I felt like my heart was going to burst through my chest.

The six of us in our squad waded through the river, with the water coming up well past my knees and soaking my stomach. Thankfully it was summer, so the water was warm, but it made my thick tail feel like a twenty pound weight attached to my rear. I guess on the bright side, the shrike ripping about half of my mane off meant that it wasn’t dragging through the water, too. The slippery riverbed beneath my hooves had also nearly sent me into the water, and I could feel water dripping off of my muzzle after my latest slip up. Pun maybe intended.

Despite how unpleasant wading through the water was, the real reason why I felt like I was going to have a heart attack was because of what lay ahead of us. The river passed through three nested iron grates set inside a massive wall about twenty feet high with nothing but smooth, slanted metal to prevent it from being scaled. Flanking the grates and the river were two towers, each one with dual heavy machine guns pointing down at us. The Crimson soldiers in the towers were so close that I could make out the designs of their war paint and hear tidbits of their conversations over the sounds of birds and the running water.

The only reason that they didn’t notice us was because of the other unicorn with us. Warped Glass was what the other Sentinels called a warlock; he relied more on his magic than his guns and armor to do his job, and was just as deadly while remaining very versatile. While we approached the Fort, he was responsible for keeping a cloaking field around us so we wouldn’t be spotted. I’d been really nervous about it at first, because to me, nothing looked different except for a shimmering of the air in front of us. Sig and Zip had to literally drag me out from behind the rocks to get me to move with them. At least my terror kept me quiet; even though we were invisible to the Crimson, they could still hear us if we talked.

And then there was timing to consider. We waded into the water five minutes ago to make sure we were in position by the Fort when the frontal assault started. However, as Glass told me before we started, maintaining a cloaking spell is taxing enough as it is for one pony, but increase that to a field big enough for six, and the caster will get tired quickly. We still had a few hundred more feet to go until we were against the side of the Fort, and I could see the sweat pouring off of Glass’ face. If he dropped the spell, we’d be cut down where we stood. Those machine guns looked like .50cal; it’d only take one bullet to drop each of us, and there were four barrels up there. The odds weren’t in our favor, and Sentinel armor wasn’t going to stop them.

The two earth ponies with us, Runabout and Failsafe, each offered Glass a shoulder to lean on so he could concentrate on his spell. When I first saw Zip in action, I thought she had a lot of guns, but these two had an entire arsenal at their disposal. Their bulky armor had the standard six gun ports that all Sentinel armor had, but they’d also strengthened their chest pieces with extra metal and had gone so far as to strap miniature rocket launchers to their armor. Each pony carried sixteen tiny rockets, eight on each flank, tipped with antimatter warheads that gave each one the punch of a cruise missile. We were relying on those rockets to get us through the grates blocking the river and to make short work of the machinegun nests once we had the signal.

I tried to stay as far away from those two as I could. Not because I didn’t like them or anything, but if they got shot, I didn’t want to be a part of the chain reaction. There’s dying, and then there’s being disintegrated by antimatter.

Zip and Sig walked at the front of our group, their faces unreadable masks. In the calm before the storm, they remained focused and loose, as if the danger we were in didn’t faze them at all. Still, I could see Zip’s wings twitching, like she was ready to take to the skies at any moment. I wasn’t sure if I should’ve been comforted or worried that even badass soldiers like her could get nervous.

After what felt like a lifetime, we made it to the wall of the Fort. I had to remember to stifle my sigh of relief; we were close enough to the towers that the guards would’ve been able to hear even the tiniest sound. Still, we were in a blind spot between the two towers, so Glass dropped the invisibility field to recover before the fight. As he did that, we ducked into what little cover we had in the corners next to the grate across the river. By some luck, I ended up next to the grate, and I carefully peeked through the opening to see what awaited us on the other side.

I saw maybe ten Crimson soldiers in the back, shooting at targets across the river hidden behind various assortments of makeshift cover. It seems that even slaving and raping bandits found the time for a little target practice now and then. They didn’t seem to have any obvious superior watching them, so I guess they were just doing their own thing. I wondered how exactly the Crimson organized themselves; I didn’t really see anypony that looked like a sergeant or whatever during the attack on Blackwash. If there was some identifying mark, it had to have been in their war paint, but I wasn’t a savage sicko so I couldn’t tell.

I also noticed a distinct lack of slaves. Well, I was looking for my friends specifically, but I didn’t see any slaves outside. I’d imagined seeing big pens or cages with the ponies from Blackwash stuffed inside like animals, but there wasn’t any of that to be found. If there were slaves here, then they had to be inside one of the buildings.

That just meant I’d have to shoot my way through every last one of them until I found my friends.

A sharp crack echoed over the fortress, making me flinch away from the grate. For a few long, terrifying seconds, the six of us just stood still, not daring to move, and hardly daring to breathe. We looked at each other, the same question in all of our minds. Was that the signal, or just a misfire?

Then the shooting began in earnest. The rapid chattering of numerous guns firing, both near and far, pounded my ears. Heavy machine guns thumped from their positions on the walls, and the Sentinels’ guns responded with this awful noise that sounded like a piece of sheet metal being torn in half. Soon, I could hear the blasts of explosives, and the ground began to tremble as the earth ponies in Thunder Dash’s platoon fired their antimatter rockets.

An alarm sounded, and another peek through the grate let me catch a glimpse of the drilling Crimson in the yard grabbing their weapons and dashing towards the diversion. I felt a hoof on my shoulder and turned to see Zip silently questioning me. I gathered what she was asking and nodded. She nodded back, then waved her hoof at the rest of the squad. It was time.

Zip, Sig, Glass, and I huddled together while Runabout and Failsafe darted away from the wall and into the open. A foggy white shield formed around us, courtesy of Glass’ magic, and our walking artillery batteries went to work. I saw the holographic visors in their helmets flash red, and a second later, each earth pony loosed a rocket at a tower. The little rockets were hardly bigger than my hoof, but when they hit the towers, they let out a brilliant flash of light and an eardrum popping boom as their antimatter warheads detonated. The force of the blasts shook the earth around us, but amazingly the towers seemed unscathed. That wasn’t to say the defenders inside were unharmed, though. Plumes of fire some thirty feet long rocketed out of the windows of the towers, incinerating everything within in an instant. At least it was a painless death, since I doubted the Crimson inside even lived long enough to register the pain of being incinerated. It was still better than the fuckers deserved, though.

Still, even with the diversion in the front, somepony was likely to notice that. We had to move quick and take the courtyard before the Crimson responded.

And that’s what Glass’ shield was for. As soon as she dropped her tower, Runabout pointed her rocket pods at the grate over the river and fired. The little rocket whooshed out and struck one of the bars in the center of the grate before detonating, blowing it to pieces and scattering tiny fragments of steel shrapnel everywhere, leaving behind glowing, dripping white bars that’d been heated to their melting point by the energy let off by the missile. Glass’ shield prevented us from being incinerated, although I did note that there were cracks in the shield as he let it down. It had held, but just barely.

Zip wasted no time springing into action. Her wings opened in a flash, and before the smoke even cleared she was darting toward the hole in the wall. “We take the watch!” she cried, the turbulence off her wings making the smoke swirl in her wake, and leaving the rest of us to scramble afterwards. The adrenaline poured into my blood, fighting off the terror that tried to paralyze my limbs, and sent me after her, SM45 held in my magic. My hooves splashed up water that promptly made its way into my face, nearly blinding me as I dashed into the Fort.

No turning back now.

As soon as I parted the smoke and galloped out of the river, I came to a stop. Zip had already deployed one of her covers and was hiding behind it, firing bullets through the portable force field at Crimson soldiers on the other side. The synchronized, rapid firing of the six guns in her armor was mesmerizing, as they fired in succession to create an almost continuous stream of lead at her targets. That also explained their distinctive buzzsaw sound, which I imagined was really intimidating if you happened to be downrange of a Sentinel.

Of course, the middle of a battlefield isn’t a good place to be having thoughts like that. I gasped as a heavy weight hit me from behind, nearly knocking me over before dragging me across the ground. After a second of struggling I recognized the sharp grip of Sigur’s talons on my shoulder, and also saw the ground where I’d been standing explode into puffs of dirt as bullets slammed into it. Once he’d dragged me to the cover Zip was behind, the griffon released me and helped me stand back up. He handed me my gun, which I guess I dropped when he hit me, and nodded to where Zip was firing. “Shoot now, daydream later, okay?”

I nodded, taking the gun in my magic, and surveyed the situation. We were in the open behind one of Zip’s deployable covers, facing toward the center of the fort. Glass, Failsafe, and Runabout had likewise deployed a cover, and were hiding behind that as they pelted the walls with antimatter rockets and lightning to swat the defenders off of them before they could flank us. Behind us, the second infiltration team was storming the walls and towers, clearing them out and securing our rear from Crimson attack. That left just a few scattered defenders in front of us, who’d quickly taken up cover behind crates and anything else they could find. We needed to kill them to make our way to the first building in front of us and clear it out.

Time to get to work.

My little submachine gun didn’t have the range to accurately hit them from this distance, but I was a unicorn with line of sight. While Zip and Sigur kept the Crimson hunkered down behind cover, I widened my stance and let my horn flare to life. Across the courtyard, a large pile of crates that two bandits were hiding behind began to glow orange. My bright magic was hard to miss, especially when it was happening right in front of them, so the bandits broke cover and ran, afraid of what I was going to do next.

Which was absolutely nothing. The crates were too heavy for me to pick up, and I didn’t know any complicated spells that could’ve made then explode or something. But that wasn’t the intention. As soon as the Crimson soldiers darted into the open, Zip and Sigur cut them down with sprays of their weapons. I flinched as I was pelted by hot shells, as I was standing between the two of them, but all things considered, those two bandits got the short end of the stick.

“Push!” Zip screamed, and she turned to point her right side toward the Crimson, inadvertently whipping my face with her tail. There was a small crack as separator charges detonated underneath the deployable cover attached to her side, propelling the steel rectangle downrange. It let out a blinding flash of light as it hit the ground, momentarily stunning the bandits nearest to it, before another translucent barrier appeared ten yards away. As soon as the cover deployed, Sigur spread his wings and leapt over ours before dashing toward it, the air around him rippling as his armor deflected a few stray rounds that might have hit him. By my side, Zip unloaded with her guns, keeping the Crimson with more powerful weapons down and behind cover. Once Sig had landed safely, he began shooting at the ponies closest to him, completely tearing the skull off of one as multiple bullets ripped through the bandit’s face.

Then Zip slapped me on the shoulder. “Move! I’ll cover you!” she screamed. The carnage around us was so loud that I almost couldn’t hear what she said, though she got her point across pretty quickly when she pointed to the cover and began firing. Gulping, I galloped around the side of the cover and bolted straight for Sigur, trying to stay low as I moved. I heard a few bullets whizz past my ears, and I stumbled once when it felt like somepony had bucked me in the side, but I carried enough momentum forward that when I did trip and fall, I was able to slide behind the cover with Sig. Grunting, I flipped onto my hooves and poked my gun around the corner of a crate a few feet away from me before unleashing a torrent of bullets. I didn’t stop shooting until I saw a bloodied hoof appear in the open around the corner of the crate. That’s the benefit of telekinesis.

In the face of our advance, several of the less disciplined Crimson broke ranks and fled deeper into the fort, abandoning their comrades at the front as they sought shelter inside the buildings. I sprayed my SM45 at them as they ran, hoping that what I lacked in accuracy I’d make up for in sheer number of bullets. I’m pretty sure I shot the dick off one stallion as he ran, because he immediately fell and clutched his nethers, and I couldn’t help but wince a little. In fairness, he probably deserved it. Who knew how many mares he’d defiled anyway?

Still, it afforded Zip a chance to join us, so that’s what she did. She flung open her bright orange wings and darted into the sky, attempting to replicate the little maneuver Sig had pulled off earlier. Only this time, the Crimson were ready for it. I don’t know where the shot came from, but it must’ve been from a rifle instead of a submachine gun. The air around Zip physically contorted as the bullet slammed into her shield until finally, with a bright flash of light and electricity, it ripped through her barrier and struck her in the leg. Her scream of pain turned my blood to ice, and it was all she could do to flap her wings and get behind cover before she could get shot again. I used my telekinesis to catch her as she fell so she wouldn’t hit her head on the ground, and immediately rushed to her side.

To my surprise, she shoved me back with her good hoof. “Keep fighting!” she cried. “Keep shooting!” I was too shocked at the fury in her voice to really do anything else but what she said. I could see some concern in Sig’s face as he likewise kept firing, but he didn’t stop to help Zip at all, instead focusing on driving the bandits back.

Between us, Zip clenched her teeth and stopped writhing long enough to get a look at her wounded leg. It must’ve been good enough to her, because she opened a pack on her armor and produced a metal ring and some gauze. While we forced the Crimson away from our position, Zip slipped the metal ring around her foreleg above the bullet wound and bit down on it. It took me a second to realize that she was using some kind of tourniquet to slow the blood flow to her leg while she wrapped her lower leg in gauze. She moved like she’d done this before, swift and precise, until she knotted off the reddening gauze and stretched her limb a few times. The small metal bracer around her foreleg flashed and extended two metal rods that traveled the length of her leg from her knee to her hoof and joined underneath.

Amazingly, she was able to get back on her hooves and join us in cutting down the last of the Crimson in the area; I assumed that those rods kept her weight off of her hoof so that she could still stand and walk until she got some actual medical attention. The air around her pricked my skin with static discharge, and only when I saw it shimmer and flicker did I realize that her deflector shields had reactivated.

With no more Crimson in sight, Glass and the other two ponies in our squad moved up to join us. “The walls are clear, for now,” Failsafe said, nodding to Zip. “The second squad has seized the south wall and is making their way to the front. What are our orders?”

Zip frowned and I saw a few lights flicker on her holographic visor. “Commander Dash, this is infiltration team Apple. We’ve taken the courtyard, and Buck team is clearing the walls.” She was silent for a moment as Thunder said something I couldn’t hear, then nodded. “Affirmative. Moving now.” She turned to face us. “We’re on signal duty. We’re to clear the buildings until we find the data cache stolen from the listening outpost and secure it for transmission to the Bastion. We’re going to start with this one here,” she said, pointing to the building closest to us.

She winced in pain as she set her wounded hoof down, and Sigur effortlessly took over for her. “Set breaching charges,” he said, directing Failsafe and Runabout to the wall. “Watch your fire when we breach; we don’t want to hit the data banks or any slaves they might have inside. Glass, you take care of any bandit using equine shields.”

While Sig coordinated the breach, I hovered near Zip’s side like a concerned mother. “Are you alright?” I asked, fear creeping into my voice. Even if the wound wasn’t life threatening, it didn’t stop me from panicking.

“Fine,” Zip said through clenched teeth. “Just happy the bullet didn’t go through something more vital. A leg’s easier to replace than a brain.” She tested her leg, and I could see that the brace kept her hoof about an inch off the ground. “I can still walk, and I can still fight. They may have slowed me down, but they haven’t clipped me,” she said, flexing her wings and letting a confident smirk appear on her muzzle.

Stars I wanted to kiss her.

“Zip!” Sigur shouted, distracting us before I could act on my hormones and make a fucking fool of myself. We turned toward him to see Failsafe finish placing a white bar on the wall and backing up while Sig, Runabout, and Glass all stood huddled against one wall. Zip spread her wings and fluttered over to the opposite side of the bar, and I followed her, using the opportunity to press myself as close to her as I could without being weird. When we were in position, Failsafe threw a white square on the ground and stomped on it.

The bar between our two groups glowed red and began to hiss. I noticed the steel wall of the building bend and buckle around it, before with a deafening crack that left me dazed, the wall just imploded around the bar and collapsed, leaving a gap for two ponies to enter side by side. Zip and Sig were the first inside, and I heard them immediately begin firing. Me and Runabout followed them, and I shielded my eyes from the dust and debris still hovering in the air.

It felt like the world was in slow motion as I jumped through the gap. Zip was on my left and Sig on my right; both were shooting at Crimson that tried in vain to run away from them. Directly in front of me was a bandit that was trying to pick himself up off of the ground, but I didn’t give him a chance. I lowered my SM45 and fired directly at him, watching the bullets rip him apart before he could even grab his own weapon and shoot back. A submachine gun might have been awful at a distance, but it was much more suited to close quarters. I couldn’t possibly miss.

After eight shots the weapon let out a helpful chime telling me it was empty, so I dropped the empty mag and slotted a new one in, looking for any more targets. There was only one more Crimson soldier left in the building, and he was wounded. His feeble attempts to crawl away were hampered by a broken leg that looked like it’d taken a few bullets to the bone. I growled and pointed my gun at him, ready to end the job, but a white glow of telekinesis overpowered my orange and pointed the barrel up. Startled, I looked behind me to see Glass’ horn lit and him shaking his head at me. “Don’t. There’s nothing to be gained from killing a defeated enemy. Besides,” he added, pointing toward Sig, who was already stalking over to the wounded pony, “the dead can’t talk, but the living can.”

He let go of my gun and joined the other Sentinels in searching the room, which looked like a storeroom of some kind. Frowning, I set the safety on my SMG and slung it over my back; despite Glass’ cautioning words, I still felt tempted to shoot the last fucker the first chance I got. For now, however, his life was in Sigur’s talons–literally. The griffon had grabbed the earth pony by the throat and held him against a wall, with the six guns on his armor pointing right at the stallion’s center of mass. Zip joined him by his side, so naturally I trotted over to accompany them. While the earth pony struggled with the vise-like grip Sig had on his neck, the griffon took off his helmet, no doubt to expose his menacing beak and intimidate his prisoner. “A raid was staged on a nearby settlement five days ago. Your friends left with a bunch of computers and data banks. Where are they?”

“C… C-Comm tower!” the stallion choked, struggling to breathe. His powerful hind legs tried to buck at Sig, but the griffon was too close to him for him to get any leverage on his strikes. “Trying… trying to beam the message back to the City! Ivory City! But it’s encrypted and we can’t access it! Please, I don’t know anything, just let me live!”

Sig frowned and abruptly released his hold on the earth pony, who fell to the ground, wheezing for breath. “You’re not worth the bullets,” Sig said, kicking the pony’s gun to Zip, who picked it up and sliced it into two glowing pieces with the lasers on her wings. “If I were you, I’d stay down until this is all over. Unlike some ponies, we treat our prisoners with respect.”

Zip nodded to add a little emphasis to Sig’s words, then turned to the rest of us. “We’re moving!” she exclaimed from the breached wall. “The comm tower’s just on the other side of these buildings! That’s where we’ll find the signal!” She turned directly to me and added, “If I’d stolen some tech from a town that knew how to use it, how much do you want to bet I’d get some of those ponies to make it work for me?”

The implication was clear there, and I wasted no time getting to my hooves and galloping over to her and the rest of our assembling squad. Behind me, the stallion reached for us and wailed. “Wait! Don’t leave me! I’m bleeding! There’s so much blood!”

Zip rolled her eyes and grabbed one of those tourniquet rings and some gauze out of her supplies and threw them at him. “Place the ring above the wound and bite down on it, then wrap it up. You can deal with the broken leg later, so long as you don’t mangle it by trying to move.”

While the terrified bandit tried to stop himself from bleeding out, I turned back to Zip and Sig. “I’m ready,” I said, checking my submachine gun and adjusting my saddlebags. “Let’s do this.”

So we did.

There were about a hundred yards of open space between the storeroom and the radio tower, along with a bunch of rallying Crimson, fresh off the walls to try to stop us now that we’d been discovered. But we didn’t give them the chance. Sig, Failsafe, and Glass all deployed covers into the open while Zip darted to the rooftops and began firing down on the Crimson. Runabout found an opening between us and fired two antimatter missiles at the bandits, killing a ton of them and scattering the rest. And me? Well, I just shot as many bullets as I could at them while they ran.

Turns out that in the face of that much firepower, there’s nothing you can do to mount a decent defense. We ripped them to pieces in a matter of minutes. Between the hail of bullets, antimatter rockets, and Glass’ elemental spells, we scattered and killed dozens of Crimson, and the survivors very eagerly surrendered. The path to the comm tower was clear.

Of course, I wasted no time in breaking down the door. And by that, I mean I waited for the other Sentinels to breach it when my attempts at throwing my weight into it and bucking the corners failed miserably. At least give me some credit for trying, alright?

Sig was much more successful at opening the door, given that he had laser bladed wings and all that. All he had to do was activate one of the blades and then jam it into the doorframe until it melted straight through the hinges. Grasping the protruding edges with his talons, the griffon heaved and tore the door down.

For the record, I helped with the last part. Telekinesis is pretty useful when you apply it right. I just don’t want you thinking I did fuck all on this mission apart from being another gun.

What I wasn’t expecting to find was a dead bandit slumped against the door with a set of pliers sticking out of the back of his neck.

The comm room was dark, apart from a glowing set of monitors at the back end of the room. Red emergency lighting provided an eerie glow that the steam hanging in the air scattered into a confusing haze. Something metallic popped under the floor, sending shivers down my spine.

Zip frowned at the body by our hooves and pulled the pliers out, the ends stained with blood. After a second, she chucked them aside and looked up at Sig. “You remember those old horror vids we used to watch with the others on break?”

“I didn’t need you to remind me,” Sig muttered, rubbing his beak with his talons. Then, readying his wings, he began to cautiously stalk into the building, the red light on his wings making him look terrifying. “Whoever you are, come on out. We don’t mean to hurt you. We’re here to rescue you.” When he didn’t hear anything, he frowned and began check the lockers and behind some of the pipes covering one wall, closing the valve that was pouring steam into the room.

Meanwhile, I casually trotted past him and began prying up the floor tiles with my telekinesis.

“What are you doing?!” Sig hissed as I started chucking the tiles aside. “We don’t know who killed that guy, not for sure. If it was the slaves, you could scare them and they’d attack you by mistake!”

“Oh, I know exactly who did this,” I said, grinning. I searched around with my telekinesis until I felt something hiding beneath the floor and began pulling it to the opening I made. There was a cry of alarm, and that something struggled against my grasp, but I had a pretty solid hold on its tail. In a few seconds, I hauled out a greasy and bruised zebra and held him in the air by his tail. “Hey, Gauge! Remember me?!”

Gauge blinked and rubbed his eyes in disbelief. “Ember? Is that… you’re alive?!” I gently set him down, and he immediately dashed over to me, where we collided in a teary hug. I was startled when he all but collapsed in my forelegs, almost too weak to stand. It’d only been five days since the attack, but I doubted that the Crimson were giving him much food, if anything at all. Gauge was already a lean stallion to begin with; it wouldn’t take much for starvation to take its toll on him.

Smiling, we separated from our embrace and nuzzled each other. “Yeah, I’m alive,” I said, fighting back tears. I couldn’t believe I was seeing him again after everything that’d happened to us. “It wasn’t easy, but I’m here.”

“When they loaded us onto their flying machines, I didn’t see you with us…” Gauge said, swallowing hard. “I feared the worst. I thought one of these painted fuckers had taken you out back to rut before they threw you in with the other mares. We all saw what that Carrion stallion did to you.”

I shuddered, remembering that moment with vivid clarity. My hoof unconsciously traveled down to my flank, rubbing the seared flesh they’d burned over my cutie mark. It was still pretty painful to touch; hopefully that would go away soon. Gauge saw it too, and he placed a hoof on my shoulder. “Stars, Ember, what happened to you?”

“I could ask the same thing about you, but we don’t have time for that. Not now.” I looked around the room and spotted a few more ponies crawling out of the darkness. I noticed that they were almost all techies and greasers, ponies I knew from Blackwash, plus a few unfamiliar slaves that were so starved they looked like skeletons. Despite that, I didn’t see a white pegasus with a fiery red mane come bounding out to greet me. Frowning, I turned back to Gauge. “Where’s Nova?”

Gauge’s breath caught in his throat, and the entire stallion deflated like a heavy weight had been pressed down on his shoulders. “They took her away a few days ago. They said they needed her and some of the other important techies at their base.” His eyes widened, and he stepped a bit closer. “This is all about that signal, Ember. They’ve been trying to get us to unlock the computers they stole from us. Beating us when they get impatient,” he added, pointing to a nasty welt caked in dried blood on his cheek. “And then I overheard one of them saying that they got a piece of the signal at their base, some dam or something…”

“There’s a signal at the dam?” Zip suddenly cut in, trotting up to us. Behind her, the rest of our squad trotted into the building, keeping their eyes peeled for any sudden attacks from the shadows. I saw Gauge eying them warily, so I stepped between the two groups and rested a hoof on both Gauge’s and Zip’s shoulders.

“Gauge, this is Zip. She’s with the Sentinels, and they’re the ones liberating your lucky ass today.” Then I turned to Zip and slapped Gauge on the shoulder. “Zip, this is my friend, Gauge. We’ve been close ever since we were foals. He’s a dirty greaser, but he kept all the shit at Blackwash running. Hasn’t met a machine he can’t fix with enough elbow grease and the right tools. Speaking of which,” I said, eying him with a toothy grin on my face, “did you seriously kill that bandit with a set of pliers?”

Gauge shrugged. “Anything’s a weapon if you use it the right way.”

The corners of Zip’s muzzle twitched into a smile. “Pleasure to meet you,” she said, shaking hooves with Gauge. “Can’t wait to talk more. If you’re a friend of Ember’s then you’re good in my books.”

“Likewise,” Gauge said, taking a step back. Then, looking to me, he asked, “I hope we have an escape plan?”

I nickered and waved my hoof. “Pssh. Yeah, totally.” Then I abruptly turned to Zip. “So what now?”

But it was Sigur who answered me. He fluttered in from the side of the room with his big griffon wings and looked around us. “Buck squad is storming the gatehouse now. They’ll get the gates opened and Thunder will join us.”

“And the prisoners?” Zip asked.

“Failsafe is staring them down outside,” Sig said, smirking. “They’re too afraid to try anything, because they know that she can erase them all in an instant if she just fires one rocket at them.”

“Good.” Then, sighing, Zip took off her helmet and let her sweaty black mane tumble down the side of her face. She sat down on a stool with a weary smile and shook her head. “I can’t believe we did it,” she said to nobody in particular. Then, smirking, she arched her back and stretched her wings to their full orange glory. “I am going to get so shitfaced tonight.”

I chuckled and sat down. I didn’t like alcohol all that much, but I could probably be persuaded to take a few drinks by a pretty mare.

Okay, I promise I’ll try to tone down the ‘I’m so attracted to her’ remarks. Just assume it’s my default state of mind for now.

Once they heard that news, the slaves, or I guess I should say former slaves began to rejoice. They embraced in teary hugs and cried out in excitement, and several came my way to give me a hug and say their thanks. Even if I didn’t really speak with some of these ponies all that much when we lived in Blackwash, we were still all from the ill-fated town, and we’d all suffered. That in itself was reason enough to stick together and commiserate after all we’d been through.

I couldn’t help it. Seeing all the joy in the faces of ponies I knew broke me. Like a bursting dam, my emotions welled up and poured over, spilling tears down the side of my face.

We’d done it. I’d done it. I never thought I’d actually help topple the Crimson, yet here we were. And though we still had a long way to go, this was a start.

One day soon, I’d find Nova, and Brass, and everypony else they still had, and I’d set them free. One day, I’d make this all right.