." I started.

"Oh like you can even take it in there. Without me out here as a lookout, who will squeeze a round off if it is needed?"

"Ok... But only because you are my sister and I trust you..." I started

"Thank you."

"But so help me Luna if you scratch this gun, I will find a way to make you not my sister anymore. Got it?" I said as I passed the rifle off to her. I had not even got to fire the thing and she was going to get the first shot off! "It was a gift... From Zu..."

"I'm sure she will be here with me to watch over it. Somepony will need to watch my flank, Celestia knows that she can't go in there with you."

"That's true. Just... keep her safe..."

"I'm sure she can watch out for herself."

"I meant the rifle." I said, wobbling on my hooves. Like it or not, exhaustion was setting in and setting in, HARD.

"Joey, you need to go and lie down. You have been flying for nearly a full day. Let us do the hard work for once, ok?"

"Maybe you are right. But you know that Red Eye has patrols all over the place and if those slaves are still out there, we are as good as sitting ducks." I said as I trotted towards the fire.

"Celestia, is you life always this down to the wire?" Shale shouted after me.

"Welcome to Joey town, where everything was due yesterday and none of it makes any sense..." I said as I planted my head on the ground next to Zuri.

Filly is a prison, both inside and out. The place is nearly impenetrable without being seen and once you are in, there is little to no chance of getting out with anything short of a wing and prayer. What has the universe gotten me into this time!? All I wanted was some piece and quiet before dealing with the bounty on my head and now I am hoof deep in Fillydelphia.

I gave a snort to the ground, blowing the old stale tobacco chips into the fire with my nostrils as I let everything finally sink in. I was about to go into the one place in the whole Wasteland that I said that I would never go in. Even when I would find out that a kid I was looking for ended up in there, I wouldn't go after them. Yet, here I was, about to do that very thing for my own motivations. What made this so different from all the cases I had passed on in the past?

As I was slowly falling into a very calm panic attack, I felt it all melt away when I felt Zuri's hoof fall across my neck, followed by her warm muzzle pressing against my ear. Zuri, a mare who I had only known for a short time, whose very touch had its own effect on me that made even Med-X pale in comparison, somehow could wash away fear with a simple touch. I still don't know what we have together, but when I am with her I just feel... whole. There was something about having somepony near me who not only could tell that I was troubled but wanted to just... make it go away. Is that what love is? Or is it just a fix for a selfish need for affection that I had been denied my whole life?

I sat waiting as the others motored about the barn, all the while trying to keep my mind off of all the thoughts of this not playing out how I hoped and instead trying to enjoy Zu's hoof stroking my mane. If nothing else, if this was the last time I would feel it, I wanted to enjoy it. Celestia, what If I didn't make it back out of there! What would happen to Zu, Shale and... Well, I'm sure Caliber with probably be with me, but still. The thought of leaving Zu all alone out here after finally finding one another was finally sinking in about the time Val came sneaking back into the barn.

"Maybe we could... No... That would just get us killed." Caliber mumbled to himself. The others had been spending the time talking strategy while I was trying not to listen.

"Joy, are you ok?"

"No..." I mumbled through the dirt.

"It will be ok. I promise."

"Thanks. But I don't think that we are...."

"I GOT IT!" Cal screamed, scaring the ever-loving-shit out of me.

"WHAT!?" I replied from behind Zu.

"Joey... Seriously?"

"What? I... I burned my hoof..."

"Whatever... Ok, I got this." Caliber said, clearing his throat.

"Great..." Shale said sarcastically.

"Shhh! Ok, what if... we just fly in!"

"Cal... The Griffons will be..."

"Yes, they will see us... But what if we don't go in as ponies."

"Cal, what the hell are you talking about?" I asked, pretending to nurse a burned hoof.

"Ok, hear me out. We ran that pervert over right? What if we use his barding and feathers and just make a suit we can both fit in! It will work! He is big enough for us to both fit into together!"

"You want to dress up as Griffons...?" I said, my face falling flat.

"YEAH! But we will have to cover you with his feathers too, really sell it to them."

"Cal... What the actual..."

"SHHHH! Don't talk, just... let it sink in for a moment. Griffons have great eyesight... IN THE DAY. But at night, most of them are just useless winged house cats. If we go as Griffons AND act completely natural, it may give us a window inside. From there we can just dress as slaves. Think about it, they will never see it coming." Cal said, sitting down to bask in his own stupidity.

"NO! Are you trying to get us killed!? Besides, even if it did work, how are we going to get back out of there? We can't just dress back up as a Griffon and steal a little colt. Speaking of... WE DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE HE IS!" I said.

"I know where he is..." Valkyrie said, sitting down beside us.

"Wait, wha..."

"You told me to do recon, I did recon." She said proudly.

"Spill it." I said, narrowing my eyes towards her.

"First of all, did you mean to set up camp this close to the wall, or was that an accident?"

"What the hell are you talking about?" I said, trotting to the door. " We are miles from the walls of..." I stood slack jawed at the sight of... well.. the wall to Filly just down the hill from us. "How..."

"You must have been exhausted. It is an easy mistake to make." Zu said, trotting to my side. If my panicked nerves were not already frayed to shreds, they were now. Not only had I completely missed our landing spot, I had flown us straight into the heart of Filly itself! It was a small wonder that nothing heard us when we plowed head on into that Griffon earlier.

"Down there, just beyond the corner, there is a guard entrance. It looked to be some sort of emergency staging area. I got close enough to hear them talking about the 'New hours' since that Red Eye guy was sending out more patrols. They are already in for a long shift and it is just the two of them."

I followed Val's hoof to the far corner of the wall where there seemed to be the corner of a guard shack peeking out around a mass of buildings that lay just inside the wall. If what she said was true, that could be our way in and maybe even out if we could take out the guards and get inside. As much as I hated Caliber's plan, posing as slaves might not be that bad of an idea if we could get some intel on the other guards. Actually, posing as guards might not be that bad of an idea either.

"See, Joey? There are doors everywhere, you just have to wait and find the right one to open." She said, giving me a very confident look.

"What about Fetch? How do you know where he is?" I asked.

"The guards mentioned something about the new kids in the holding area by the factory district. I also overheard them talking about how they should 'take five' the next chance they got, seeing as the next shift change wasn't for the next five hours. If you ever wanted a window to get in there, this one is as good as any." She said, looking back to the far wall.

"So we have two guards posted up outside, Celestia only knows how many inside and we have to move around undetected..." I said as I tried to put all of the pieces together in my head. Everything was there, even our timing was close enough to the dew point that we might even get some fog as cover if we were lucky.

"See, this is what I am talking about. Once we get inside, we can use the barding and what not for the other two Slavers to get around. I'm sure I can play the part well enough, you on the other hoof..." Caliber said, pausing to think for a moment. "We are really going to have to dress you down so they can't tell who you are." Shit... he was right. The chances of me running into somepony who had seen me, heard of me or knew me were actually rather low, but the chances were still there.

"Ok... If we do this, we need to do this MY way. Got it?" I said, looking to everypony. "We have to be fast and on point for this to work. If what Valkyrie said is true then we might have a window of opportunity. Val, do you think you could distract the guards long enough for me and Cal to get in?"

"I think so... Do we have any whiskey?" She responded, looking about the group.

"I think I have nearly a full bottle of Wild Pegasus." Cal affirmed.

"Then I think I have a plan for that."

"Shale, you will have to provide overwatch. Use my rifle to pick off anypony who you can see as a threat to either Cal and I or Fetch."

"Joey, I can watch the majority of this place easy enough, but once you get into the manufacturing district, you are going to be on your own."

"We will just have to make do once we are there. If we pull this off, hopefully there won't be a shot fired at all. Do you remember how to signal that light of yours?"

"Do you remember our code?"

"Two is one, one is many." I sounded off

"Three is run, don't forget." Shale reminded me as she fell back into the barn to start gathering supplies.

"Zu, I need you to watch over her. Keep an eye on the skies for Griffons and balloons. The damn things creep around like ghosts. If you guys get spotted... just get the hell out of here as fast as you can. Shale will fire off three shots in the air if that happens and we will abort. As much as nopony here likes to hear it, it will be everypony for themselves if things go south."

"And what do we do if things go south?" Valkyrie asked.

"We run, we hide and we regroup. If you hear three shots in rapid succession, head for the west. Zu, you and Shale run north. Don't stop until you find shelter. Shale already knows how to flag me down, but Val, you will need length of red cloth from her. Go see if she has any left and give her a hoof with anything else."

"On it!" The little orange mare barked out as she ran after Shale.

"Cal, do you still have that notebook you had back in New Appleloosa?"

"Yeah, why?"

"See if you can get high enough up on the barn to see into the factories and try your best to sketch out what you can see. We will need a map. Here..." I said passing him the binoculars. "See what all you can find out from up there. Maybe we will get lucky." Caliber snatched the optics from me and headed for the hayloft.

"We only have a few hours before we get this show on the road! We are waiting for the night air to hit the dew point. Once it does, we will have the fog to help us out with getting around. If we get split up, remember to wait until you hear the call sign 'Whispy'. When you hear it, don't poke your head out, just say Clouds. Everypony got it?" I said as I trotted to the edge of the hillside to rest. If nothing else, maybe it would afford me a little time to think to myself.

This was going to end badly. No doubt that we had put more faith in our exit plan than our actual plan, but the chances of this all working out just fine were less than zero. I did my best to not let the nearly nonexistent odds weigh on my mind, but the more that I tried to focus, the less I actually focused. I kept thinking about what would happen if Fetch was... UGH! How did he even get all the way up here!? I really hope that he is ok, because that little colt is going to get the flank-chewing of a lifetime for this!

My thoughts soon turned to that of the rest of the group, thinking about how Caliber would react if the worst came to light and if any harm had come to the poor colt. At the very best, we would get away clean, but at the worst we would end up dead. Oddly enough, neither of those two neither gave me hope or as much fear as if we were to get there and find out that we were too late. Caliber would never forgive me for this, I would never forgive me for this.

I must have sat there for nearly an hour being tortured by my own thoughts of the worst possible thing that could happen before Zu found her way back to me outside.

"You are nervous, I can tell." She said as she sat down beside me.

"Yeah... these ponies are not my biggest fans. I'm sure they will be happy to see me."

"Will you have to hide your wings?" She said giving them a light brush with her hoof. The touch was met with the bristly feeling of my neck hair standing on end in delight. Even now, with everything that was going on, it was surprising to see the effect of a simple touch from her could have.

"Yeah, them and my stripes." I said giving a shiver.

"What about your nose? It is starting to turn darker too. It will not be long before they come in fully, you know?"

"I'll... cover them with mud... or something."

"I am sorry. You should not have to hide them."

"Thanks, but why would you say that? Slavers hate Pegasi and have for as far back as I can remember. Honestly, the last Pegasus slaver I ever saw was back when we first met and he's..." I paused to think for a moment. All this time, I had lamented the fact that I was one of the few Pegasi in the Wasteland, never mind the fact that I was the only one that I knew of that was actually born here and a not cast out or a runaway. It had been so long ago since that day back in the valley, he had been the only slaver with wings that I had ever seen and he was now dead... Because of me.

Even though I did what needed to be done back then, I still could not help but wonder if it was me that had started all of this hate between slavers and Pegasi. Sure, they seem to hate just about everypony, even themselves at times, but I had systematically taken nearly a hundred or more of them out of the fight for good. What were the chances that I had been the cause of my own problems with them from the start? I basically stole from Red Eye when I was just a colt and spent a lifetime trying to murder my way out of it.

But was that really what I was trying to do? Simply undo or eliminate the problem I had made for myself all those years ago back in Silver Shoe? Slavers are the worst of us. They take ponies, they take fillies and colts from their parents, and even though the latter was a more recent happening, it was still happening nonetheless. Was I nothing more than a do-gooder trying to rid a house of rats? Or was I a mercenary to my own faults at this point? Neither of those seemed to be something that would appeal to me on any level. The Wasteland had enough hero's to go around with out some random Pegasus trying to make a name for himself.

All I wanted was to be happy, with Zuri. Now that I have her, all I seem to do is get deeper into the hole I started digging or create all new holes to fall into. Why can't things just be simple for me? Why not just... be happy for a change? I was a lost cause and the slavers were both the reason and the effect. If not for them, I wouldn't have met Zu, if not for them, I wouldn't be here. They also took so many from loved ones, killed at will and ruined lives for the sake of a fever dream. Maybe it was their actions that lead me to this place in my life, maybe it was me, but regardless, I'm here now. If the universe has a sense of humor, it has to be a very paradoxical and convoluted one.

"Joy, what is wrong. You look like you have a lot that you are thinking about." She asked as the two of us looked out across the dilapidated landscape of the old city.

"More than you could ever know." I said, giving my head a light shake to try and uncross my eyes. That had better not be a new and ever randomized symptom of being a Zony!

"Are you frightened?" She asked, leaning into me.

"I have never actually gone in there before. They have tried to throw me in more than once, but I always just flew away. Who would have thought that I would actually end up going in because I had to. "

"You are dodging the question." Zu said, giving me a light nudge with her nose.

"I'm... I'm terrified. I'm afraid for Fetch, I'm scared that I might not make it back out, I'm afraid that I will not see you again if this goes bad. Filly is a dark place filled with dark ponies who want nothing more than to take lives for nothing more than a few hours of labor, and here i am about to fly right in there and say hello." I said in shame.

"There is no need to worry, I have faith in you to make it back to me. You are going into the dark city, but you will make it back out." She said with confidence.

"Pff... More like the valley of death."

"AH! Then this is even better!" She said with a smile.

"Zu, I love you, but what the hell are you on about?"

"The valley of death is a cruel place. Few Zebras have come back from there."

"Still not feeling very inspired here..."

"Shush you. Don't talk. Listen. The valley of death is very deadly because of what lies there. It is hot, it is cold and it is merciless, but that is not what will kill you. It is the shadows that deal the final blow. Just before we die, we go to a place were both darkness and light rule. One takes what it wishes and the other protects those who run to it. That place is what we call the valley of death. The only Zebra to come back from there told tales of how the darkness would follow him and how his only hope was to run to the light for safety. But every day, he would venture further to find his way back home to his loved ones that waited on the other side.

When he would leave the safety of the light, the darkness would find him even in the sun, if he built a fire, it would black out the flames and when he tried to sleep, it would try to smother him. His only hope for life was to run for the light on the horizon faster than the darkness could follow. He said that it was never seen, until it was too late. He watched as many Zebras feel before it, but he would not yield, he would run to the light for safety instead. But his want to got home forced him to continue to search and he knew that he would have to face the dark if he ever wanted to go back home again.

Soon, the darkness even took the light that guarded him, leaving him in a world of loneliness and sorrow. It took from him hope, love and happiness, leaving him to wither away. It was not until he sought out the darkness with vengeance that he truly understood what it was to want to live. He fought its will, pushing it from his mind with thoughts of going home and seeing his family once more. His determination was what sent the darkness fleeing in fear of him, but it was his will to live and be free that kept it away long enough for him to find his way back home. He had become what the darkness feared most, he had become the light in the dark.

So you should fear not to trot through the valley of death, for you are the light that they so fear."

"Zu... That's very... creepy." Zuri only smiled and laughed.

"Yes, it is a very creepy story! You should tell me yours, when you come back." She said, laying her head across my back.

The light in the darkness. Wasn't that what that 'Light Bringer' was doing already? Had Zu been listen to that old radio of her's again? Still my thoughts set themselves to wonder. If the Light Bringer was so called for bringing the light into the darkness, what would that light be? Was it the will for good ponies to stand up and fight for something more or was it just more ramblings from Dj-Pon3? Maybe it was the virtue of a hero, something we all share but never act on out of fear or selfish want to not come into harm's way.

I guess you never know how much you can withstand until you are pushed beyond your breaking point and fight through the pain to rise up. Maybe, just maybe the light in the dark is the good inside all of us and the darkness the corruption of this world that plagues us all. We stand resolute even though the bombs fell, we see horror everyday, but we push forward with our lives. If that is what ponies do when they are standing idly-by, what could they do when they actually tried? I know now that the Slaver's crimes against other ponies is what drove me to shoot them in the first place and my reward was that of a striped life partner. If she truly was a gift to me for doing the right thing all those years ago, then it would be a gift I could never match in blood or tears.

"I know, I know... But this is shit! We have been on watch for over 10 hours now and not a damn thing has happened. I hate this job. I hate standing here. I hate this stupid vest I have to wear and I hate..."

"Would you quit your bitching! It's not like this is hard work. Just stand here and guard the door so no slaves get out. This isn't rocket surgery, Padlock."

"Oh fuck off with that! I'm just sayin' that a little break never hurt anypony. Come on, me and you, Just Padlock and Ol'Key Switch. Nopony has to know that we ditched to have a little drink."

"I'm telling you, if we get busted, then it's our ass! You know how Master Red Eye feels about laziness. He will have us strung up for it!"

"Awww... What's a matter? You afraid that something bad will happen? Tell me, in all the time we have been stationed here, what has happened at OUR post... ever? Besides the time you got your hoof stuck in the fence?"

"Look, I'm all for drinking on the job, but nothing short of a sign from those old fucked up Goddesses will get me to leave this post."

"Exschooosmeh! *hic* Can you fellas h-help me out here?" Valkyrie said as she half stumbled, half fell out of the bushes.

"HALT! WHO'S THERE!" Key Switch said, raising his rifle.

"WHOA! Calm down there Switchy, looks like we have us a damsel in distress here." Padlock said, placing a hoof to his rifle and lowering it.

"I was with some Griffon guy and he gave me this bo-bottle of whiskey! We were gonna have some fun but then he fell asleep and I had to pee and now I'm lost... Can you nice bucks help me find my way back?" Val said as she stumbled, dropped the bottle of booze and spun away from them to pick it up. "Woopsies! Dropped my bottle!"

Padlock's jaw hit the ground so hard that I thought I saw a stray tooth fly past me and Caliber as we lay waiting in the bushes. Val's plan was actually working out, I couldn't believe it! When she said that she thought she could just seduce them into leaving their post, I thought for sure that she was just taking on Caliber's usual not so charming charm. But, there she is, she wasn't shot full of holes yet like I said she would be on the way over here.

"I-I-I-I *hic* I swear that I can't hold on to anything when I drink this much!" She said as she spun back around and very convincingly fell over.

"Just what do you think you are doing!? This sector is off limits!"

"Switchy, that's no way to treat a lady!" Padlock said as he pulled him in close. Even from here, their voices were clearly heard as Padlock began the bartering process to get his friend to leave post. "Look, You're worn out, I'm worn out, we might as well be worn out together, sexually satisfied and have a drink in us! I think we have earned that much." He said, pointing a hoof to Val who was now very convincingly trying to fake taking a drink. "That Light Bringer bitch must be miles from here and apart from the occasional uprising, that might I add you and I never get to be a part of, we never see any action out here. So com'on... what do you say?" He said, ending his comment with a wiggle of his eyebrows.

"Soooo... Do you think he swing both ways with that look he gave him or..." Cal started.

"Shut up! You are going to get us caught!" I said, pushing his head down into be bushes.

"Well... She is cute and all..." Switchy started. "Well ok, but we have to make it quick! If anything happens while we are out, it is on your ass! When they debrief us, I'm telling them that I was taking a shit and you wondered off to beat your meat, got it!?"

"Gotcha!" Padlock replied, nearly levitating with excitement. Wow slavers are dense!

"Miss, I don't know where that Griffon is, but I think me and my partner here could help you with your loneliness issues." He said, trotting up to her.

"Oh goody! I was worried that I was gonna have to spend the night alone out here in the cold..." Val said as Padlock and Key Switch slowly guided her into the bushes, right between Caliber and I.

No sooner than the first buck had cleared the bushes, Caliber and I bucked them both in the side of the jaws. The two would-be suitors fell atop Val who was doing her best to fake a wobbly trot as she lead them to slaughter.

"Get them off me, get them off. Oh Celestia they stink, get them off of me now!" Val cried out but it fell on deaf ears among our hushed laughter.

"C...Cal! Grab the fat one off her, I don't think she had a three way planned!" I said as I hiccuped back my laughter.

"Yeah-yeah! I was thinking she was going to get spit-roasted!" He said, biting his tongue.

"Ok, here they are, now what." Val said as she spun the lid off of the bottle of whiskey and took a big gulp.

"Oh that's the easy part." Cal said as he withdrew his knife.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? You can't just kill them!" Val nearly shouted.

"Why not? They are slavers..." I said as I drew my knife out as well.

"Look... I know these two are slavers, but you can't just kill them to make your lives easier... Especially after what they thought they were going to get out of me for free!"

"Look Val, this is the job. It sucks sometimes but these are bad ponies, bad ponies who have my son nonetheless. We can't just leave them here to wake up and sound the alarm, what else could we do?"

"Anything else! Tie them up, gag them or... or something! But don't just kill them! It would be my fault and I don't want that on my conscience!" Val pleaded.

"Ugh... Fine! Cal, grab the rope out of my bags, we'll tie them to that tree there. I don't think they will be seen there. Val, you gag them, since this is your plan and all, I'm sure you won't mind standing guard." I said as I began to drag Key Switch to the tree.

In short order, Cal and I had undressed the Slavers and helped tie them to the tree. We left Val to take care of the two unconscious bucks and made for the door. The entrance had been fitted with large metal doors, luckily for us, one of them had been left unlocked. After one glance at them, I then knew all too well why one of the bucks was named Key Switch. The locks could only be opened by unicorn magic, there wasn't even a key slot to try and pick, that's just not fair.

The doorway opened up to a large office area... well, what used to be a large office, now it looked more like a place where ponies got their heads bashed in while they were awaiting transport to various places in Filly. The old walls had multiple bullet-holes, punched in spots and blood smears about the place. It felt more like a raider's den than a place where you would find Slavers being held up.

"Cal, toss the place! I have to find something to cover up with. One look at my wings or my stripes and I'm fucked."

"Way ahead of you Joe. Look what I found!" He said proudly as he pointed a hoof to a room labeled "Contraband".

"Now what do you suppose is in here I wonder?" He said as he hoofed the door open and jumped in head first. With a loud crash and a spray of well used artifacts, Cal began to dig for anything to help me with my very worrying feathered problem. Inside there were boxes upon boxes of just... things. Things that had once been owned by the now-residents of Filly, no doubt, but mostly just useless things.

"Ok, look for something, anything I can wear."

"How about this?" Cal said holding up what was left of a pre-war dress. "It's got sequins!" He said giving the ruffles of the bell-end a wave. No sooner than he had touched it, it fell apart.

"Stop fucking around! These are other ponies memories!"

"Fine fine... What about this?" He said, throwing me an old towel.

"Cal! I'm serious! What the fuck am I supposed to do with a fucking bath towel!"

"No dumbass, It's a hooded-jacket-thingy." He said as he took it into his magic and slipped it over my head and forehooves. "I had one of these once, they are super warm and you can cover your head with the hood! It's perfect!" As much as I wanted to argue with him, it was in fact covering everything incriminating on my body. "See, it even has the Hoofington Reaper's Logo on it! Badass, eh?"

"Ok fine, this will work. What about you?"

"I'm going to use the shit we pulled off the Slavers, I think if I mix the two outfits together, I can make something they haven't seen before." He said and he started trying on the various items. I set myself to moving my knife from my hind leg to my left front leg as he did whatever magic he needed to make his outfit match up to his insane standards.

"Step one done, but what about getting around?' I said as I tried to roll the sleeve of my jacket over my Pipbuck.

"Now..." Caliber started as he made his adjustments to his ensemble. "We pretend to be Slavers." He said as he started for the doorway to the interior of Filly. "Just follow my lead."

Outside, the fog had began to roll in and with it a very hazy view of a bombed out old city. The smell of sulfur, waste and noxious chemicals filled my nostrils along with a wet, musty smell that I could only describe as that of a swamp. In the distance, large buildings pumped out huge billowing clouds of smoke that polluted the air around us like a cloud of silent death. I narrowed my vision and tried to focus it on where we needed to go. From the map that Cal had drawn earlier, we looked to be in some sort of pre-staging area for... something... Slaver parties, maybe?

"Wow... Talk about your murky weather, this place feels like a swamp!" Caliber said as we both began to head south-east towards the buildings.

"Keep your voice down." I said trying to hush him to a dull roar. "Do you want to get caught?"

"Joey, the first rule about sneaking around like this is to blend in. This isn't one of your snatch and run jobs where your creep around for hours on end before you finally get your cover blown and have to resort to bullets. It's all in how you look and sound, the rest is just being quick on your hooves." He said giving me a shove.

"Ok, I'll try- Ow! Why!?" I shouted as I fell into a ditch.

"That's for forgetting about Fetch... Try HARDER."He said as he extended a hoof towards me.

"There is poo in here!"

"Harder!" He shouted as he pushed me back into the pit of filth.

"Ugh... Fuck! What the fuck asshole!"

"Better... But work on it." He said as he finally helped me out of the ditch... That he threw me in... What an ass.

"Celes-"

"Stop. Don't talk about Celestia, Luna, fuckin' any of those winged bitches. Slavers are notorious for hating them. They all believe the word of Red Eye or that crazy 'Goddess' thing..." he said as we trotted towards a guard post in the center of the road.

"That's going to be a hard habit to break..."

"It's easy, just replace their names with shit and fuck and you are golden." He said as he fired a cleaning spell towards me.

"Ok... Fuck damnit... Dear shit... Mother of fuck..." I said aloud. Caliber fell to his side and began laughing hysterically.

"Oh fuck! Stop! Please! It's like a colt trying to learn his first cuss words!" I couldn't be sure, but I think he was actually wetting himself.

"FUCK YOU! I have had years of cussing a certain way and now it's all fucked! Why don't you take a hydraulic suck on my shit pipe you wet stain on a fucking mattress!" My words were met with him nearly blacking out from lack of oxygen. Honestly, what was the big deal about this, why was this so funny to him?

"Perfect... Joey... Fucking perfect!" He said as he stood to wipe a tear from his eye.

"I really hate you sometimes..." I said as I trotted off.

"Hey, don't think for a second that I have forgotten why we are here or that it took you too damn long to remember. My kindness towards you is not a show of forgiveness. I'm thankful that you put Firefly on hold to find him, but none of that will change anything if we don't find him."

"Firefly? I could honestly care... give a fuck about that or the caps. I fucked up, I'm going to fix this and I'm doing this for Fetch, not you. Yes, I want your forgiveness, but maybe you should make this less about you and me and more about your SON." I said jabbing him with a hoof.

"Ok... Look. Sometimes you are hard to read, I never know what is going on with you because you never talk about this kind of shit."

"Ask next time. The last thing we need is to be at each other's throats in here."

"Good point." He said trotting ahead of me. See, why can't mares work like this. They say a thing, I say a thing, we resolve and move forward...

We came to the guard shack for the factory district of Filly no worse for wear than when we had came in. Despite all of my thought of this place being teaming with Slavers and their subordinates, we had yet to actually see anypony since we had arrived. The area beyond the gate had been largely barricaded around the various buildings and structures. A large chain link gate separated most of Filly from this area from what I could tell and us from where we needed to go.

"Halt! Who's there!? Show yourselves!" A guard shouted at us. I froze in place, I looked around me for someplace to run but we were in the wide open. My natural reflexes to fly nearly kicked in before Caliber sounded off.

"I'm fuckin' trying to! It's fogy as shit if you haven't noticed, dumbass!" Great, now we are going to die.

"Whatever..." The guard muttered. "What are you doing here after hours?" He asked as we approached.

"Seriously? With all the new shift changes, with all the new Slavers here, with everything that has been going on, you have to ask why we are here?" Cal said trotting closer to him.

"Cut the attitude, you know the rules, nopony in or out after midnight without orders."

"We have orders! We were sent here to guard those little fuckers by the factory." Caliber said, matching the guard's tone.

"You mean the order of kids sent to the yards by the chemical plant..."

"Yeah, cut me some slack! I'm fuckin' tired, overworked and sick of this shit! I just want to finish this last shift and GO. THE FUCK. TO SLEEP! And I don't need a guard fucking with my orders." Cal said, taking a step closer.

"Fine! Get your asses inside! And tell Wicked Slit that she needs to tighten up on her fucking messages because I'm not in the mood for dealing with this shit anymore!" The guard shouted to us both before locking eyes with me. "Hang on a second, who is that?" Before I could mouth the words, Caliber had already taken care of the talking for me.

"How can you not know who the fuck this is!? Your a fuckin' guard!" Caliber pointed towards me. Oh shit! Oh fuck! Caliber is going to turn me in for forgetting about Fetch! Fuck! That low down dirty little shit! I'll kill him! My face narrowed on both the guard and Caliber as I started to shift my weight to the left to better ready my knife. If I was going to go down, Cal and this guard were coming with me!

"This is Jackel!" My body was overcome with both numbness and pure confusion, but my glare never faltered. "You know... The guy hunting down that fuckhead 'Coyote Joe'?" Caliber said as if the guard should know.

"Wait... I thought Lazarus and Peeko were hunting him down? This is the first I'm hearing of this!" The guard said in confusion. Lazarus and Peeko? What the fuck!? Ponies are hunting me!? Well, I shouldn't be surprised... But still! I would have loved to have know this as soon as that order was given! Either they are very sneaky or they are very stupid because I don't recall seeing any signs of anypony tailing us. And I would know, I check often.

"You narrowed eye'd moron... Do you really think those two fuck ups are the only two after him? Master Red Eye would never be so stupid as put all his bits in one basket! What kind of guard are you!?" I shouted, finally breaking my silence.

"HEY! How was I supposed to know!? I thought two Griffons were more than enough to bring in that half assed tracker!" Griffons? Ok, that changes things. Sure I could keep an eye on ponies on the ground, it's what I do. But Griffons!? Fuck me, we have to get out of here and fast! If they were after us then there is no telling how long they had been trailing me. But even with all that weighing on my mind, one thought lingered in my brain. Did he just call me half assed!?

"Well, you listen to me you fucked faced, puke maned, nutsack chin... If you think two Griffons can bring down a pony that can fly, who's special fucking talent is tracking down other ponies and killing Slavers as sport, then you are no better off being here than being one of the fucking SLAVES!" I shouted in his face.

"...Puke mane?" The guard said, pulling his mane into his own vision.

"This buck has killed hundreds of us, how do you know those two Griffons are not lying dead somewhere?"

"I... I don't" He said, falling back into his shack.

"The very fact that I am here and not trying to find that asshole already has me in a bad mood, the fact that you are in my way is pissing me off and if you don't remove your hideous, testicular ball bag of a chin from my presence, I'm going to cut. it. off." I said narrowing my eyes to him.

"Fuck me, alright..." He said as he worked the switches to open the gate.

Caliber and I trotted through the threshold as if we had something important to do, all the while with the buck behind us talking to himself about his mane and face. "I don't have a puke mane... Do I?" I had to stammer a laugh at his new beauty complex as we ventured further into the belly of the beast. I could get used to this! Saying what was really on my mind and how I thought about them was liberating! SOOO therapeutic.

"Nutsack chin?" Caliber asked.

"Well he has got one." I said as I tried to keep my laughter down.

"He's gonna need a lot of therapy after that... I think you gave him an inferiority complex or something." Cal said as we shared a look together followed by us both laughing and saying "Fuck him..."

This wasn't a factory district... This was hell on Equuis. The closer we came to the buildings of the outlying areas, the more the heat grew. It was like its own brand of radiation that cut through the cool night air and burned away the fog around us. The smell was so acidic that I had to force myself not to cough with every breath I took. I had been in some real nasty places in my life, but this place felt like it was trying to kill me from the inside out. Caliber was taking it all in stride, partly because he was more in his element than I had ever seen and partly because he was an unicorn.

Pegasi are naturally more susceptible to airborne pathogens due to their increased lung capacity for long flights and shear amount of effort that it took to fly. I know this thanks to the book Ditzy slipped into my bags. The very same book she and Caliber used to break my wings back into position when I had broken them back in Silver Sheen... Oh what a wealth of good things that book has been. I should burn it.

I had been so lost in my thoughts that I nearly didn't notice the fact that we had trotted right past a group of slaves being lead by a Slaver out of a factory. I looked up just in time to see the face of a mare right as I collided nose to nose with her. The poor slave never saw me coming with her muzzle to the ground until she saw my hooves and looked up. The impact sent both of us falling to the ground seeing stars. My natural reaction to help her to her hooves or ask if she was ok was mercifully cut off by her presumed slave master.

"Roxie! Watch where you are going!" The guard sounded off. I was nearly caught off guard by her whip as it cracked over me and fell across her side. Roxie... I know that name... I think...

"S-Sorry! Please forgive OW!" She screamed as the whip once again found exposed flesh. I stood up before she could raise the whip again and cut a glance in her direction. Even from under my hood, I'm sure the glare I was giving bled through.

"What are you looking at!?" She shouted at me.

"A dead mare if she doesn't get her shit together." I growled as I advanced. Caliber put a hoof to my side but it was no use, I was already thinking of ways to end this mare's life.

"Why, you little stinking shi-" She started.

"If you don't get your slaves in line, I will see to it that this is the last fucking day you bump into me, got it?" I said pushing her head away from me.

"Fuck! I thought you were a slave! What are you doing wearing that stupid thing!?" She said, backing away.

"I have a... ACHOO! A cold." I said, sneezing right in her face. "Not that it is a half-assed Slaver like yourself's concern!"

"Holy shit! GROSS! What the hell!" She shouted as she stumbled back. "Take it out on her you gross bastard! She bumped into you, not me!"

"And these are your slaves, you are guiding them." I said raising an eyebrow.

"Whatever! Germ infested ass..." She mumbled as she continued to lead them out of the factory. As I passed the mare who had bumped into me I tried not show remorse but it was hard considering what happened. I had not been paying attention and she paid the price for it, a fact that was clearly visible on her light green coat in the form of blood. I swear I had seen her before... Somewhere. But I pushed it to the back of my brain as I set myself towards finding the stable of fillies and colts where we thought Fetch was being held.

"Did you really have to sneeze on her?" Caliber asked as he looked to see if the cost was clear in order to check the map.

"Yeah... Why?"

"Joey, her mouth was open."

"So?"

"That's just..." Cal started.

"Hey! What are you-" A Slaver began but was quickly cut off by my reflex reaction of both being scared shitless and me drawing my knife against his throat.

"Who... the fuck are you?" he managed to cough out.

"Who the fuck are you?" I asked as he pawed at my hood. I had seen him before too. I think he was... Just then, he managed to push my head down and I saw his eyes grow wide.

"You! It's you! You are that fucking tracker! If you kill me, they will know..."

"Know what? That you are dead?" The buck seem to take stock of his situation before falling into a nervous grin.

"H-Hey... There is no need for all of that now... Is there?" I pulled the knife from his throat but kept my hoof firmly planted on the side of his skull.

"I don't know, is there? Where are the fillies and colts being held?" I asked him quietly.

"Why should I tell you OW!" His loud squeak was muffled by my hoof as I slipped the blade between his legs.

"Oh fuck! Ow! They are two buildings down, cage is in the back, combination to the lock is 4483... Please! I'm a virgin!" He stammered as I press the blade hard against his groin.

"You wouldn't lie to me... Would you?" I said, grinning an inch from his face.

"OK! OK! The combination is 0101! For fuck sakes! What else would it be!?" I withdrew the knife from his privates and took note of the large amount of blood that had covered it... I really need to dull this thing or something. I stepped back from the buck who was now clutching his privates and allowed Caliber to deal the blow that would take him out of his misery.

"I... I think you cut the shaft! Oh shit! Oh-" The sharp crack of hooves on skull rang out through the small alleyway that we were in as Caliber knocked him completely cold in one swift kick. Thankfully, no pony heard it among the roar of machinery.

Checking to see if the coast was clear, we slowly emerged from the shadows and started in the direction that the buck had told us. All along the way we passed groups of slaves that were being lead to and from various places around us. Some of them looked like they were nearing death as they did their best to keep up with the group. Those who fell behind were either beaten or whipped by their masters in an effort for them to work harder. If Red Eye was trying to forge a city from nothing, he was in fact doing it. The problem was that he wasn't doing it from nothing, he was doing it on the backs of ponies who were unwilling.

Up ahead, a guard stood before a locked cage near a building that looked and sounded to be the only building that was not only out of operation but devoid of power. The blacked out windows and gaping hole in the building's upper levels shown that it had been subjected to a blast of some sort recently and as such had been closed down. The guard out front eyed us quizzically as we approached him before finally turning to face us both.

"...Yes?" He said indignantly.

"Shift change. You're out, we're in. Get lost." Caliber said and I took position beside him.

"What? I've only been here an hour? What gives?" He asked, looking around.

"Beats the shit out of me. We got sent here under orders to watch some kids." I said, looking beyond him to the old brass padlock on the gate.

"Fuck me... They really need to get their shit together. This is the second time today they have fucked up my schedule. First the foundry, now here. I could be sleeping right now!"

"Yeah, instead you are sitting here bitching..." Caliber said with a flat glare.

"Damn it... Fuck this..." He said as he stomped off in anger all the while complaining about everything wrong in his world at that moment.

"Cal... How in the fuck has this worked?" I asked as I felt myself falling back down from the high of the last hour's events.

"I told you... it's all in how you sound and what you know. Slavers are fairly stupid, so long as you keep it vague and remind them of how stupid they really are, they will go with the flow. You just have to make the flow work in your favor." He said as he nudged me out of the way so he could stand guard as I worked the lock with my hooves.

"Yeah... but still. I feel like this is all going too-"

"Shut your whore mouth. Don't you dare say something that will ensure that this all goes to shit."

"...Well." I muttered as I felt the lock click open. "Ok, put the lock back on after I go in, DO NOT LOCK IT. Just hang it on the latch."

"Joey... I can remember 0101..."

"Still..." I said as I slipped inside the crude holding pen.

All around me were small alcoves that had been crudely fashioned and looked to had been done so in haste. My guess was that something had happened here to force them to have to move them all here rather than a proper holding area. In the darkness I could make out the silhouettes of little ponies moving about as I made my way further into the prison cell. Just then, my hoof landed on something soft and squishy, followed by a sharp "Eep!"

"So sorry! Are you ok?" I whispered as I reached down to the filly I had just stepped on. She recoiled from me, instead curling into a ball and began shaking. Her hide had the tell-tale signs of whip marks that had been freshly healed atop older scars that were further along. These sick fucks were actually beating them, healing them back up, only to beat them again?

"What did they do to these kids..." I mumbled as I stepped over her and proceeded further. Slowly, my eyesight began to alquimate
to the darkness and the shapes began to take on colors. I scanned the area but my worst fears were realized when I came up empty hooved. After several long moments, and right about the time I was about to give up, my ears picked up on the same tones as Fetch's coming from the far corner of the room.

The area was littered with waste, food scraps that had been picked nearly clean and smelled to have been used as a bathroom by the whole group of them. His muffled cries were only covered by the sounds of rustling covers and whimpers in the darkness. I slowly made my way closer to what looked to be a small mound of old newspapers and trash what was quivering.

"Fetch?" I grunted as I tried my best not to gag from the smell. Two eyes looked up at me followed by a look of horror and fear.

"P-Please! Don't hurt me anymore!" He cried out as I watched his small form shrink even further into a ball. "I won't help any more! I swear!"

"Fetch! It's me! Joey!" I said as I trotted closer.

"Jo-Joey?" He stammered as he peered out from beneath his mountain of waste he was using as a blanket.

"Yes, it's me! Com'on. We are going to here you out of here buddy!" I said, reaching for him.

"Don't hurt me! It's a trick!" He shouted as I pulled him from the rummage.

"Fetch, it's me. I swear! I taught you to read, Caliber is outside, we have to go!" I tried to say to him, but he wasn't listening. "What did they do-" My words fell flat as I brought him into the light of one of the cracks in the wall. In the amber glow that shone down on him, I watched as his cringing face slowly turned towards me and his watery eyes began to open. Fresh scars littered his muzzle from being whipped repeatedly with one that had fallen right across his left eye. Thankfully for him it looked to be superficial, but I welled up with tears when I saw his horn.

They... they broke it. They just, broke it off. The jagged edges of his once small spire atop his forehead had been severed just an inch before his scalp. Fresh blood had matted with his mane turning it from the blue and cyan that I saw back in Tenpony, to a sickly brown.

"F-F-Fetchy?" I managed to get out as I took my hood off and looked down on him. His eyes locked on mine and I watched as horror melted away and relief began to set in.

"Joey! It's really you!" He near shouted as he wrapped his hooves around me. His little legs locked down with a surprising amount of force, making me gag as his broken horn stabbed me in the throat.

"Yeah, it's me, buddy... I'm here."

"Is Caliber with you?"

"He's outside. We-"

"Actually, Joey. I'm not." I turned to see Caliber working his way backwards towards us as his eyes were locked on the door. I stood up with Fetch in one leg and trotted to his side.

"How many?" I asked as I tried to focus my attention towards the door.

"Two..." Cal said quietly.

"Ok, we got this. You-" I started but was cut off by the sound of anti-machine rifles as they roared and punched massive holes in the walls around us.

"Griffons! Two Griffons!" Caliber shouted as we fled to the back wall.

"Holy shit! Are they in power armor!?" I screamed as I gave Cal a boost to the small vent window of the factory beside us.

"YUP! It was a setup Joey! They must have found Fetch and knew that we would come for him! Those two Griffons the guard mentioned, It has to be them!" Caliber said as I passed Fetch up to him and took flight towards the window. Just as I did, the wall behind us fell in as Lazarus and Peeko thundered their way in behind us.

"Where the fuck is he!?" One of them shouted as we started up the catwalk towards the hole in the ceiling.

"Cal, hop on!" I shouted as we made for the skies.

"Can you out fly them!?" Caliber shouted as we shot through the hole in the building and banked for the guard post at the entrance for the factory district.

"YES!" I shouted back.

"Are you sure?" Cal said, his voice edging on worry. I looked back to see the two griffons now rounding the building and taking flight.

"NO!" I screamed as I dipped out of the air just in time to dodge a round from one of our pursuers.

I had hoped that by flying from building to building that I could give them the slip, but I had not counted on them being such good fliers. I ducked and dodged as I did my best to lose the two catbirds. I rounded a corner of what I thought was the refinery and shot upwards over the roof. With any luck we would be near the factory limits and we could lose them in the fog. I skirted the rooftop and as luck would have it, just on the other side lay the fog curtain. I aimed us all at it and pushed for anything I had left for more speed. Right as we entered, I felt Caliber tense up on my back, followed by a loud explosion behind us.

"Fuck! My hoof!"

"Is Fetch ok!?" I shouted back to them.

"I'mokay!" Fetch responded.

"Yeah but the round grazed my hoof!" Caliber said in pain. I looked back hoping to see a minor injury but what I saw was the entirity of the top of his hoof missing. I had forgotten just how devastating one of those rounds were, if one of those finds their mark...

"JOEY! LOOK OUT!" Caliber shouted. I turned my head just in time to see the guard shack's window a few feet away. Thinking quickly, I backflapped as hard as I could and aimed my hind hooves at the plate glass window. Just before I hit, I clearly made out the guard who I had called 'puke mane' staring right at us from the other side. Sorry...

With a loud crash, my hind hoof impacted his muzzle, sending him back flipping in the air and landing in a heap across the room. If he was worried that he might been ugly before, now he was going to be mortified when he came too. I watched as Fetch flew after him and land atop the now unconscious buck before bouncing and landing on all four hooves. Cal and I on the other hoof tumbled and rolled into the middle of the floor before scrambling to our hooves once more.

Behind us the sound of anti-machine rifles rang out in the distance and the sounds of their rounds impacting the ground and roof of the old shack were undeniable. Huge gaping holes were being torn in the roof as we bolted for the door and once more took flight. The fog had become so thick that I couldn't see my own hoof in front of my face, making flying all the more dangerous this low. Busting through the fog layer would spell certain death if those two were above it too, it would also make us sitting ducks for any of the patrol balloons. I pulled up just in time to avoid hitting a half broken light pole that I nearly didn't even see right in front of me.

"Shit! This is what they want!" I shouted.

"Joey, you have to get out of this! We are going to crash!"

"If I go up there we are going to get shot!"

"We are just going to have to hedge our bets on them sucking more than us! LOOK OUT!" He shouted as I dodged a low lying power cable. As much as I hated it, he was right. I couldn't see anything down here and if we got lucky enough, we would make for the barn and pick up Valkyrie later. I pushed up and began arcing us towards what I thought was the right direction... It wasn't. No sooner than my head came above the fog I was looking right at one of the Griffons that had been chasing me. He had not noticed me yet but it wouldn't be long before he did.

Sure enough, as I bolted, I watched as his massive rifle swung into our direction and let out a thunderous explosion. The round ripped right through my tail hair, ripping out a large strand that made my body go tense from the pain. If I had not been motivated to fly faster before, now I was! I looked back as I started to gain altitude and saw him fall in pursuit. Not long after, from nearly the same place as we had emerged, the second Griffon flew out of the fog and gave chase.

"Shit! They have us covered!" Cal said, looking back at them.

"Fuck! I need a gun!" I shouted in frustration.

"I have a gun!" Fetch shouted as he held up an old pipe pistol he...

"Where did you get that!?" Cal and I both shouted at him.

"I took it from the guard you kicked... I'm sorry... I didn't mean to steal it..." Fetch said solemnly but was quickly reaffirmed in his thievery when Cal gave him a smile and patted his head in a show of job well done.

"Cal! Take the gun you moron!"

"I can't! My hoof is all fucked up!" He shouted as he fumbled with the pistol.

"I can't shoot, I have to get us out of here!"

"I can shoot! My hoof isn't fucked up!" Fetch said.

"Fetch!" Caliber and I shouted. "Watch your mouth!" Caliber said, looking back to the Griffons that were now closing the gap. It wouldn't be long before they caught up to us judging by their speed.

"Fetch, aim for their visors! Oh Luna, I'm putting my faith in a cussing, stealing colt!" I shouted in vain. Fetch took the pistol into his mouth and began to wobble about as he aimed.

"That's it! Now, slowly squeeze the trigger-" I started.

"BALLOON!" Cal shouted at me as I turned to see the muzzle of yet another anti-machine rifle pointed right at us. We were right on top of the damn thing! I back flipped in the air just as Fetch fired off a round towards the first Griffon. I watched from our upside down position as the round glanced off the first Griffon's mask and struck the gas tank on the balloon we nearly hit.

A massive fireball erupted from the giant pink head as it began to spread out around us, scorching even more of my tail and lapping at my hind hooves as I dove back towards the ground. Behind us the roar of fire and screams of Griffons cut through the air like a knife, the heat from the blast washed over us as I once more flew into the fog below. I looked back and saw the glow from the sky behind us and paused for a moment, the amber colors being all but muted by the dense fog around us.

"I think we lost them..." Caliber said, breathing a sigh of relief. I stood hovering in the air, watching the massive fireball grow, and grow, and... A huge flaming pink face started to come into view just as I noticed that it was not growing anymore...

"Shit! Fly! Fly, damnit! Fly!" Cal shouted as I lurched forward towards the wall. The giant stupid face on the balloon was now not only on fire, but falling right on top of us. Bits of burning plastic began raining down from the sky like molten metal, whizzing as they fell past us. Just as we reached the wall, I felt a searing pain radiate up my side, followed by my right buttcheek being hit with hooves.

"Joey! You're on fire!" Fetch shouted as he and Caliber pounded at the flames with their hooves. "I know! It's my ass!" I shouted, fighting through the pain as I flew over the wall and down to where Valkyrie stood slack jawed and the two very much so now awake guards we had knocked out earlier. Behind me, part of the balloon fell across the wall and began to melt as it burned away into the night sky. I rushed to her side, nearly throwing Caliber and Fetch in my haste to make a quick getaway.

"What the fuck did you do?" Val asked as I started rolling on the ground and rub my haunch in pain.

"No time! Place is on fire now! Fetch did it! Not our problem!" Caliber shouted as he threw Fetch on his back.

"What!?" Val shouted as she and Cal started back up the hillside towards the barn.

I rolled back to my hooves and tried to push through the pain as I tried to re-orient myself enough to fly after them. The burning was so intense in my hindquarters that I could barely move my hind hoof without cringing in agony. I was about to take off when I looked at both the guards who were both still tied to the tree with shocked looks of horror across their faces. I tried to wave to them, but their eyes remained locked on the fireball that we had just created. Padlock's eyes finally darted to me for a brief second and then back to the now growing inferno behind us.

"Sorry..." I said, smiling to them as I took flight. Behind me, amidst the crackle of flames I could just make out Padlock talking.

"So, this is what happened..." His words were cut off by both the wind in my ears and one of the most infuriated screams from Key Switch I had ever heard.

I raced towards the barn, flying right past Caliber, Val and Fetch to get to the cart. We had to get out of here, if those Griffons knew we were coming (and the small detail of us setting a large area of no pony's land on fire) what were the chances that they would not be looking for us now? Hell, what were the chances that they made it out of that explosion? They were wearing power armor after all and I have seen those suits take a lot more damage than that!

"Shit! Shit! Shit! Get in the cart! Get into the fucking cart, I think we pissed them off!" Cal shouted as he and Fetch stumbled in the cart and crashed against the back wall. Val was close to follow, completely out of breath and her every movement looking more forced by the second.

"WAIT... FOR... ME!" She shouted as she blew right passed Zu and Shale who were still packing my rifle into its case and rushed to the cart. It wasn't until Shale had nearly cleared the rear gate when the two Griffons once more gave chase and zeroed in on our location.

"Do you think they see us?" Valkyrie asked as I lined up for take off away from them. Just then the two murderous metal bastards locked on to us and began sending bursts of fire in our direction. Rounds bit deep into the barn's large oak supports, blasting massive gouges into them as they expanded on impact. Shrieks and cries filled the air around me as round after round flew over head and directly at the rear loading gate of our lumber wagon.

"JOEY! You better have a good fucking plan to get us out of this!" Shale shouted at me from the front window of the cart. I searched in a panic for anything to help us, but outside of them returning fire with my rifle, nothing came to the forefront of my mind. There was no way I could out fly them attached to this thing! I couldn't lead them away either, that would just leave the rest of the group sitting ducks for the rest of the slavers. I had to do something! Anything.

"They are getting closer! We have to get out of here!" Zu screamed to me over the sound of bullets impacting wood. At this rate it wouldn't be long before they brought the whole damn barn down on us or blew us sky high. Wait! That's it! I turned the cart away from the gunfire and started backing myself further into the barn's interior. I was going to need one hell of a run up for this, especially with this much weight on my back.

"Joey! What the hell are you doing!?" Cal said as the rear of the cart slammed in to the barn's back wall.

"Something! hold on to something, TIGHT!" I said as I pawed the ground for better grip and tensed my back. My wings stretched out and I began to flap to try and negate the weight as I readied myself for what was about to come next.

"Joey! Wrong way! Birds with guns that way, safety that way!" Zu shouted as I lurched forward. My hoofsteps echoed off the walls of the now collapsing tobacco shack as I charged through the gunfire. All around me bullets smacked into wood and dirt, showering me with debris and splinters as I shot out of the barn door and down the hillside. The Griffons began to give chase, falling from the sky like stones after us as I flapped for all I was worth for more speed. It didn't take long for gunshots to start ringing back out as I dashed for the wall and the fog.

"Their right on top of us!" Shale screamed as she started unpacking my rifle once more.

"HANG ON! JUST A LITTLE FURTHER!" I screamed as I gave it my all for one last push as we pierced the fog once more. Behind me I could hear the screams and war cries of our pursuers as they closed the gap. Ahead of me, the glow of the wall began to permiate the thick veil around me, at this speed it wouldn't be long before it was going to be too late. Perfect! I guess now is as good of a time as any.

With what felt like the weight of a hundred ponies on my back, I pulled up and flapped as hard as I could and shot straight up. Just as the cart began to arc out and trail in behind me, it slammed into the wall and tore away a large chunk of the still burning balloon. I looked back to check on everypony on-board only to see the flaming flag of pink latched onto the tailgate, leaving a black vapor trial in our wake. Two loud thuds rang out in the night air as we blew through the fog layer and started to ascend towards the clouds.

"YOU GOT THEM!" A squeaky voice said as I neither bothered to slow or level out in my trajectory. I didn't get them, it wouldn't belong before they were back in the air and chasing after us. They had to be the ones the guard had talked about, and if that were the case...

"There they are!" Valkyrie yelled out. Yup... Called it. Red Eye doesn't just send lackies to do his dirty work. He always bets on a sure thing, he sent two of his best to find me and the chances of them just giving up after a short dog-fight in the air was less than zero. I looked back to see them already searching out the grey haze in a grid for signs of us. Too bad for them we were nearly 3000 meters above them, and climbing.

"What are we going to do! We are sitting ducks!" Shale called out to me, but I didn't let up. I just kept flying higher.

"Joey! Slow down, you won't stop in time!" Cal shouted as my wings kept beating. Every muscle in my body ached, no doubt that if those two assholes on the ground spotted us now, I would have no chance at losing them again. All I could do was grit my teeth as rain began to fall in my eyes the closer the clouds came.

"JOEY! SLOW DOWN!" Nearly the entire group shouted, but it was too late. We slammed into the cloud layer far faster than I thought we would as the grey mist consumed the cart and I. It felt like an eternity until we broke through the other side, truth be told it probably only took a few seconds, but when you are wondering what evils waited for you on the other side of the mystery clouds... Secretly I was just hoping that we wouldn't be blown up by those cannon things, but when all I saw was the vast nothingness of sky and moonlight, I finally began to slow.

I eased off of my near vertical aim and began to fall back the now cloud floor. I had seen the moon before, I had seen the stars but... The stars had never looked so... Clear! Everything around us was bathed in a blue light, the clouds painted the color all around us in shades of black, purple and deep blue on the spires and mountains of clouds. Even if we ended up dying up here as Ditzy said I would if I ever crossed the cloud layer, at the very least it would have been worth the view.

I don't know what I expected. Buildings? Houses made of clouds? Rainbow waterfalls? But even in the nothingness that surrounded us, I had not expected it to be nearly as beautiful as this!

"Joy... It is..." Zu started.

"Beautiful?" I ask, my voice faltering under the grandeur. Behind me came the sounds of aw and wonder at the new world we had just crossed into. Fetch was even trying to climb out of the cart to touch the clouds around us. His father wasn't far behind him, though he wasn't trying too hard to stop him either.

"LOOK! FLUFFY CWOUDS!" He shouted as he tried to reach for a small puff ball that had found its way into the cart.

"It is... your home." Zu said as I began to circle one of the mountains of fluffy white air for our final heading. Just as I rounded the far side of the curtain of mist, my jaw hung open. The moon came fully into view and bathed us all in its majestic light. It was half peaking from the valley that the winds had swept the clouds into, showing like a beacon, giving this extraordinary world light. I dipped down into the chasm and began gliding my way along the pillow-like walls, letting my wingtips slice through them as we pulled away from Filly and into the night.

"This is... I don't have any words... I had always heard stories but... I never believed them." Valkyrie said... Great, if she didn't have wing fever before, she damn sure would now.

This is what I had been missing all those years. I had feared nearly nothing at all as I skirted my way across the Wasteland just a few meters away from a place I could only describe as heaven. For something like this to be lying just above Filly, a place that I often thought of the embodiment of hell on Equuis, really gave gravity to that thought. Even though I was smiling for the moment, my heart was breaking to the tune that this place was not mine. Zuri has said this was my home... But was it really?

I was born in the Wasteland. A cast-out-reject from a tribe of Zebras. I spent my life seeing some of the most horrible things that this world had to offer me, done things that nopony should ever have to do, see things nopony should have to see. This wasn't a place for a pony like me, I didn't even feel like I deserve to be here, let alone enjoying this so much.

Finally, after what felt like a safe amount of time, I allowed us to dip back below the cloud layer and into the world we all knew, but most definitely would never miss. We had put so much distance between us and the dank sucking hole what was Filly that I was shocked to see us nearing the border to Fetlock. At this rate, we would make Tenpony by lunch and be heading back to... damn it... I did still have to do that thing with Firefly and Furnace...

Honestly, did I really have to go back there? Was it even worth the trouble? Sure it is Shale's home and all but, she could totally make a new home with us. Who am I kidding. She would never go for that, even if she did have the hots for Caliber. No, we need to get Fetch back to Tenpony and then we can deal with our problems like mature adults. I mean, we did just take on Filly and survived fairly unharmed, I'm sure we could deal with a angst riddled teenager with a gun and her fat mother.

"Ya'know Joe. If we are going to be smashing up Slavers together, we should think of name for us." Shale said as the others continued their talk of the mysterious fluffy place beyond our reach.

"What? That's stupid. What's wrong with..." Caliber started but failed as no words came to mind.

"SEE! That is what I am talking about! Without a name, what do you call... US?" Shale snapped.

"How about The Lightning Bolts!" Fetch said, bouncing from one side of the cart to the other.

"Nice try, but no." Caliber said as he snatched him out of the air before he could jump out a window.

"What about Joey's crew?" Val asked.

"No way, that's just stupid." Caliber barked.

The debate raged on behind me from the rest of my... Still! What do you call ponies who are more than friends but less than family! Sure we work well as a team, the day's events proved that much by us not dying. Granted, we behaved like a group of wild animals most of the time, we even fought over food. But none of us were blood related, so calling us family was out of the question of actuality, though, it did feel right... I paused for thought, lamenting the fact that I could nickname ponies without a thought yet couldn't think of what to call US.

"Fine, if we have to have a name, we at least have to all agree on it."

"What about the Coyote Pack?" Zu asked, breaking the conversation.

"Why?" Shale finally asked, breaking the silence.

"Joy is the leader, we follow him. We do as he asks and are loyal to his word, no? That is not unlike the coyote or the wolf." Zu said.

"Just how did you find this all out, exactly?" Cal asked accusingly.

"I read it in your book."

"You went through my things!?" Caliber shouted, sounding more hurt than mad.

"I was bored." Zu replied flatly.

"YOU ATE MY CRACKERS TOO!?' Cal whaled as I heard the sound of him emptying his bags across the floor.

"You snooze, you lose!" Zu said in a childish mocking tone.

"Would you grow up already!?" Shale shouted. Ah, there's mom... "Zuri. What makes us like coyotes?" She asked.

"The coyote is a pack hunter. There is a leader and there are those that follow him. He protects the pack and he sees to it that they are well fed and safe. Coyote packs work together to bring down their dinner, each has their own job, their mission to help the pack. Joy's name is Coyote, no? Then we should be called The Coyote Pack." Zu said proudly. A long silence followed as everypony tried to come up with a logical reason why we should be called something else. Even I was drawing a blank on this one. As much as I didn't like having my name tied to a group like this, it sounded right. Less than family, more than friends.

"Do coyotes have to poop outside?" Fetch asked seriously, effectively breaking the silence. Celestia, I had to grab my crotch to keep from peeing on the now laughing group of ponies behind me.

"They are coyotes, they can poo anywhere." Zu said seriously.

"What? I don't want to poop outside!" Fetch said in confusion as we started our way into Fetlock and back to life as we knew it.

Author's Notes:

Welp, that only took forever! But still, I had a lot of fun with this chapter. It felt so good to be back in the saddle and writing again that I almost completely forgot what it was like to do this! I had to take time off to deal with my local group and our trip to B-con and all, but now that it is over and my work schedule is finally normalizing some, I have finally found the time to write again!

I truly missed writing about this group and now that I have had plenty of time to think it over, I know where this story is heading. I look for it to hit the 800k marker (maybe more if things get complicated) and for it to go all over Equestria at some point.

At any rate, I hope you are enjoying the show so far! Sorry for the long chapters, but I have far too many fart and poop jokes in my head and I have to get them all out or I will go insane. Feel free to leave a comment below! I love talking to anyone who reads this and hearing what you all have to say about all the craziness going on here!

Much love, Rocco!