I squinted and frowned at the scrap of paper sitting on the table. Next to me, Fusillade and Zip shared my expression, and Zip even scratched the end of her muzzle with a wingtip. Across from us, Nova sat in Gauge’s lap, watching the three of us with a pleased expression. I couldn’t tell if that was from giving us what we were after, or simply that Gauge was holding her close. The two hadn’t separated since they’d been reunited, like they were afraid that if they ever let go, they’d lose each other again.

“Any other markings?” Fusillade asked, shifting her attention to Nova. “Anything else that could tell us what we’re after?”

Nova shook her head. “I couldn’t say. As soon as we broke the encryption on the message we received, Carrion moved us from the Fort and had us work on the one the dam got. Once he had both pieces of code, he gave copies to that scary pegasus… Yeoman?” The three of us standing across from her nodded, and she placed her hooves on the table. “Yeah, he gave the copies of the downloads to him, and then they had us wipe the mainframes here. Though I think from what you’ve said, you guys attacked the Fort before they were able to clean the computers they stole from Blackwash.”

Gauge nodded. “They’re still in one piece back at the Sentinels’ headquarters. Some of the techies left behind when he took you have been trying to pull anything else they could out of it.”

“Wish I was there to help,” Nova said, shaking her head. “Anything would’ve been better than… than this.”

I felt like somepony started wrenching on my heart. Though she was alive and in one piece (and insisted to Gauge and me that nopony touched her), she’d definitely been through a lot. Her eyes were gaunt and bloodshot, her mane and tail were huge messes, and she hadn’t been preening her wings, so her feathers were starting to fall out. There was already a little pile around the seat where she and Gauge sat, and a good number looked like they were a breath away from dropping out of her dirty wings. But worst of all, I could see her ribs, and her legs were withering and bony. She’d nearly passed out from the excitement of our reunion, so we got her some water and distributed some rations among the other slaves hiding in the tower. That’d at least got her back on her hooves again. Apparently the Crimson were only feeding them two slices of stale bread a day. They didn’t want them physically strong since they were just computer nerds so they didn’t have to worry about them escaping. I doubted Nova could even fly if she wanted to.

Gauge tightened his grip around Nova and nuzzled the mare’s cheek. “It’s over now, okay? We’ll get you better in no time.”

“Yeah…” Nova said, and I saw her hoof drift toward her left cutie mark—or what remained of it. Like me, she’d been branded, and just seeing the mark on her flank made me want to kill somepony. Unlike me, however, she didn’t have a heart, which was good. Hers was a pair of curly braces, supposed to represent computer code or some shit like that. I didn’t really know, I was just making assumptions. I didn’t want to ask her about it and remind her of any of the shit she’d been through.

I dragged the piece of paper over to me and held it in front of my face now that the actual mares in charge were done with it. It was only a single line scratched into the paper by what must have been a makeshift quill with dirt and grease for ink. Nova must’ve been in a hurry to get this down before she got caught or something.

FFFGG | I | 36-J

Fusillade looked at me, so I gave the scrap to her after trying to commit it to memory. Tucking it into her armor, she stood up and rested a hoof on Nova’s shoulder. “You have done very good work,” she said. “Your ordeal is over. Rest here for now. When the dam is secure, we will bring you someplace safer to recover.”

Then, looking at Zip, she nodded toward the door. “Come. We have work to do.”

Zip stood up, and I waited until she walked past me and Fusillade was already halfway through the door to grab her mane with my magic and pull her muzzle down to mine. She snorted in surprise but didn’t resist the kiss I gave her. In fact, she ate it up, savoring every tiny fraction of a second in the moment we had together. She didn’t say anything when we parted, and neither did I. We just looked each other in the eyes, and then she was gone, vanishing through the door, back out to the surface of the dam.

I sighed as she left, something that Nova didn’t fail to catch. “Who’s she, Ember?” she asked, angling her pretty little head. “You two seem… uh, close?”

“She’s Zip,” I said, smiling merely at the mention of her name. “She’s the current acting commander of the pegasi in the Sentinels, since the current commander is still recovering from getting fucked up in the battle for the Fort.” Then, after a second, I smirked and added, “She’s also the hottest piece of flank I’ve seen in my entire life.”

Nova giggled and rolled her eyes. “Thanks, Ember.”

Gauge kissed his marefriend on the cheek. “For the record, your flank is much better than hers.”

“Oh, shut up,” I said, dismissively waving my hoof. “Let’s not get in a dick-measuring contest, especially when only one of us actually has a dick to measure.”

“So I win by default?” Gauge asked.

“I think she was talking about herself,” Nova said, making all of us laugh. Oh, it felt so good to finally be together again, even if we were still in a building sitting on top of another few hundred angry bandits.

“I missed this,” I said, placing my hooves on the table. “It feels like it’s been years since we were all together… all happy. You know?”

“More like lifetimes,” Nova said. “What happened since then? I thought for sure you were dead when they didn’t put you on that flying machine of theirs with us, Em.”

I rubbed my hoof behind my neck. “It’s a long story…”

“Do I look like I care?” Nova asked, smiling slightly. “As far as I’m concerned, we’ve got all the time in the world to catch up.

“Well, alright. Better make yourself comfortable on Gauge’s crotch…”

And with that little quip out of the way, I told her everything. From the moment the Crimson led me away from the rest of them in Blackwash, to me joining the Sentinels, the attack on the Fort, the betrayal at the quarry, up to what I went through just to get to her that day. Gauge supplied little anecdotes where he could and felt like it, and Nova just patiently listened to everything. She only interrupted once to tease me when I kinda-sorta mentioned that me and Zip had taken a romp or two (or several) in her bed since we got back from the Fort. But, after giving her the abbreviated version (which still took like fifteen minutes), I finally got her up to speed on all the shit that’d happened over the past three weeks.

Nova whistled and shook her head. “You sound like you’ve been through hell. Thank the stars that they kept you safe!”

“I’m pretty sure the stars tried to kill me about as much as they helped me, but whatever. I’m alive.” I swallowed hard before I said, “And you… Did they treat you… you know?” When Nova shuddered, I figured that was an awful way to go, so I shifted the conversation a bit. “What about everypony else from Blackwash? Is Brass still here? What about your dad?”

Nova drew her skinny forelegs in closer to her bony chest. “Brass is s-still fine,” she squeaked. “A-At least, I think so. It’s been awhile since I… s-since I saw him.”

Concern spread across Gauge’s face, and he pressed his cheek against Nova’s. “Nov, what’s wrong? Is it… is it your dad?”

Oh fuck. The poor mare was trying to fight back tears. Standing up, I made my way around the table and wrapped her in a hug. “Nova, I’m so sorry…”

“T-They k-k-killed him,” Nova hiccupped. “They h-had him do s-something to the computers before they wiped them. They only let him s-see… T-Then they k-killed h-him…”

In that instant, she shattered. My best friend broke down sobbing, face buried in her hooves and shuddering with each breath. Gauge and I held her as tightly as we could between us, simply trying to ease the pain with our presence. I remembered feeling exactly how she did when Mom died in the attack. I only wished that Nova didn’t have to feel that, too.

While she cried, Gauge and I locked eyes over her head. I knew he was planning just as much as I was how we were going to torture Carrion to pay him back for what he did to Nova. But apart from my always-present rage at Carrion and how I wanted to kill him in increasingly painful ways, another question poked at the back of my mind. Just what had Carrion made Stardust do to the computers? Was there something he wanted in the signal? That seemed like the most likely option. It would also explain why the fucker killed him when he was done. Whatever that secret was, I had a feeling that I needed to figure it out. I didn’t like the way it all sat in my gut.

Nova eventually recovered; instead of sobbing, she only shook quietly against Gauge’s side, her eyelids puffy and her teal eyes staring forward into nothingness. I wanted to stay there longer to comfort her, but the door opened and Zip stuck her head in. “Ember,” she said, pointing the way she came with a wing. “You’re need—oh, uh, shit. Is this a bad time?”

“No, it’s…” I held up a hoof and tried to assure her with a sad smile. “It’s fine. We’re just… just grieving together.”

Zip slowly nodded her head. “Whatever it is, I’m sorry,” she said, her eyes flicking to Nova, who didn’t even react to her presence. Then they darted back to me. “We’re rallying for the next stage. We’re going to free the rest of the slaves still held inside the dam and kill Carrion. We’ll put an end to this before lunch.”

I took a step away from Nova and Gauge. “Alright, I’ll be there in a minute. I just need a moment with these two.”

“Right. I’ll tell Fusillade you’re on the shitter or something.” She chuckled and shook her head. “That’s not a bad idea, actually,” she mumbled to herself as she turned around and shut the door behind her.

I shared a look with Gauge and just chuckled and shook my head. “The mare I love,” I said, reaching forward and rubbing Nova’s back. Then I wiped the smile from my face and pointedly met Gauge’s eyes. “Stay here with her, okay? Look out for the other slaves, too,” I said, nodding toward the other end of the room, where the other six slaves we’d rescued were huddling amongst themselves.

“Are you sure?” Gauge asked, sitting up a bit straighter. “You sure you don’t want us to—?”

“No. Don’t even think about it.” I gave him a firm frown. “You can hardly shoot, and Nova’s too weak to move right now. Besides, she needs you here with her. Just… just stay out of it, okay?” I asked him. “After all we’ve been through… please don’t go and get yourself killed trying to fight with me. I know what I’m doing, and I’ve got the gear and training for it. Plus I have Zip and Sig to bail my ass out if I really need it.” Picking my rifle up from where I’d set it against the wall, I slung it around my neck and rested a leg across the top. “I promise to bring the bastard’s head back so we can take turns face-fucking it until we’re happy.”

Gauge made a disgusted face and almost gagged. “That’s fucking disgusting, Em.”

“But you imagined it,” I said, smirking. “Too bad there’s no such thing as brain bleach!”

I trotted to the door and opened it with my magic when I heard Gauge call out behind me. “Ember, wait,” he said, and I stopped where I was to look at him. Nodding to me, he simply said, “Stay safe. Kill them dead.”

“Thanks,” I said. “And I plan on it.”

As soon as I stepped away from the shelter of the central tower’s walls, I was buffeted by the wind ripping through the valley. On my right, I could see the reservoir rippling with whitecaps and choppy water. The trees on either side of the river swayed in the wind, and the smoke rising from the dam dispersed as soon as it got a few feet off of the ground. I could feel the moisture in the air, and my ear twitched when a raindrop hit it dead center. Thunder rolled over the dam, shaking the air around me. It wouldn’t be long now.

I saw Zip and Sig standing in a throng of Sentinels, mercs, griffons, and volunteers in the shelter of a row of buildings that kept the worst of the wind away from them. Galloping across the open surface with the wind trying to rip my thick mane and bushy tail out of my body, I managed to slide between them and breathe a sigh of relief. “Good thing we’re going inside, right?” I joked as a light mist began to fill the air around us. “Fighting in the rain sounds like it’d suck.”

As if the heavens just wanted to fuck with me, lightning flashed, thunder roared, and it began pouring two seconds later.

I frowned as the pouring rain drenched me to the bone in seconds. Of course my fucking shields didn’t do anything about the water pelting me. They could deflect projectiles traveling at the speed of sound, but not fucking rain. Around me, everypony (and everygriffon) recoiled from the downpour, but Fusillade refused to move, so the rest of us weren’t moving either. In fact, I’m pretty sure the Prench mare glared at the clouds above us like she was calling them out or something.

Zip shivered by my side, trying to cover her head with her wings. Smirking, I made an orange shield with my telekinesis and held it above our heads, extending it enough to get Sig under it, too. Most of the unicorns in the huddle did the same, adding colorful splashes of magic to an otherwise dreary, gray day. Sig waved at his siblings who all stood together without magic to cover them, trying to keep each other dry with outstretched wings. One of them splashed water at him, earning a snicker among the griffons, though that died pretty fast when Fusillade decapitated it with an annoyed scowl.

“We have done well to get this far,” Fusillade said, her eyes sliding over the crowd assembled in front of her. “But seizing the tower is only the beginning. Now comes the hard part: killing Carrion and putting an end to this once and for all.”

She touched a few buttons on her left foreleg bracer (buttons my armor didn’t have) and projected a simple hologram of the dam. “We’ve secured the four buildings containing the stairways that lead into and out of the interior of the dam,” she said, and four sections of the dam lit up, two on each side of the midline. “They’re fortified to resist a mass charge in case the Crimson try to break out, but they’ve likely fortified the lower levels themselves. Carrion wants to force us to play a game of numbers with him, and that is a game he will win.” Her eyes looked past us, and I looked over my shoulder to see rows and rows of bodies covered in black tarps snapping in the wind. “We’ve lost too many to play that game with him now.”

“But, with data and building plans secured from the central tower, we’ve identified another way in.” The hologram of the dam shifted to show the back middle, where I could see the intakes that led to the turbines inside the dam and the spillways on the other end. “The dam has not used its turbines in centuries,” Fusillade said, “which means that we can use them to access the interior, behind any defenses that Carrion may have set up. Right now, the water simply overflows to the spillways. The spillways are connected to the interior of the dam for maintenance and monitoring purposes. That is our way in.

“Once inside, the task becomes simple,” Fusillade said, and again the hologram changed to show the interior of the dam. “Clear the Crimson fortifications at the bottom of the west stairs and make our way to the central power plant. From what the slaves we’ve rescued so far have said, the Crimson have converted it into their holding pens, as it is the largest and most central room in the dam. Once there, free the slaves, and with their numbers and our firepower, we’ll overwhelm the Crimson once and for all.”

Her eyes fixed on Zip beneath her sodden mane, a mane which clung to her faded blue muzzle and cheeks. “Commander Zip, I am giving command of the infiltration team to you. Pick as many as you need to get inside and make your way to the stairs so that the rest of us can join you. I will organize the remaining troops at the west buildings and be ready to storm the lower levels when you are in position.”

Zip nodded and moved forward into the middle of the ring. “I need nine volunteers,” she said, her eyes darting over each of us. “We’re going to move fast and hit hard. Any more than ten and we’re too slow to get to the stairs before we’re overwhelmed. So, who wants to go diving into the prickwings’ nest?”

My hoof shot up almost immediately. What, did you think I wasn’t going to be the first pony to volunteer?

Of course, Zip was expecting it, because her eyes were already on me and she nodded her head before I even fully raised my hoof. I trotted forward to her side as she also waved Sig and a bunch of his siblings over. I’m pretty sure they all would’ve come, because that’s just how they were, but there were more of them than there were spots. After some discussion among themselves, Sig stepped forward with Dacie, Gatre, Hoana, and two more of his brothers to make seven of us.

While they were discussing that, Zip had chosen Warped Glass, Runabout, and Failsafe to recreate the team we used when we took the Fort what felt like ages ago. With her team put together, Zip nodded to Fusillade. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Fusillade nodded. “You know what to do.” Then, turning to the rest of our forces, she pointed back the way we’d advanced. “Take up positions at the doors. Wait until you hear shooting to advance. Sentinels, we will lead the way once we do.” As everyone moved that way, Fusillade turned to face us one last time. “Good luck. We are all counting on you.” Then she too walked away.

That left the ten of us standing in a small cluster underneath the rain shields Glass and I maintained. “What’s the plan?” I asked Zip.

“First, we’re going to go swimming,” Zip said, and she began to walk toward the edge of the dam, the rest of us following her.

I faltered a bit behind her. “S-Swimming?”

“Uh, yeah?” she said. “We’re using the spillways to get in, so we have to go into the water. That a problem?”

I felt the eyes of everyone else on me. “Uhhh… no? I-I mean, it’s just that the water’s rough and probably cold. Isn’t that dangerous?”

“It’s still summer,” Sig reminded me. “The water’s probably about as warm as the rain. Besides, we’re already wet anyway. Not like it can get much worse.”

“R-Right. If you say so.” I swallowed hard as we finally reached the edge of the reservoir. About twenty feet below the edge of the dam, the choppy dark water of the river frothed as the wind whipped across it. It was an unnerving sight in itself, and the fact that I couldn’t swim made it all the worse.

What, you’re surprised? I lived on top of a mountain. It’s not like Blackwash had the water to spare for swimming pools!

“How do you want to do this, Commander?” Glass asked.

“I’m going to scout ahead,” Zip said. “There’s a ladder over there that will take us down to the water level. The spillways should be another ten feet down and somewhere to the right.” She bit down on a piece of metal extending from the collar of her armor and pried it loose, then stuck it between her teeth like a bit. “Good thing we have these,” she said around the thing in her mouth.

“What about us?” Sig asked, pointing to his siblings. “We can’t use rebreathers. No lips. Not like we have enough anyway.”

“I can keep the water out,” Glass said. “We’ll have a dome of air to breathe while we move to the spillway. I’ll need your help,” he said to me.

“I don’t know that spell,” I said, frowning.

Glass shook his head. “You don’t have to. Just give me your mana so I don’t have to shoulder the burden myself. You know how to do that at least, right?”

I nodded. That was something I had actually done before, back in Blackwash. Sometimes Mom needed my help with transmuting metals from the shitty aluminum we had tons of to better things like steel. She’d taught me the spell, but two unicorns casting the spell at once isn’t anywhere near as effective as one unicorn helping another to cast it much more powerfully. So I usually ended up being the spare battery for her while she worked.

“Right. Now that that’s settled, I’ll see you down below.” Zip extended her wings and shook what water she could off of them, then took a running start off the edge of the dam, fluttering the whole time. She managed to catch a little air at the end, rising up a few feet before folding her wings against her sides, twirling in midair, and diving for the water below. It seemed like not even a life or death mission was going to stop her from showing off when she could.

We peered over the edge of the dam just in time to see Zip splash into the water below. A few seconds later, her orange head reemerged from the dark depths, and she waved at us before diving down again. We looked at each other for a moment before Glass shrugged and made his way to the ladder next to us. “Guess we should get moving, too.”

Gatre ruffled his feathers behind us. “Great…”

Glass made his way down the ladder first, followed by Runabout and Failsafe. The three of them had taken out their rebreathers and stuck them between their jaws as well, I guess just in case their heavy armor weighed them down once they got into the water.

Just like I was wearing… oh, fuck me.

Sig and his siblings went down the ladder as well; I guess their big wings were too waterlogged to fly, and they weren’t keen on belly flopping into the reservoir from twenty feet up. That just left me up top, fidgeting in place. I could see Fusillade and the rest of our forces moving down the dam toward their positions. If I wanted to, I could’ve easily galloped up to them and joined them. It certainly would beat drowning, that was for sure. But was I really going to leave Zip and Sig and all my other friends I’d made behind?

I sighed and put my shaking hooves on the ladder. Loyalty and pride were going to get me killed one day. I at least put the rebreather between the bars of my mouth before I went down. Maybe that’d stop me from drowning, at least for a little while.

As soon as the water touched my hooves, I shivered. It wasn’t so much that it was cold—it was actually warmer than the rain hitting me in the face now that I’d dropped my shield—but I couldn’t see through it. I felt like I was entering an empty, murky void, even as I saw the others treading water around me. I had no idea how Glass or Sig or any of them clad in Sentinel armor could do it. Lightweight as it was, it was still heavy metal resting on our backs. I also couldn’t see Zip; I could only assume she was somewhere beneath the murky water, trying to scout out the spillways.

Taking a deep breath, I tensed my muscles and let go of the ladder.

I squeaked as the weight of the armor on my shoulders tried to drag me beneath the choppy surface, but some instinct set my legs into a furious dog paddle to try to stay afloat. It worked—mostly. I could at least keep my face above the water, but it was tiring. I felt like the frantic flailing of my limbs wasn’t doing anything. Thankfully, before I exhausted myself just trying to stay alive, I felt a pair of talons wrap around my forelegs and hold me above the water. Gasping, I looked left and right to see Sig and Gatre supporting me. “Thanks,” I said, almost breathless, as I just focused on kicking the water with my hind legs. “Just… don’t say anything, okay?” I added in a whisper. This was already hurting my pride enough.

“We should get you some practice in the river when this is all over,” Sig said, though that was all. Warped Glass clearing his throat brought our attention back to where the Sentinel was treading water, magic building on his horn.

“You ready?” he asked me, to which I nodded. Taking a deep breath and trying to forget about the endless watery void beneath me, I reached out with my magic until I felt the buzz of Glass’ horn. I found an opening in his magic and attached mine to his, essentially linking our mana supplies together. As soon as I did that, I felt a tiny wave of dizziness hit me as he began drawing mana from my body. For my part, I just focused on holding the bridge open, letting him do the work.

A shimmering shield of orange and white rippling together appeared above us, matching the two-toned pattern on Glass’ horn. It slowly spread until it encompassed all of us, the edge of the shimmering dome reaching a foot or so under the water. It looked like he’d simply taken a rain shield and expanded it a bit, made it a solid able to keep air inside as well. That had to be tough, and explained why he needed my help; making a barrier tight enough to stop air from passing in or out is incredibly difficult. I’d never been able to do it when it got really windy at Blackwash.

“So how does this work?” Dacie asked, looking around. “I mean, if it’s only a dome…”

“Just tread in place, and you’ll be fine,” Glass said, and I felt another pull on my magic. Around us, the water began to rise around the dome—no, we were the ones going down. The air pressure (or maybe it was another part of the spell) kept the water level inside of the dome the same, even as we went beneath the surface of the water. Glass pulled on more of my mana the deeper we got, I guess because of the weight of the water pushing down on us. But soon enough, with my heart pounding in my chest, we stopped descending, and apart from the light given off by our magic, things were a lot darker than they were at the surface.

Hoana shuddered and ran a talon through her raven head crest. “This is… new.”

“Definitely deeper than a birdbath,” I joked, still kicking at the water below me. I was really glad Sig and Gatre were helping me stay afloat. I swore when this was all done I was going to have Zip teach me how to swim. Learning how not to drown seemed like it’d be a useful skill to have going forward.

“Where are we going?” Dacie asked. “The water’s too murky. The storm’s kicking up a lot of sediment.”

“Follow the light,” Glass said, pointing off ahead of us. There, I could see two glowing red lines in the water, moving back and forth in paddling motions. It took me a second to figure out what they were, but I recognized them quickly enough as the laser blades on Zip’s wings. She must’ve found the spillway entrance and was guiding us over to it.

The dome began to move forward, and everyone started to swim after it to stay within the bubble of air. Sig and Gatre changing their angle and starting to swim forward themselves ended up splashing my muzzle into the water, and I sputtered in surprise and nearly swallowed a mouthful of water. Thankfully, the rebreather in my mouth stopped the water from pouring down my throat, and instead I only inhaled air. I wasn’t sure how exactly it worked, but my best bet was some kind of techno-magic bullshit. That’s how most of Equestria’s shit worked, anyway.

I like, half-paddled, half-flailed my way across the water until we finally reached Zip. The dome enclosed her, and she shook off her sodden mane and inhaled a deep breath through her nose. “Right through here,” she said around the rebreather in her muzzle, pointing to the right and swimming a bit in that direction. Glass followed her with the bubble, and we followed Glass until we could see an opening in the wall. By that point, the current flowing behind us did most of the work, and all we had to do was stay afloat as it sucked us into the dam.

Zip’s wingblades and the glow the shield gave off were our only sources of light as we were drawn through that dark tunnel. I could hardly see my hooves, but down below us, I saw red light glint off of flat metal radiating outward from a central point. “Are those the turbines?” I asked, pointing downwards. “They have to be like sixty feet across!”

“And it’s a good thing they aren’t running,” Zip said. “Whatever protective grating they had in front of them is probably long gone. We’d be sliced meat in no time.”

“Spirits,” Dacie breathed, and she drifted a little bit closer to Sig.

We followed the current for a little bit longer, past the turbines, when suddenly, out of the darkness, a white pony lunged at us.

Except it wasn’t a pony.

It was a skeleton.

I screamed, and even Dacie and Hoana uttered bird-like shrieks of alarm. The stallions and tercels in our party cursed and splashed lower in the water, which I didn’t really appreciate because it meant Gatre dunked my head under the water again. Only when we got all our wits about us did we realize the skeleton wasn’t lunging at us. It was just stuck overhead in some pipes, which we couldn’t see until we got close. Still, it looked like it’d been there a while. Its jaw was missing, as were a few of its limbs. It didn’t even have any tatters of clothes to identify it.

And there were more of them. We passed one, then two, then five, then eight. So many skeletons down here in this little spillway, all of them picked clean, many of them wearing weighted collars around their necks. It was haunting and fucking scary. Even Glass seemed nervous.

“What are they all doing here?” Runabout asked, her worried purple eyes darting around from one skeleton to the next.

“Looks like somepony drowned them,” Zip said, shuddering as we passed by them. “And there’s so many…”

“Probably Carrion’s way of cleaning house,” Glass said. “When the Crimson absorbed all the other bandit factions around the dam, there likely would’ve been challengers to his title. So he dumped them down here, let the current dash them to pieces against the pipes, and if they didn’t get stuck and drown, then the fall from the spillways certainly would’ve killed them.”

I blinked at that. “Uh… so we have a plan to not fall to our deaths, right? Because that sounds like a bad way to go.”

“See that light up there?” Zip asked.

“Is that the light at the end of the fucking tunnel?” I asked back. “Because I swear to fuck…”

“Be ready to grab!” Sig shouted as we rapidly approached the glowing in the distance. “Ready your guns, too! Who knows what we’ll find!”

Heart roaring in my chest, I clung tightly to Sig and made sure my machine guns were primed and ready. We were moving really fast…

And just like that, light. Harsh, blinding light. I felt Sig lurch to the side and grab onto something, and Glass let go of my mana as the shield collapsed around us. My hooves flailed for something, anything, and I found a hard block of concrete to hold onto. Using that, I dragged myself forward, away from the water roaring past my tail, and pulled myself onto solid ground.

Holy fuck…

Panting, I laid on the concrete, the rebreather tumbling out of my mouth, and waited a second before opening my eyes. Around me, the rest of our little infiltration team lied scattered on the ground on either side of a roaring channel of water, emerging from one dark corridor and pouring through another. I didn’t want to know where I’d have ended up if I went through there. But, miraculously, it looked like we were all intact, if a little shaken, and we were inside of the dam.

“I am not fucking doing that again,” I muttered, finally standing on my shaking hooves. Oh, blessed ground! I didn’t have to worry about sinking into the endless abyss, never to be seen again! No more swimming for me. I’d done enough for a lifetime, as far as I was concerned.

“If we go back in the water, it’ll be when Carrion dumps our corpses,” Sig said, leaning forward and letting the water spill out of the gun channels in his armor. I noticed the rest of the Sentinels doing that as well, so I mimicked them, adding a little bit more to the sopping puddle around me. I took a few more moments to clean myself up, too. My mane was plastered to my face and neck, and my tail felt like a heavy rope attached to my ass, so I combed what water I could out of them with my magic. At least it’d do for now.

A little walkway over the rushing water allowed us to regroup in front of a metal door. “Well, we’re in…” Hoana said, tightening her grip on what looked like a homemade shotgun and adjusting the medical bags on her back. “Now what?”

“Now we make our way to the stairs,” Zip said, walking forward and resting her hooves on the door. “And we try not to make a sound while we’re at it.”

The Sentinels in the room all drew combat knives and held them in their mouths or their magic, in Glass’ case, and I did the same. The griffons flexed their talons and worked their beaks from side to side. They already had their melee built in. Once we were all ready, Zip turned a big rusty wheel in the middle of the door, and the bolts slid open with a hideous groaning noise.

“So much for stealth,” I muttered, wincing along with everyone else. Who needed to post sentries down here when that door shook the whole dam?

“Let’s move!” Zip hissed, shouldering the door open and fluttering inside with sodden wings. We followed her in a hurry, us ponies trying to keep our hooves quiet on the hard floor while the griffons just glided along on their soft, padded hind paws and talons that hardly touched the floor. It was pretty clear which of the two of us was the predator species.

A long, dark corridor lined with old pipes in the ceilings and walls greeted us on the other side of the door. Amazingly, we didn’t see any sentries, though I figured that might’ve had something to do with Carrion putting all hooves on deck to repel the assault. I didn’t get a chance to count the Crimson bodies lying on top of the dam, but I figured we had to have done a number on them. It would explain why nopony was down here to guard random spillways.

It took us some time before we even found the first Crimson bandit. We went up a creaky and rusty staircase to a junction room of some kind with a whole bunch of doors in it. There were two bandits sitting there, talking in worried whispers about what was going on outside. As soon as they heard us and saw us come up the stairs and through the doors, they jumped in alarm and shouted, raising their guns to fire. They didn’t get the chance.

I yanked my knife out of the one bandit’s neck as Glass finished cutting through the other. We’d used our telekinesis to stab them from like twenty feet away before they could even fire. Zip just smiled at me and nodded. “This is why I like having unicorns on missions.”

“If they’d shot, the whole dam would’ve known we’re here,” Glass said. “Lucky they didn’t.”

“Let’s hope we can keep it up, then,” I said. I really didn’t want to have to split-second stab somepony again. That frayed my nerves a little more than I wanted to admit.

After a few seconds to look at the doors and plan our path, Zip opened one seemingly at random and peered through the crack. When all was clear, she waved over to us to follow her, and so we crept through the door into a short hallway with—you guessed it—more doors around.

Let me just skip ahead to something more interesting. There’s only so many descriptions of empty hallways and rooms in this maze I can give before even I get bored.

After navigating the corridors and rooms for some time (and dropping a few unsuspecting Crimson along the way), Zip opened a door at the top of a staircase that led out onto a large balcony. Framed by massive support columns running the inner perimeter of the balcony, it wrapped around the outside of a big, open room. From a glance, I figured we had to have stumbled across the central room of the dam. Massive power generators lined both walls about fifteen feet below us, connected to huge pipes that disappeared into the concrete. Those must’ve been where the turbines led to. But even more important than those and the hordes of Crimson soldiers gathered down below were the cages. Stacked as high as five tall, cages hardly big enough to hold a pony sitting down lined almost every available wall in the middle of this room. And inside each cage was an emaciated pony, usually lying down in what little space they were provided, which wasn’t even enough to stretch out fully. Some of the ponies I recognized from Blackwash. Hundreds more I didn’t.

“That’s horrible!” Dacie whispered, her eyes wide at the sight in front of us.

“And Kerzin tried to befriend them,” Gatre said, his talons scraping across the ground.

“They’re caged like animals,” I whispered, feeling my blood coming to a boil. No wonder the slaves all looked so sick and frail. Carrion and the Crimson didn’t give a fuck about their ‘property!’ I was glad that Nova wasn’t in one of these cages when we found her. But that still left Brass and others to suffer down here. The sooner we got them out, well, the sooner I could put my mind at ease.

“We’ll get them out. Trust me,” Zip said, staying low and sneaking against the walls. “But we have to open a path first.”

I nodded and fell in line behind her. After pausing to listen at a door, she opened it and led us in. That’s when I noticed I could hear voices.

“We’re close,” Sig commented. “I can hear machine guns being loaded.”

“Right.” Zip stood up tall and the rest of us congregated around her. “Sig, I’m leaving you and three of your siblings behind to guard our asses. Make sure nopony gets through this door.” Sig nodded and pulled over Hoana and his other two brothers that he’d brought with us. “The rest of us, stay low and quiet until their fortifications are in sight. Runabout, Failsafe, once you’re in position, wipe them with rockets. We’ll clean up the rest.” Smirking at me, she added, “Ready to get loud?”

“I never liked sneaking around,” I said. “Let’s let Carrion know he’s fucked.”

While Sig set up two deployable covers about halfway down the hall, the rest of us crept ahead toward the noise. A peek around a corner and through another open doorway took us into an open room with tables and blocks of concrete scattered haphazardly about to provide some cover for the defenders, of which there were a lot. There were probably twenty or thirty Crimson down here, all waiting behind cover with heavy weapons trained on the doorway. Too bad for them they weren’t expecting anypony to come from behind.

All it took was one nod from Zip, and our two bombardiers rained hell on the oblivious defenders. I even chucked a fireball into the mix once or twice for good measure.

In the face of that much firepower, whatever fortifications the Crimson had put together fell in an instant. Soon, there wasn’t anything left but the scattered remains of the defenders, blown to bits by the rocket barrage hurled at them. We’d just wiped another thirty Crimson without taking any casualties; if we kept that up, we’d have the dam in no time.

Zip stood in front of the open doorway as Fusillade led the rest of her soldiers down the stairs. The elder mare looked at the destruction around us and nodded once. “I was expecting a fight, not a massacre.”

“They didn’t have any rearguard,” Zip said. “I think even Carrion’s starting to spread himself thin.”

“Then we will finish him once and for all,” Fusillade said. “All it will take is one more push.”

We heard shooting coming from somewhere down the halls behind us, and I worriedly turned to Zip. “Looks like we pissed them off.”

“I left sergeant Sig and three others to hold the line while we cleared the path,” Zip said to Fusillade. “We need to relieve them before they get overrun.”

“Then I suppose we have better things to do than idling here.” Turning to the rest of us, Fusillade raised her machine pistols. “We have the initiative! Drive them back! Allons!”

We rushed back down the hallway, Zip and I near the front, as we tried to get back to Sig as quickly as we could. We found him holding the line with his siblings, exchanging heavy fire with a mass of Crimson trying to break through and overrun them. Just before they could do so, though, we arrived on the scene, and began unloading a barrage of lead down the hall. That cut many down where they stood and drove the rest back, and before they could fortify the other end of the doorway, we broke through.

Now the real madness began.

There wasn’t much of a plan other than ‘stay alive and push forward,’ so that’s what I tried to do. As soon as I cleared the doorway, I looked to my left and fired a few bursts at some bandits I saw running away from us. I dropped two and wounded a third, but my armor alerted me to gunfire from the right, so I quickly ducked behind a support column before something that could pierce my shields hit me. Somepony finished off the one bandit I wounded while I peered around the column and quickly spotted a few Crimson firing on my position from the floor below. I sent a few more bursts down at them before I had to reload, though I didn’t get any kills. Truth be told, I was a little hesitant to poke my head out of cover with all the bullets flying around, and that was before the heavy machine guns on the other end of the central room began firing.

A blur of orange feathers filled my vision as Zip jumped, slid, and rolled into cover next to me, dodging the barrage of bullets around us. By the door, the rest of the Sentinels finished pouring into the room and began spreading out, using the support columns for cover and deploying their own in the spaces in between. I saw Sig and his siblings holding down the middle, and Dacie even used her claws and talons to climb up the side of the rough concrete column to get a better firing angle on some of the Crimson down below. In the center of the room, the slaves in their cages huddled as low as they could, hoping and praying that the bullets filling the air didn’t accidentally come flying towards them. And every second that we lost, the Crimson fortified their positions and organized their forces to sweep us back. We had the initiative, but we still didn’t have the advantage. Not until we got the slaves on our side.

“What now?!” I shouted at Zip over the gunfire all around us. I used my telekinesis to blind fire around the column at the machine guns at the far end of the room, only stopping when I emptied that mag, too. I opened my ammo pouch and threw another one in. One in the rifle and two in the bag. Only ninety bullets left; I’d have to be careful with my fire from now on. At least I still had plenty in the machine guns in my armor.

“We need to take out that machine gun so we can get to the slaves!” she shouted back. “We’ll get cut to pieces if we try to go down there now!”

“How are you on ammo?” I asked. Unlike me, Zip didn’t have a spare rifle to shoot with. All she had were the six machine guns in her armor.

“A little over two hundred rounds! Air superiority uses a lot of bullets!” She flinched as a big round tore off a chunk of concrete next to her face, and she shrunk back behind cover. “You?”

“Ninety for the rifle, more than nine hundred for my MGs!” I shouted back. “Need some?”

Zip bit down on the ammo release lever on her armor and pulled, opening the side ports. She pulled out the ammo belts for the three guns on her left and chucked them to me. “Take these! Give me yours!”

I did the same, pulling out the nearly-full belts I had in my left side guns and floating them over to her. She loaded them into her armor, and I loaded the scraps of the belts she gave me into mine. Depressing the lever, the guns popped back into my armor and the firing computer quickly recalibrated them. Once that was done, I turned to Zip and nodded. “Ready?”

“Ready!” she shouted, spinning out of cover. She began firing downrange with her machine guns, distracting the Crimson at the other end of the room, while I darted around the balcony to the left side. Still, that didn’t take all of the attention off of me. Bullets cratered the walls and columns around me, occasionally bouncing off of my shields. I had to stop and slide into cover when the machine gun noticed me again and began firing, which gave Zip the opportunity she needed to flutter up to me. This time, I covered her as she moved, following only when she was in position. We did that a few times until eventually we made it to the flank of the machine gun.

“Peekaboo!” Zip shouted as she spun around the corner, unloading with her machine guns at the exposed flank of the Crimson gunners. I leaned around the column and carefully fired over her shoulder at any Crimson darting behind cover, and in a few seconds, we cut them down to size. That left us on the opposite end of the room from where we started, with our forces spreading all around on the upper balconies and the Crimson surrounded down below. But despite that, they were still putting up a fight, and now they were trying to use the slave cages as cover.

“We have to get them out of there,” I said, panting a little bit from that charge to the machine gun. “What do we do?”

Zip looked at the machine gun next to us and smiled. Placing her hooves on the firing paddles, she sighted down it for a second and checked the belt. “How about we give them a taste of their own medicine?”

I grinned back at her. “I love you,” I said, nuzzling her cheek quickly before hopping over to a set of stairs in the corner of the balcony. “Keep me covered, I’m going to try to get them away from the slaves!”

“I’ll try not to shoot you in the plot! I like the holes it already has just fine!”

I nearly tripped on the first step when she said that. Damn it, Zip, now is not the time for that!

But I wouldn’t mind her visiting my plot once this was all over…

I took the stairs three at a time in leaps and bounds and was at the bottom in a few seconds. Chaos reigned all around me as our forces shot down on the Crimson scattered below, who were doing their best to simply get out of here and into someplace more defensible. Dodging bullets and weaving around empty cages and some crates, I made my way to the first row of caged slaves and pulled my rifle. I didn’t recognize the mare curled in the back with her ears pressed flat against her skull, but it looked like she’d been here for a while. “Stay back!” I shouted at her a moment before I drew my knife. A press on the hilt caused a red laser to appear along the length of the blade, and I fit it into the gap between the door and the lock. It took a few seconds, but I melted the cage door open, and I threw it open wide. “Get out of here! Find cover!” I shouted at her as I moved onto the next one.

A bullet ricocheted off of one of the cages as I ran to it, the tumbling lead actually moving slow enough to bypass my shields and pelt me in the face. Flinching, I slipped and fell backwards, though that inadvertently made me dodge a barrage aimed at me. Unfortunately, I couldn’t say the same for the stallion locked in that cage, who collapsed as the bullets ripped through him. Cursing, I rolled over and aimed my rifle at the Crimson who shot at me, only for Zip to cut them into pieces with her new toy on the balcony. I saw her wave a wing at me, and I climbed back onto my hooves and raced to the next cage. No sense wasting time crying over collateral damage…

“Ember!” I heard a familiar voice shout, and I looked a few cages down the line to see a brass-coated stallion pressing himself against the bars. “What the fuck are you doing here?!”

“Getting you out!” I shouted to him, skipping over a hoofful of frightened slaves to stop in front of him. “Today we make Carrion pay for what he did to us!”

I put the dagger to the lock, and Brass Casing withdrew a few steps from the glowing metal. He looked thin like Nova, but unlike Nova, he was covered in cuts and bruises. Some of his wounds began oozing blood as he moved, and his nose had been badly broken. More than once. “What the fuck did they do to you?!” I asked, appalled.

He smiled slightly through crooked and chipped teeth. “Turns out they don’t like anypony who fights back. That I was our militia captain just made them hate me twice as much.” He must’ve been looking me over, because the next thing he asked was, “What are you wearing? What have you been up to?”

“Long story,” I said. “The short version is that I found ponies who’d help. They’re the ones you should be thanking when this is all over, not me.” I finally cut my way through the lock, and threw the door open. “Now, let’s get the rest of you—”

“Look out!” Brass shouted, stumbling forward to try to shove me out of the way or something but unable to do so on his weak legs. I looked over my shoulder to see a bandit taking aim at me. He fired first, but my shields were able to deflect the bullets, much to Brass’ amazement. I brought my rifle to bear and put one burst through the bandit’s skull, dropping him where he stood, before turning back and helping Brass out of the cage and get him behind cover. He simply stared up at me in awe. “What the fuck…”

“I know, I’m a real badass now, aren’t I?” I said, grinning at him. Around me, Sentinels began descending into the center of the room, driving the remaining Crimson away and working on the slave cages with their own daggers or simply shooting off the locks. So many bandit bodies littered the floor, and the rest retreated to the far end of the room. And at the end of the room…

I locked eyes with him, and I saw a spark of recognition in those horrible brown eyes of his, beneath that black warpaint. He sneered at me and licked his lips before turning around and storming into the next room with a hoofful of his elites in red war paint. The rest of his forces scattered into what cover they could find to defend his retreat.

I wasn’t the only pony who saw him. Fusillade saw him too. Same with Zip, who fluttered down off of the walls.

We looked at each other.

I stabbed my dagger into a crate behind Brass’ head. “Free the rest of the slaves. I’m going to fucking end this.”

I left him behind, confused, and galloped over to Zip and Fusillade, who were rallying behind cover in the center of the room. I slid to a stop and crouched into cover next to them. “Carrion’s in that fucking room.”

Fusillade just nodded once. “Oui.”

“One last push…” Zip said, checking her wingblades quickly. Then, with an authoritative shout, she screamed to the rest of us. “Everyone! Take them down! This is it!”

The three of us jumped out of cover as one, galloping straight for the door as bullets whistled back and forth above and around us. We unloaded with our machine guns at the mass of Crimson standing between us and the door, cutting a swath through their lines. And before they could react or fill in the hole in their line, we plunged through into the next room, leaving the rest of our forces to clean them up behind us.

We found ourselves in the guts of the dam. Pipes rose and fell around and between catwalks suspended by rusting metal cables. Generators hummed along the walls, and wires stretched across the ceiling. Several control panels were stationed at various points around the room, clustered near ancient machinery that dotted the floor and jutted out from the walls. And there, standing on the other side of the room, was Carrion and six other Crimson.

Fusillade slammed the door shut behind us, alerting Carrion and his bodyguards to our presence. “It’s over, Carrion. You have lost. The dam is ours.” She aimed her machine pistols at his face. “Surrender. Or don’t. I would enjoy killing you.”

The big red bastard slowly turned around and narrowed his brown eyes at us. “Ah, I remember you!” he said, a hungry smile breaking out across his muzzle. “Commander Fussy, was it? Froussard, maybe, since you’re Prench?” He laughed. “And you brought friends! I recognize the dark beauty next to you,” he said, eyes flicking to me and making me shiver, “but not the other one. She Prench, too? I don’t even know if there were any Prench left on Auris. Besides you, of course. I thought I killed all of you years ago.”

Fusillade stiffened a bit at that, and Zip and I spared a glance from watching Carrion’s bodyguards to look at her. “So long as one of us lives, you have not won,” Fusillade said in a low voice. “I may have been your first conquest, but I will be the one to end you.”

Carrion barked some chilling laughter and crossed his forelegs over the back of a railing. “Oh, that’s good. What happened to you, Fussy? I didn’t accidentally leave my bone up your ass when I took you all those winters ago?” His eyebrows lowered as Fusillade bared her teeth and widened her stance. “Or are you still upset about what happened to your son?”

Fusillade blew up. It was like flipping a switch. The moment Carrion mentioned ‘her son’, the Prench mare screamed in rage and began firing wildly at him and his bodyguards. Everypony scattered in an instant, me diving one way into cover and Zip shooting up to the pipes above us while Carrion’s bodyguards found their own cover. But Carrion himself was hardly fazed. The lights on the scarred combat armor he wore glowed, and his own shields powered up, deflecting the barrage of lead Fusillade launched from her machine pistols. Then he calmly drew one of his shotguns and stalked toward us with the grip in his mouth.

My heart pounded in my throat. It was three against seven, and even though we had the tech advantage, Fusillade seemed out of control. She sprayed round after round at Carrion, and even hurled a few terrifying spells at him that ripped up metal and cracked the concrete. Carrion let his powerful shields deflect her bullets and danced between spells on surprisingly light hooves, making it look frighteningly easy. The two of them worked their way off to the right, away from the center of the battlefield. Carrion’s two pegasus bodyguards took off to pursue Zip, and I could hear them exchanging fire among the pipes and other shit in the ceiling. That left me to deal with Carrion’s other four lackeys.

Fuck me.

I galloped to the left, all but screaming as the four of them fired at me with powerful carbines. I knew just from the sound they made that they could pierce my shields with no real effort. My heart felt like it was going to explode by the time I ducked behind cover. I quickly shut my eyes and took two deep breaths before I realized I needed to do something now. It was only a matter of time before I got outflanked and gunned down. I could hear their hooves drumming across the grated floors as they ran in different directions. Now, if I had three buddies and a single target pinned behind cover, what would I do?

I charged a fireball on my horn and hurled it to my left before darting to the right. It worked; I caught the two trying to flank left off guard and charged the one on the right with guns blazing. He ducked down behind a generator, but not before I could grab his mane with my telekinesis. A solid yank was all I needed to drag his head out into the open, and I perforated it with three bullets.

One down. Three to go.

Of course, that little stunt left me out in the open, which the fourth bodyguard who held his ground quickly took advantage of. I felt my shields break and a lance of pure fire stab me deep in the left side. I fell to the ground, screaming in pain, and just barely managed to crawl behind cover before they could take me out.

So that’s what it’s like to get shot...

I groaned and sat up, muzzle contorted in pain as I pressed a hoof against my left side. It came away red and bloody, and simply touching the hole just under the edge of my side armor almost made me scream again. I could feel the bullet lodged somewhere in my gut; that was going to have to come out later. At the moment, though I doubted I could move very fast at all. I was effectively pinned behind this cover as the three Crimson closed in on me.

But my scream didn’t fall on deaf ears. Moments after a painted body riddled with bullet holes fell to the ground, an orange blur streaked by, machine guns blazing. The six guns ripped one of the Crimson elite to shreds, dropping him where he stood. I looked up just in time to see Zip frantically flapping her wings, trying to gain altitude as bullets roared by her. One clipped her right wing, tearing a few feathers loose, but other than her wobbling a bit she recovered, out-flying the bandit behind her. She really earned her name.

Two to go, and one bullet in my side. I could do this. I didn’t know what happened to Fusillade and Carrion; they were still fighting somewhere out of sight in one of the side rooms here, and every so often I heard the shriek of metal as Fusillade used magic. Was she actually just ripping apart pipes and throwing them at Carrion? Because that’s what it sounded like.

Bullets slammed around me, and I lowered myself further behind cover, wincing as I moved the muscles in my left side. Right. Still had two fuckers to deal with. So I figured I’d try something stupid.

I quickly picked out where the two of them were. They were advancing on me from both sides, left and right, and both fired a few shots as soon as I poked my head out. Thankfully, I kept my head, and I picked up my rifle in my telekinesis and blind fired at the stallion trying to move to my left in a few bursts. I saw through the cracks in some metal panels I snuck past that he ducked behind cover while I kept firing, waiting for me to run out of ammo. I measured my bursts, but that wasn’t all. I also crept toward my right while I left my gun in place. By the time I was out of ammo, I was already twenty-five feet to the right. My rifle squawked and dropped its mag, and I lowered it behind cover.

The pony on the right jumped out of cover to take my head off.

I was already crouching next to his chest.

His armor wasn’t enough to stop six machine guns from ripping into him point-blank.

He fired his rifle a few times as he died, but they were wild shots that didn’t hit anything. The most he accomplished was slumping over on top of me, effectively pinning me underneath his literal dead weight. I shouted in protest, especially as the body forced me to flex my wounded side and another stab of pain tore through my gut. That burning knife destroyed my focus, and I stopped trying to get the body off of me. The only thing I could focus on was the pain. Holy fuck, it hurt like nothing else.

Galloping hooves behind me snapped me out of it, and I used my magic to fling the dead body back so I didn’t have to physically exert myself. I quickly rolled over to see the last bodyguard gallop around the corner and point his carbine at me, ready to shoot me dead. Thankfully for me, my rifle was still over there, and even though it was empty, that didn’t mean it was useless. It may not have had a bayonet, but who needs a bayonet when you’ve spent your entire life swinging sledgehammers and shaping metal with your telekinesis?

He fired at me, but not before I clubbed him across the muzzle with my rifle, causing him to miss. Gritting my teeth, I poured all my effort into just beating him to death with my rifle, trying to keep him off balance and unable to shoot at me. I even used it to sweep his legs from underneath him when he darted backwards, and then I started trying to guillotine his neck with it. Unfortunately for me, he was able to twist and kick the rifle out of my grip and roll away before I could start bludgeoning him with it again.

Unfortunately for him, Zip decided to suplex the other pegasus right on top of him. The three of them crashed to the ground with Zip on top, and she snapped her wings open to activate the laser blades before she went to work. It was like watching a butcher in her shop; a terrifying, gory butcherer of ponies. When it was over, Zip’s chest and face were more red than orange, and the two Crimson under her were a mass of smoking limbs and burnt hair.

She made a disgusted face when she realized just how much of their blood she was wearing, and she violently shook her wings to get some of the blood out of them. Then she looked to her left and saw me crawling over and struggling to sit upright against the wall. Eyes wide, she slammed her wings shut against her sides, rocketing her over to me in a single flap. “Where?!” she asked, hooves helping me steady against the wall as her eyes looked me over. “Where did they—?!”

I followed her eyes to the wound in my side. My gray jumpsuit glistened with blood, and I could see some of my vitality smeared across the ground. My wound was still bleeding pretty badly, and I was starting to feel lightheaded. But I still tried to smile (it was more of a grimace) and gently push her back. “I’ll live, Zip. I’ve still got time.” We both flinched as we heard something crunch, followed by the firing of two shotgun blasts and a pained cry from Fusillade. “But Fusillade…”

Zip nodded and stood up. “I’ll take care of him quickly,” she said, turning around and starting to run in the direction of the fighting. “You just stay pu—!”

Her words turned into a surprised grunt as Fusillade came flying out of nowhere and struck her across the chest, knocking her over. Fusillade moved slowly, like she was in a daze, and her face and neck were slick with blood and sparkled with shiny balls of lead embedded in her coat. Zip quickly wormed her way out from underneath Fusillade and stood up right as Carrion came trotting over to us. The stallion bled heavily from a deep gouge in his forehead and his armor was cracked and crushed in several places, but between him and Fusillade, he definitely looked like he’d taken his beating a lot better.

“Why do you Celestia-damned paladins even fucking try?!” Carrion shouted at us, a frightening layer of rage underneath his usually slimy and sarcastic personality. “Auris isn’t for your fucking kind! Auris is for the strong! Equestria died fucking centuries ago, and yet here you are, pretending that it’s still here! Well sorry to burst your bubble, but Equestria wasn’t the good guys! Equestria was the fucking bad guys!”

I blinked in surprise, and Carrion leered down at me. “I’ve read a lot of the old transmissions in the central tower. The fucking Synarchy got killed by their neighbors because we were the bad guys. We were the ones who conquered the zebra nations. We were the ones that glassed the griffon homelands. We exterminated an entire race of insect-like ponies because they scared us. Don’t you see how stupid you’re being?” He laughed like an evil mastermind who’d just played the heroes for fools. “You’re not upholding Equestria’s legacy. I am. And with Reclaimer’s help, we’re going to pick up where the Synarchy left off. Auris is fresh and young. It’s fertile land to grow a new Synarchy. And once Reclaimer unites this damn planet with that code, we’re going to find our way back to the stars.” Then he frowned at me and placed the shotgun barrels against my head. “And you fucking goodie-goodie four shoes are standing in the way of progress.”

The barrels of the shotgun suddenly glowed white, and Carrion’s eyes widened for a split second. Fusillade’s magic didn’t just pull the shotgun away from my skull; she bent the stars-damned barrels upwards. Carrion spat out the broken shotgun and turned toward where Fusillade stood, using Zip’s shoulder as a support. “We are making a better future, Carrion,” she spat. “If that’s how the Synarchy used to be like, then they deserved to die. We have a chance for a fresh start.” Her eyes narrowed as her horn surged again. “And you aren’t invited.”

The two of them unloaded with their machine guns, twelve in total between the two of them. That would’ve turned anypony to mist in an instant. But whatever armor Carrion had, it was some high-tech shit. Even more advanced than our Sentinel armor, if that were even possible. Before Zip and Fusillade even began firing, the bastard had stomped his forehooves into the ground, and a solid, shimmering shield appeared in front of him as the lights on his armor glowed brighter. The small caliber bullets shattered into pieces against it, raining tiny lead specks on the ground. When they finally stopped shooting and took a concerned step back, Carrion smirked and drew his other shotgun. “My turn.”

He bit down on the handle and both barrels of the shotgun roared to life, spraying cones of buckshot downrange at Zip and Fusillade. Before they could hit, however, Fusillade shoved Zip to the side and tried to shield her face with a foreleg. My eyes widened in shock as the buckshot overwhelmed Fusillade’s shields and chewed up her flesh, sending her to the ground with a pained scream and turning her blue coat red. The Prench mare was still breathing, but barely, and Carrion sneered as he broke the breech of the shotgun and quickly slid two more shells in without a second thought.

Zip wasn’t idle, and I heard her shout as she swooped down on Carrion from above, machine guns blazing. Carrion’s armor reacted on its own, manifesting another solid shield at his flanks and above his head, shattering the bullets before they even got close to him. He quickly brought his shotgun to bear and fired two cones up at Zip, trying to take out her wings, but she quickly spun to the left and kicked off of some pipes to abruptly change course. Two more empty shells clattered against the ground, and the breech of Carrion’s shotgun snapped shut again.

While that was happening, I managed to crawl onto my hooves and limp away while Carrion was still distracted. As soon as I heard him close the breech, though, and his hooves clop against the cement, I flung myself to the ground, despite how much the bullet in my side hurt. The pipes in front of my face exploded as buckshot perforated them, and I wasted no more time slinking behind cover and picking up my rifle. At least I’d put some distance between me and him; I really didn’t want to be next to the fucker when he had a shotgun and I could hardly move without collapsing in pain.

“Where are you going?” Carrion taunted me, and I heard him walking closer to my cover. “Quit playing hard to get. You’re starting to make me angry.”

“Like you were so much better when you were ‘nice’,” I said through clenched teeth. I quickly threw another mag in my rifle and held it against my chest. I needed a plan. I doubted my rifle could get around his shields if twelve machine guns couldn’t. So I needed something else.

Zip’s machine guns chattered overhead, and I heard another shotgun blast as Carrion returned fire. I didn’t know who was going to run out of ammo first; her or him. It’s not like Zip had a whole lot coming into this fight, and her machine guns seemed to be chattering half as fast now. She must’ve used up what she had left in her right guns, and who knew how much she had left in the other three. Carrion, on the other hoof, was practically bristling with shotgun shells, and he only used two at a time. It didn’t look like outgunning him was going to be an option.

My eyes wandered toward the pipes in front of me, which were hissing and throwing off some steam. I wondered…

I grabbed onto the pipes with my magic and heaved. Like I said earlier, I had pretty strong telekinesis from working in the forge all my life, but shearing metal in half was still really damn difficult. Gritting my teeth, I leveled my rifle at the pipes and fired several bursts into the metal. After punching a few more holes in it, I felt the steel begin to give way, and with a cry of exertion, I ripped them apart.

Hot steam flooded the room, nearly scalding my skin and making the hairs of my coat curl. Still, in seconds, a huge cloud of white vapor rolled over me and Carrion, blinding the both of us. I could hardly see a foot in front of me as the steam billowed into the room. But if I couldn’t see anything, then Carrion couldn’t see me. It was the perfect time to slink away and find someplace to hide and regroup.

“You cunt!” Carrion screamed in rage, and he blindly fired his shotgun twice more into the steam. I heard pellets ricochet off of the pipes and walls around me, but thankfully he didn’t hit me. “Come out here and fight with honor! Isn’t that what you pricks are all about?! Honor and justice?!” Over my shoulder, I could see the lights on his armor glowing through the steam; I was happy that my armor’s lights were a softer blue and weren’t as easy to see as his red ones. I quickly ducked into a gap between a pump unit and a support column when I saw the lights coming my way, and I held my breath and shrunk myself down as small as I could when he passed. Thankfully he didn’t notice me hiding in the darkness. Otherwise, that would’ve been the end of me.

Pipes clanged somewhere overhead, and I saw the lights on Carrion’s armor stop, accompanied by another blast of his shotgun into the air. I looked up to the source of the noise, and I saw orange wings glowing with laser blades on either side of some old catwalk supports. In a few seconds, Zip sliced through the supports holding the catwalk up, and with a groan of metal, it twisted and came tumbling down toward Carrion. To my amazement, however, the big earth pony hopped backwards, narrowly dodging the steel Zip sent at him, and he fired a shot from the remaining barrel up at her.

My blood ran cold when she cried out in pain, and I saw her tumble out of the sky, wings haphazardly flapping as she tried to gain some lift. Metal rang out as she crashed to the floor, gasping as she did so. Two more empty shells bounced off of the concrete, and I saw the lights on Carrion’s armor move to the right.

“I always loved going pheasant hunting,” Carrion purred. “Why do you think I use shotguns? Your shields can’t figure out how to deflect that many pellets.” I crawled out of the steam after him, heart pounding in my chest, and my eyes widened when I saw him stop and put a hoof on Zip’s back. Her orange wings were tattered from the buckshot, and she looked like she was still dazed from the fall. Slowly, Carrion put another two shells in his shotgun and closed the breech. “This won’t hurt a bit, little birdy.”

No. I wasn’t going to let that happen. Lowering my rifle, I fired two bursts at his flanks, but his shields materialized and deflected them. Still, it took his attention off of Zip for a second, and then I released the spell I’d been building on my horn. “Burn, you bastard!”

I didn’t have any intention of trying to get through Carrion’s shield; shooting at it was just to put it someplace out of the way. The fireball I released arced around the room, passing over Fusillade on the ground before slamming into Carrion’s blindside. The bastard cried out in pain as I scorched him, and he stumbled backwards, away from Zip. Zip didn’t waste any time igniting her wingblades and drawing her dagger, and with a yell, pounced on Carrion, fighting desperately to fight and slash her way through his armor.

But somehow, Carrion resisted her assault. She couldn’t find an angle to attack him with her wings or knife, despite having two extra limbs to attack with, and he managed to wrap her forelegs around her neck and lift her into the air. Shouting, he piledrived Zip into the ground, and then he turned around and started stomping on her chest. “You fucking cunts!” he screamed, absolutely furious. “You fucking bitches! Fucking die! All of you!”

Gritting my teeth, I stumbled over to Carrion and flung myself at him. Since I’d given Brass my dagger to break out the prisoners, I didn’t really have anything to kill Carrion in melee, but I could at least let Zip get free. While Carrion roared and tried to shake me off, I saw Zip roll away and hobble toward the dagger she’d dropped. Before she could pick it up, however, Carrion managed to throw me from his shoulders and bucked me in the chest before I hit the ground. Thankfully I was wearing armor, because I’m pretty sure that buck would’ve broken all of my ribs. Still, that blow sent me flying into Zip, and the two of us fell to the ground. I guess I figured out what happened to Fusillade when she went flying into Zip that first time as well. Zip made some sort of indignant-sounding grunt as I hit her and we fell over in a tangle of limbs. Hey, I’d be annoyed too if that was the second time today I’d been tackled with another pony projectile.

Carrion stalked over to us, pure fury in his face. “I should fill your cunts with lead,” he hissed at us, seething with anger. “It’s over! You fucks might have taken the dam, but we’ll be back! The Crimson won’t fucking die, and Reclaimer’s going to make sure of that! Now it’s my time! Your days are over!”

“N-No,” a heavily-accented voice coughed from behind him. He stopped before he could reach us and turned around to see Fusillade crawling up the side of a railing just to stand. “It was never your time,” she wheezed, blood dripping from her lips. “And I’m going to bury you so deep Auris will forget you in a year.”

Roaring, Carrion quickly loaded his shotgun and began to move, but Fusillade’s horn was faster. I didn’t even realize what she was doing until I heard a shriek and a crack above me. I looked up just in time to see her pull on a massive fissure in the concrete ceiling. With a last cry of shattering rebar and crumbling concrete, Fusillade brought the house down on Carrion.

Carrion might have been a fast pony. Carrion might have been a strong pony. He might even have been a smart pony, in his own way.

It turns out that several tons of concrete don’t give a single fuck about what kind of a pony you are. Or I guess I should say, were.

I shielded myself with my forelegs from the rocks landing around me as Carrion let loose one final enraged howl before the concrete entombed him on the floor. I watched the rubble pile wearily for a few seconds, expecting him to emerge from underneath the concrete any minute with a maniacal laugh. But the only red thing that I saw was a pool of blood slowly trickling out from underneath the rubble.

Carrion, the pony who killed Blackwash, who murdered Nova’s dad, who raped and slaughtered his way across the valley, was finally dead.

Fusillade gasped and sat down as she tried to recover from the spell she just used. “Au revoir, bon débarras, et allez vous baiser.” I didn’t know what it meant, but it sounded appropriate. The aging mare’s weary voice made it seem all the more fitting.

It was finally over.

When Fusillade was finally seated against the railing and Zip looked over all of our wounds to make sure none were life-threatening (and Fusillade cursed her out in Prench for worrying about her despite the amount of blood she was losing), Zip moved to me again. She dug into a pouch in her armor and pulled out a Stabil-Ice pouch, snapped it in two, and applied it to the hole in my side. “We’ll get the bullet out later,” she said. “But we can stop you from bleeding out in the meanwhile.”

The creeping numbness of the Stabil-Ice was a welcome change from the burning fire in my side. “Thanks,” I said to her, lolling my head back and sighing in relief. “That feels so much better.”

She brushed my cheek with a hoof when she was finished, bringing my attention back to her. “You’re welcome. I’m just glad you’re alive.”

“Heh. Me too,” I said, smiling at her. Even if she was covered in a lot of Crimson blood, and even if her face was covered in cuts and welts from the beating Carrion threw down on her, she was still stars-damned beautiful. I closed my eyes and leaned in to kiss her, and she did the same. Our lips met, and I purred at the warm embrace. This was how it was supposed to be. The heroine slayed the monster and got the mare. I was so looking forward to what tonight was going to bring.

And then my life changed in an instant.

Something thundered above us. Zip lurched and nearly collapsed onto me, her eyes bulging out of their sockets. She coughed, and before our lips separated, I felt something warm and coppery coat my teeth and my tongue. Her legs collapsed from underneath her, and suddenly I was the one trying to support her.

“Zip?!” I screamed, completely in shock at what just happened. I dragged her down into cover with me, just to get her out of the line of fire of whatever that was. Blood was pouring from her muzzle and nose, and her eyes were wide with fear. Her wings hung limply at her sides, twitching occasionally, and in her back—stars, fucking stars—I saw a hole about a quarter-hoof across.

She trembled in my grasp. Her nostrils flared and her mouth parted like she was desperate for air, but her chest didn’t move, like she simply couldn’t draw a breath. I felt blood soaking my chest, but it wasn’t from her head; tiny holes punctured through her gut bled, slowly but surely. Her head lolled back, and I held it back up with my hoof. She could hardly move a muscle.

“Zip, no, you’re going to be okay!” I screeched at her, shaking her slightly. “You’re going to be fine! We’ll take you back to the doctor and… and…”

She didn’t say anything; I don’t think she even could’ve. All she did was raise a shaky, bloody hoof to her lips, then touch that hoof to my muzzle. Instead of fear in her eyes, I saw regret now. Regret and sadness. Regret and sadness and tears.

Then those eyes turned to glass.

My Zip was gone.

My vision snapped upward to a yellow pegasus standing on a bit of the collapsed ceiling, a monstrous looking rifle of some kind balanced in his forelegs. I recognized that half-faced bastard anywhere.

“Tragic.” Yeoman said, staring down at us almost expressionlessly. “I hoped that would’ve killed both of you. Still, a Sentinel commander isn’t too bad of a prize.”

“You fucker!” I screamed at him, holding Zip’s lifeless head close to my chest as her blood stained my coat and armor. “What the fuck did you do?! What the fuck did you do?!”

“I killed her,” he said, matter-of-factly. He slid the breach of his scary rifle closed. “And you’ll die too.”

I cradled my marefriend’s corpse, unable to do anything else other than cry and press my forehead against hers. They’d taken her from me. Reclaimer and his lackeys, Yeoman and Carrion. They’d taken so stars-damned much from me. So fucking much. Just when I thought I could find happiness, just when I thought I could find some peace about Blackwash, that half-faced fucker took the mare I loved. One second, she was here. Now, she was a cooling body in my hooves, a still lump of flesh and blood.

No more. No fucking more.

I gently set Zip’s head on the ground next to me and staggered to my hooves. Fusillade tried to do the same where she sat, but she was too exhausted after ripping apart the ceiling to do so. It was just me and Yeoman now. Me and the fucker who stole my chance at happiness.

I exploded in rage and galloped up the collapsed rubble toward him, firing wildly as I did so. The bullet in my side meant nothing now; I was a mare driven by fury alone. Just as Yeoman fired at me, I grabbed a piece of rubble with my magic and blocked the shot, making it blow up against the concrete and scatter flechettes everywhere.

Yeoman saw me coming, knew exactly what I was going to do. He collapsed the rifle in his grasp with a single button press and darted back from the breach in the ceiling, stopping only long enough to buck rubble down at me before spreading his wings and flying down the hallway. I dodged the rubble sent in my direction before emerging after him, firing the whole time. My rifle squawked that it was empty, and I threw the next mag in it. I was going to fucking kill him. I was going to fucking flay that fucker alive. I’d break his fucking wings and shove knives down the stumps. I’d throw the other half of his face in a forge and sear it off. I’d rip his legs off and impale him on them. There was nothing I could possibly do to him that could even come close to avenging Zip.

I galloped after him in the hallways, trying desperately to keep pace with his flight. Sheer fury drove me onwards, kept me right behind him. Yet for all I tried, I couldn’t manage to hit him. He was always just out of reach, always just a wingbeat ahead.

He raced up a set of steps, and I quickly followed him. I heard gunfire for the briefest of moments as he spun in place upon emerging on top of the dam, cutting down the Blackwash volunteers who were supposed to be guarding this stairway in a single spray. I didn’t stop to look at the bodies to see if I recognized any, though; my eyes were set solely on Yeoman.

Rain whipped across the dam and nearly blinded me as I chased him. He fluttered over to some old scaffolding and construction on the valley side of the dam instead of flying straight up and away from me, but I was too enraged to notice why. My rifle let me know it was empty again, and when I reached for a new mag, I found I was all out. That didn’t stop me. I still had my fucking pyromancies. And now that I was furious, I felt like I could light the whole world on fire.

I flung my rifle aside and dashed onto the scaffolding, slipping once on the wet ground. I saw Yeoman flutter up to the highest level, so I rapidly dashed up the scaffolding after him. Every time I caught a glimpse of him, I hurled a fireball in his direction. I managed to singe his feathers a few times, but I could never score a direct fucking hit. I didn’t even notice the darkness creeping into the edges of my vision. I just hurled fireball after fireball at him, trying to burn him out of the sky.

My vision suddenly went black, and I stumbled as my hooves became leaden weights. Panting, I tried to stand up, and I forced my vision to come back to me, inch by inch. But it was too late. I heard hooves land behind me, and before I could react, something looped around my throat and dragged me backwards. When I could finally see again, I saw a coil of rope unwinding in front of me as Yeoman dragged me backwards, my hooves clawing at the makeshift noose around my neck.

Then he found something to loop the rope on. I choked and gasped as the rope suddenly dragged me upwards. My panicked flailing spun me around in midair, and I saw Yeoman looping the rope over an extended pole hanging out over the edge of the dam. When my hind legs lost contact with the ground, the pegasus tied the rope and knotted it to a plank in the scaffolding, stringing me up high.

The wind batted me back and forth, and the rain hitting me in the face coupled with the noose around my neck made me feel like I was drowning, not suffocating. I kicked my hooves and clawed at the rope strangling me. I couldn’t fucking breathe at all, and my heart was racing. How the fuck was I going to get out of this?! How fucking far of a fall was it to the bottom of the dam if the rope snapped? Despite my mind racing a million miles a minute, I couldn’t form any escape plan. I was terrified and starting to black out from the lack of oxygen.

Wingbeats sounded in front of me as Yeoman hovered in front of my face. “I suppose I should thank you on behalf of Reclaimer for eliminating Carrion for us,” he said, half of his face grinning, and water pouring off of his mane. “Now that we have the code segment from the dam, we don’t have a need for him and his gang of raiders. You’ve saved the Ivory City a lot of work in waking the Azimuth.” He thought for a moment, then flew closer to me and whispered in my ear. “Oh, and about your marefriend,” he said. “She died in pain. A lot of it. That was a flechette round for killing Sentinels just like her. I popped her lungs like balloons and turned her heart into a pincushion. She couldn’t do anything but wait until the internal bleeding killed her while she remained oh-so-painfully conscious.” His hoof patted my cheek. “Compared with that, I think you should thank me that I only hanged you.”

I tried to kick at him, do something, anything, but he merely fluttered back a few feet. “My work here is done. I hope your friends enjoy this victory while it lasts, and that they give you a nice funeral. You certainly deserve it.”

Flaring his wings, Yeoman then dove out of sight, away from the dam. I caught a glimpse of yellow feathers lower in the valley, tracing their way over the river and away from the dam before he disappeared into the haze of the rainy morning. But I couldn’t focus on that for very long. I could hardly see anything, and my chest desperately heaved for breath, breath which the rope around my neck wouldn’t let me have.

Lightning crackled around me. Thunder boomed. My limbs became numb and weak, and they fell away from my neck. My horn sparked a few times, but I couldn’t summon any spells. Not like I knew any spells that could help me here. As my vision faded to black, I finally gave up. It was over. I’d lost. At least I’d saved Nova and Gauge. I’d saved them and so many others. That had to count for something.

And now, I could be with Zip. I could be with her forever.

I surrendered to the void right as somepony distant shouted my name.