The sun glowed dimly in the early morning skies as we approached the bridge that led to Mareiucci. Smoke was evident in the skies above the settlement. Whether we had forced their hooves by driving them away from the theatre or this attack had been planned from the beginning I would not speculate. Mareiucci’s defenses were suffering heavy casualties as griffins and ponies in purple Talon armor massacred civilians out in the open. Steelwing had stayed behind to secure the theatre so for now it was just my group. I didn’t know if I was up for another fight so soon after the last as I inspected the blood-soaked bandages around my shoulder and limped on my injured leg. Regardless of my injuries I wasn’t about to let them get Cutter’s gem or more importantly, slaughter the inhabitants of Mareiucci. Nothing needed to be said, no command needed to be given as we entered the fight to defend the settlement.

Thankfully it looked as the Hell Divers hadn’t committed many of their soldiers to the attack or they were suffering greater than I had thought. It made sense if they were so boldly attacking the town for the gem, one of the keys to the treasure they so greatly desired. We split up and tried to help the townsponies organize a proper defense. While the others fanned out and focused on other locations that were under fire, I went straight to the hockey stadium that housed the marketplace and Cutter’s clinic, leaving Aurora with Sunny. As I entered the building it seemed that the bulk of the attackers had been committed to this structure, though in contrast, it seemed this was also where the greatest defense was being put up. Ponies on the ground floor had overturned many of the stalls and storefronts that made up the ice rink and built a decent all-encompassing barricade against the Hell Divers. However, the upper decks of the stadium were hosting scores of attackers, firing down on the congregation of merchants and their hired guns. They were locked in a fierce stalemate but now they had what they needed to push things in Mareiucci’s favor. Me.

Before I was noticed I flipped up the hood of my stealth cloak and crept my way up the stairs to the constructions that littered the upper decks. The griffins had quickly taken the upper deck and were now slowly reinforcing their position to rush the defenders all at once. Though they hadn’t considered the threat of the invisible pony infiltrating their positions. I was careful in picking my targets, looking for those who were in the back tending to their supplies rather than the ones out on the balconies firing on the merchants of Mareiucci. A female griffin, in what may have been the kitchen area of the home I was in, was putting bullets in several clips and magazines for the rest of the Hell Divers. She was the first to go. When she turned her back, I wrapped a hoof around her throat and plunged Heats Promise in her temple, killing her instantly, pulling her body away from the others. I continued in silence, killing everypony in the house until I was the last one alive. Without the pressure on this side of the mass of defenders they were able to redirect their focus to the remaining two upper deck houses, no longer surrounded completely. Though it seemed to have the opposite effect.

Like a kicked beehive, griffins emerged from the upper decks and flew down to the defender’s barricade, completely bypassing their makeshift wall and dropping several grenades among them. The resulting explosions tore through the barricade and defenders alike, littering the rink with fragments of splintered wood and viscera. The benefit of the Hell Divers fliers was quickly rearing the battle back in their favor. Remembering my advantage of being stealthed I pulled out something that I hadn’t used in some time, my sniper rifle. I looked through the scope and lined up the crosshairs on the house opposite me, specifically to the concentration of ammunition and explosives that they had been stockpiling. A soft click reminded me why my rifle had seen little use. I was out of bullets for it. Just as I was about to drop my hood, take out my pistol and take my chances that way, I remembered that they had been doing the exact same thing in this house. I quickly looked around for some .308 rounds, not finding many but enough for right this second. I reloaded the rifle and returned my sights to the pile of explosives that I spotted earlier, just as the flock of griffins was coming around for a second bombing run. I lined up the crosshairs and didn’t hesitate, firing one round into the cluster of grenades, setting them off. The force of the explosion demolished the house in a fireball of hot shrapnel which had an impressive chain reaction. Whether from shrapnel or bullets discharging from the explosion or just dumb luck, several of the bombing griffins’ grenades detonated in their packs. Killing more than half of them with one shot.

Right after the chain explosion, Sunny and several reinforcements from the town outside stormed in from the entrance on the other side of the stadium and engaged the rest of the Hell Divers. With the situation in good hooves, I holstered my rifle and dashed back down to the ground floor, quickly ducking into the locker room that was Cutter’s clinic. As soon as I made it down the stairs the signs of a fight were evident. There were three griffin bodies crumpled around the room, all apparently having died from laceration injuries, still warm blood pooling around the corpses. The nearby sound of a struggle pulled my focus away from the griffins and into the next room. The room that I had spent several days recovering in now looked as if a force of nature had blown through it. The stretcher hospital beds were haphazardly knocked to the floor along with an assortment of medical tools. The source of the struggle stood near the center of the room. Doc Cutter was wrestling with a pegasus mare with purple fur and orange mane, wearing the same armor as the rest of the Hell Divers. Dusk Diver had just thrown Cutter over her shoulder and wrenched his leg in a painful direction, eliciting a pained scream from him.

“You’ve lost Cutter, give me the gem and I won’t have to make you this clinic’s last patient.”

Cutter squirmed on the floor, trying to scramble for anything he could use to fight back. “Fuck you Dusk, this is your fault! Haven’t you killed enough of us for this fucking treasure!?”

“I don’t want to kill you Cutter or the others outside really, you could stop me by simply giving me what I want, yet here you are letting ponies die while you hold the one thing that can save them. The good doctor doing nothing.”

I couldn’t let her continue, otherwise she’d have certainly killed Cutter. I dropped my hood and slammed my hoof into her muzzle as hard as I could. As the hit connected I screamed in pain as the force reverberated back into my leg, reminding me that I was still injured. At the very least the hit had knocked her off of Cutter, although now I had revealed myself.

“Made yourself a friend did you Cutter?” Dusk lifted herself from the floor with little effort, wiping away a trickle of blood from her mouth. “This is a family dispute so if you’d kindly fuck off this will go a lot nicer for you.”

“I can’t do that. I have a job to do.” Family? There was nothing simple about this job anymore. It was more than simply paying a debt because I wasn’t even sure I was doing it for Cutter anymore. Though Cutter was a part of it for now and his role needed to be played. Dusk’s eyes drifted down the leg I hit her with, taking note of my injury.

“You sure you wanna do this?” She smiled manically, doing a good job of threatening me but if I wanted what was inside the theatre I couldn’t back down and I had some ammo myself to try and distract her.

“I do and once we’re done here I’d love to take you out for a night on the town. I just came into ownership of a lovely theatre in Uptown.” I gave her my best knowing smile and dropped down into a fighting stance, ready for the beating I had invited myself to. Dusk’s eyes widened first in surprise, then in fury. She knew what that meant for her and that I held more cards than either of them at that moment.

I would never quite get used to melee fighting creatures with wings. With a hard flap of hers, Dusk launched herself over Cutter and to me before I could blink. Rather than a hoof hitting me, Dusk opted for something more befitting her nature, her skull. She propelled herself like a missile, driving her head into my face, demolishing my nose. Before I even had the chance to get up I accidently inhaled a mouthful of my own blood, sending me into a fit of hacking coughs. Though it did help me in the long run when I coughed up a spray of blood that blinded Dusk as she closed in on me to hit me again. I struggled to clear my lungs and resorted to the best action I had at my disposal, throwing things at her with magic. I grabbed everything that wasn’t nailed to the floor and hurled them at her. She lifted her wings and made an effective shield for herself, which gave Cutter the opening he needed. He came up from behind her and drove a scalpel into the center of her back. She shrieked and dropped her wings involuntarily just in time for a magic directed toaster to hit her in the muzzle and stagger her.

Though she was far from done. Just as I finished clearing the blood from my lungs she pulled the scalpel from her back and deftly threw it my way with a wing. As soon as it left her hold she kicked off as if she were chasing it. I looked upon the act with confusion which was the wrong reaction. The blade barely imbedded itself in my armor but with Dusk right behind it, her hoof met the handle of the scalpel and pushed it the rest of the way through. I could feel the blade scrape against bone as she wrenched it hard and dragged it through half of my chest. Before it could reach anything critical I did the first thing that came to mind. Now that she was this close to me I leaned down and clamped my teeth down on whatever I could grasp. Which in this case was her right ear. I bit down as hard as I could and yanked my head for all I was worth, tearing the entirety of her ear from her head. I was momentarily revolted at the taste of somepony else’s blood on my tongue but the burning pain in my chest was quick to distract me away from it. Even with two on one, Cutter and I were still losing ground. We had to do something fast otherwise she would overpower the both of us. Though like her advantage of wings, I had something she didn’t, magic. I pulled the scalpel from my chest where the damage done made itself known with a heavy spurt of my blood onto the floor. Dusk was still reeling in pain from the freshly removed ear which I spat from my mouth with an angry scowl. I wreathed my horn in magical power and seized her in a field of telekinesis, lifting her into the air and slamming her into ceiling, floor, anything solid really. She flailed effectively against my hold, her wings giving her an edge most didn’t possess. Cutter, finding an amount of courage, or fury, jumped and tackled Dusk out of my telekinesis. Once they hit the floor Cutter was quick to get on top of her and land several good hits to her muzzle, the damage we were doing to her was adding up quickly and I took advantage of their position. I galloped to Cutter’s side and kicked Dusk in the side again and again until I felt bone give way followed by the telltale cry of agony from her.

However, in a completely unexpected move, Dusk bested our combined strength and rose from the floor into the air. Her haggard breathing and battered body said that she was on the verge of defeat and she knew it. A fact that was corroborated by the grenade she pulled from her pack. Before Cutter and I could dive behind cover she slammed it against the ground where it exploded in a blinding flash of light and deafening boom of sound. My vison was dominated by white and I staggered where the ground rose up to meet me. I struggled to blink away the white and even once it was beginning to fade I was blinded by tears. The boom from the grenade made it hard for me to find my balance, leaving me floundering, smearing my blood across the floor. The sounds of gunfire outside were beginning to die down as Dusk and her forces presumably retreated. Once my equilibrium returned I looked Cutter in the eye and scowled, clutching a hoof to my bleeding chest.

“You and I have a lot to talk about.”

“That we do. Is what you said true? About the theatre?”

“Yes. I know what this is really about. Now why don’t you answer a question for me? Who is Dusk Diver to you? Don’t even think about lying to me.” I charged my magical aura around my horn, bluffing my ass off.

“…Dusk didn’t steal the gem from me. It was given to her, by our father, the other he gave to me. What’s inside the theatre was meant to be our inheritance when he died but Dusk didn’t want to share…and neither did I. We’ve been after each other’s gems for years now, when I saved you I saw an opportunity. If you survived an encounter with Belua then you were probably tough enough to take out my sister and I used you for my own gain… or tried to.”

“You… she didn’t get it did she? The gem I mean?”

“No. you showed up just in time and for that I’m thankful. I don’t think she would have killed me but who knows what lengths she’d have gone to to get what she wanted.”

“Yet you wanted me to kill her?”

“My sister and I never got along. She was always father’s favorite and she knew it. I think leaving a gem to both of us was supposed to bring us together to claim what he left us but as you can see, we’re still at each other’s throats.” He waved a hoof to the destruction that had befallen his clinic and by extension the rest of Mareiucci. “Though she’s on the ropes now. If you have the theatre then she lost her advantage and soon the treasure will be mine.”

“…you don’t seriously think I’m still going to kill her for you, do you?”

“Of course, I do. I still saved your life and your debt has yet to be paid.”

I narrowed my eyes at him for presuming to think that he had any bargaining power left in the deception he tried to pull on me. “I’m not just a hired gun anymore pal; the theatre is under my control and neither one of you are getting in without my say so. With that being said if you still want my help then I want a cut of the treasure.”

“No, that treasure is my birthright and I will not share it with the likes of you.”

“I’m just as involved as you or your sister now.” I levitated out the third gem and floated it around my head for emphasis. “You aren’t getting in without me.” I was surprised at my own words. Sure, I was interested to know what was contained in that facility but was I really going to blackmail Cutter for what was inside? Fancy Pants had told me that what was held within was of the utmost importance to both him and Rarity. That along with the terminal logs I had found definitely hinted at the presence of something beyond valuable.

“How…there’s a third one? Give it to me, NOW!” Cutter attempted to snatch it out of my grasp but I hopped back a few feet away from him.

“I have a better idea, why don’t you give me yours and then we can take Dusk’s together.”

Cutter was livid, he moved to the far wall and reached under his desk, pulling out a small caliber pistol and pointing it at me.

“Give me the gem or e-else.” I caught that little hitch in his voice, he didn’t have to nerve to shoot me. I should have known when he tried to use me to kill Dusk Diver. He couldn’t kill her not just because he was weaker than her, but because he wasn’t a murderer.

“Put the gun down Cutter. Even if you had the balls to shoot me you’d never get past the theatre’s security without me. Now why don’t you be a good colt and hoof over your gem.”

Cutter slumped, knowing he didn’t have the spine to kill me in cold blood. He lowered the gun and resumed digging through his desk, ultimately returning with the gem in question. He reluctantly tossed it to me where I caught it and stowed it with the other.

“Good. Now lets’s-” as soon as I turned my back on him I heard the betraying click of a safety being disengaged. Pure instinct took over me and in an instant Heart’s Promise was in my mouth. I spun around with the blade between my teeth and slashed it through Cutter’s neck as his bullet bit into the flesh beneath my armor. His gun clattered to the floor and his hooves rose to his throat as he began to gasp desperately for air. Blood frothed from his mouth and poured from his neck in alarming quantities. He barely had the strength to take two steps before he was too weak to carry his own weight, falling to the floor. He looked up at me weakly and within the minute he was dead. Blood pooled around his head leaving behind a grisly scene that I had created. I stood there for a moment, staring at the body before me as I pulled his bullet out of me with magic. He may have tried to shoot me in the back but murder still didn’t sit very well with me. I wish it hadn’t come to that but I did what I had to.

What? Was I really trying to justify what happened here? The way I talked to Cutter and the end result made me no better than Dusk Diver. How was I going to explain this to the others? I took a step back and remembered the deep cut across my chest and began rifling through the clutter, looking for medical supplies. After a moment there was nothing to be found, except a locked safe in the back corner of the neighboring room that had served as Cutter’s office. I returned to Cutter’s body and searched him, finding a key that I hoped belonged to the safe. I could still hear sparse gunshots from outside, at the very least giving me a buffer until the others found me. I inserted the key and gave it a tentative turn and was rewarded with a soft click as the door swung open. Inside was a small fortune in medicine. Nine healing potions and a myriad of drugs and chems, hell even some caps. I emptied the entire safes contents into my bags save one syringe. A syringe that I promptly emptied into my rump. Almost immediately I felt as good as I had in a long time. My head was no longer cloudy and my body wasn’t as heavy. That was something I had been craving for a long time. I was almost thankful that Cutter had forced my hoof just for the painkillers. I sighed in satisfaction and chased it with a healing potion, which went to work fixing my leg and stopping the blood from the deep cut in my chest.

Now that I was on the mend I decided to venture a look outside, hoping that I’d be able to avoid talking about the Cutter situation altogether. Though fate was unkind to me and as soon as my hoof touched a stair, Aurora rounded the corner and blocked me at the top of the exit.

“Dad! Is Mr. Cutter okay!?” She cut right to the chase and put me on the spot. I stared at her silently for a moment before shaking my head and looking away with a sigh.

“No…he didn’t make it.”

“Oh…” Aurora’s head dipped a little bit, mourning a pony, who at the very least, saved my life.

“Who killed him?” Sunny appeared from behind Aurora and barged her way past us and down into the clinic proper.

“Dusk Diver did.” I lied. “I got here too late and she got away.”

“Hmm…unfortunate. So, she got his gem then?”

I looked at my bags, bulging slightly from the spoils of the clinic. “Actually no. I got it.”

“How’d you manage that?” Azura came down the stairs next. What was this? Grill the unicorn day?

“I…uh after she escaped I searched the room and found his safe key. It was inside.”

“Why didn’t Dusk take it?” Aurora jumped in. Not you too princess.

“I got here just as she killed him. We fought briefly and she fled before she could search the room.” There was a lingering silence in the air after that. Sunny leaned down and inspected Cutters body and huffed, scrunching her nose at his sorry state. When she lifted her head, it was me she locked on to. Her golden eyes bore into mine, interrogating me without saying a word. I should have known that of all ponies Sunny would see right through me. After several tense seconds her eyes unnarrowed and her expression softened. If she figured it out she wasn’t going to vocalize it, at least not in front of everypony else…I hoped. At least that gave me some time to prepare for that conversation later down the line.

“Now what?” Aurora asked the room. Looking between all of us, hopeful for some kind of answer. Grim was the last to join us as he sauntered down the stairs.

“We go after Dusk Diver. She’s proven to be a threat to the settlements of Whinnyapolis.”

“We going after her or her gem?” Sunny leaned in close to me, whispering loud enough so that everyone heard her.

I ignored her and moved on to the next topic. “She has to be hurting, suffering from these two losses back to back. Grim? Do you think you could get us up to their hideout if we attacked?”

Grim rocked his head back and forth with a hesitant smirk. “Yes and no. If you’re asking if I’m capable of physically getting you up there, then yes. If you’re asking if the Talons will join your assault on the Hell Divers, then no.”

“What? You won’t help us?” Azura asked incredulously.

“We don’t have the numbers. We have been slowly driving them away from us and it takes a lot of bodies to hold all of the territory we took.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it. They’re numbers are just as low as yours, probably lower after today.” I took several slow steps toward Grim.

“It’s not me you have to convince.”

“Just abandon the theatre, you don’t need to hold it and she can’t get anything from it even if she returns.”

“Like I said, it’s not me you have to convince. Let’s check and make sure the town is okay, then we can return to my father.”

We all left the clinic and did a quick patrol around Mareiucci. What little defenses they had were destroyed in the fight and maybe half of the stadium was beyond repair. The marketplace had suffered the most in casualties and damages. Thankfully Jet and his son had survived, albeit with severe injuries. It wouldn’t have been good for us if our last contact in the town had perished. As we exited the stadium we saw a few of the guards piling bodies and the numbers were surprising. They appeared to be about the same, though slightly tipped in the attackers’ favor. A loud boom echoed across the skies followed by a streak of light and the slow onset of rain as we neared the pile. The majority of Mareiucci bodies were unarmed. Mares, older ponies and a few children. The sight made my guts do a flip and my desire to stomp out the last of the Hell Divers grew stronger. We helped clean up the bodies for a bit before we set off back towards the theatre. Steelwing and I had to a deal to make.

“The answer is no.”

“What do you mean no? This is not how you win a war. You pursue, you eliminate, and you win!”

“There seems to be something you have forgotten. Majority of the Hell Divers are former Talons and it may have been difficult for you to see but they are much better equipped than we are. They cleared out our heaviest weapons when they defected with Dusk and you want us to attack their last holdout that will surely be fortified with everything they’ve got left with no response to that kind of firepower? I don’t think so.”

I groaned in frustration. I was already sick of the ‘won’t do something for nothing’ mentality that Talons seemed to possess. That and being completely soaked by rain didn’t do anything to improve my temperament.

“Though if you want our help that bad, I suppose we could come to an arrangement.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. No doubt he wanted a piece of what was inside the theatre. “I’m listening.” I reluctantly indicated for him to continue.

“Get us some big ass guns.”

“…what?”

“You heard me boy, I know where there’s some high-grade old-world military ordinance and if you want my Talons to help you then I need YOU to equip them. Understand?”

“Give me the location.”

“I knew you’d see it my way. It’s up north a ways, on the edge of the city touching the swamp. It’s an old Equestrian military base called Trotton Camp.”

“How do we know somepony else hasn’t already beat us to the weapons?” Sunny asked, rain water dripping off the brim of her hat.

“Because there’s some kind of trick to get the armory’s door open. Ain’t no one figured it out in all these years.”

“Then how do you expect us to get into the armory?” Azura asked, her wings above her head providing adequate protection from the rain, the water sliding off her feathers.

“I’ve already seen you and your crew breach a ministry’s defenses, I’ve got faith that you can do the same there.”

I wanted to protest that he was sending us on some kind of fool’s errand but judging by the way he said it, he really did have confidence that we could do what he asked. If this was what I had to do to get to Dusk Diver then it would be a fair price to pay.

“Alright, we’ll be back once we have the weapons.”

“When you do, I’ll equip the boys and we’ll take out the Hell Divers once and for all.”

Steelwing gave us a crude map to Trotton Camp and a few supplies to help along the way. I always wondered what rain would feel like and at first it was actually quite enjoyable for a pony like me who spent most of their life in a hole. That was up until the third hour and everything was soaked to the bone. My cloak, my bags everything was drenched and it made the cross-city trek unbearably slow as we trudged along through the storm. Something about it though made me anxious. Without the pegasi how was the weather being controlled? What did the weather do when left to its own devices? Was this storm random or was something happening up above the clouds? No avenue led to something I wanted to think about but the uneasy feeling wouldn’t go away. As I was lost in my thoughts I had neglected to notice that Azura had made her way next to me and used her wings to help shield me from the rain.

“You look so serious.” She said, leaning into me slightly. The contact startled me, making me jerk out of my trance.

“Wha…huh?” I looked up and noticed the attempt at a shield she made for me and smiled. “Thank you.”

“What were you thinking about?”

“I was thinking about how the weather is supposed to work. Before the war the pegasi controlled the weather and I was wondering if they somehow had a hoof in this storm.”

“I doubt it. They don’t need rain like we do down here. The sky born would never do anything that might benefit us…on purpose.”

So, it was most likely just wild weather then. Were the pegasi so far gone that they were looked on like…well like how we looked on the zebra during the war? There may be some merit to that view though, the memory of the deformed alicorns sprang to mind.

According to the map we were just a few streets over from the camp, the edge of the swamp also coming into view. As we neared the perimeter an old, disintegrating, red brick wall stopped us from entering the grounds. With no opening in the wall in sight our fliers flew over the wall and spotted the gate. The rest of us had to circle the wall for a bit to get to the entrance. We turned the last corner and up ahead was the rusty golden gate that led into the camp, my PipBuck pinging and labeling the area ‘Trotton Camp’. I thought it strange that the entrance was on the side facing the swamp, maybe they performed training duties out there? Grim and Azura were perched on the higher parts of the wall on either side of the gate, looking down on us ground pounders with smug smiles.

“Hurry up guys, jeez can you believe those three?” Grim looked at Azura with mock incredulity.

“I know right? I don’t know how it’s taking them so long.” Azura punctuated most of her words with her wings, gesturing with them like they were her claws.

Before any of us could fire off a retort a loud, earsplitting roar stopped us in our tracks. We looked off into the swamp and what I saw almost stopped my heart. At the edge of the tree line stood the large, scarred form of Belua. Once its eyes found mine the spot where it bit my shoulder began to ache and Belua seemed to notice, its snake tail, having healed since last time, hissing in fury. It got this look of murderous intent in its eyes and kicked off from its spot, making it way towards us at full speed.

“Oh shit! Really hurry up!” Grim yelled, drawing his two submachine guns and peppering Belua’s hide. They did little to faze the great beast who was closing on us quick.

“The stories never tell of it coming out of the swamp! We must have really pissed him off!” Azura drew her heavy revolver and fired loud shots at the enraged chimera. Azura’s bullets seemed to actually hurt it but she couldn’t fire them fast enough to do any lasting damage. As it neared I grabbed Aurora off the ground and put her on my back as Sunny and I ran for our lives to the gate. We crossed the threshold and the others dropped down to help us push the rusty gate closed.

I honestly don’t know what we expected. Instead of providing the protection it was supposed to, Belua simply lowered its goat heat and knocked the entire gate off its hinges with a metallic groan. The main building was well inside the perimeter wall and making a break for it from this distance would surely get us all killed. Dotted all around the grounds were smaller support buildings and a few surprisingly still standing tents. Belua turned its attention towards me and lunged. I acted as quickly as I could, throwing Aurora off my back to Sunny and putting up a shield just in time to stop a claw from raking across my chest. However, the impact lifted me off the ground and threw me into the surrounding brick wall, shattering my shield like a Sparkle-Cola bottle. Belua, lowered its heads and loomed over me threateningly. It opened its fanged mouth and I braced for the pain that was about to befall me but instead of me going into its mouth, something came out.

“…you must…”

I looked up in astonishment. It spoke, it was speaking to me! Like the first attack I saw that mournful, almost sad look in its eyes. I tried to avoid any sudden movements and looked back into its eyes, fear replaced by curiosity.

“W-what?” I sputtered out. Belua closed its eyes and sighed. When it opened its eyes, the sad look was gone, replaced by determined resolve.

“…die…” The snake tail lunged over Belua’s shoulder and bit into my shoulder again, whipping its head up and throwing me halfway across the yard where I crashed through a tent with a hard thud. Belua continued to ignore the others and only pursued me. Why was it after me!? Sunny broke its tooth, Azura hurt the snake. Speaking of broken tooth, Sunny let out a battle cry and leapt off the ground from behind Belua, plunging the fang knife into the center of Belua’s back. It could no longer ignore the others as it thrashed around, trying hard to throw Sunny from its back. Sunny’s attack gave us the space we needed to fall back to the main base, all the while trying to antagonize Belua into following us. Grim and Azura flew loops in the air above the monster, herding it towards our destination with gunfire. Aurora, recognizing that she wouldn’t be much help here, ran ahead and attempted the get the door open for us before we got there. We almost made it to the main building before Sunny’s stamina gave out and she was thrown from Belua’s back, leaving the knife protruding from its body. Azura attempted to fly down and get the knife, its own fang the best weapon we had against it. Though Azura was not fast enough as a heavy claw caught her, sending her flying through the air and crashing through a window on the second floor of the base. I watched the scene play out in horror, Azura’s blood dripping off of Belua’s claws. Rage and anguish swelled up from within me. I seized the blade lodged in its hide with my magic and pulled it with all my might, straining against the toughness of its skin. The blade slowly carved its way down Belua’s side, opening an enormous gash, spilling a large amount of blood onto the cracked and broken concrete. All of Belua’s heads vocalized in agony and retreated, leaping over the wall and back into the swamp. I turned to face the building to see that Aurora had managed to get the doors open. Without wasting a second, I dashed inside, throwing caution to the wind.

“Azura!” I yelled, desperately searching for stairs or something to get to the upper floor. I could hear the sounds of the others following behind me, albeit farther back. I suppose this was the true eye opener for me regarding how I felt about Azura. I was terrified. This was exactly what I was afraid of if I opened my heart to someone again. Though the very fact that I was thinking like that proved to me that I was allowing her to creep into my heart, regardless of my reservations. After a few moments I had found a way up to the second floor, switching on my EFS to see if I could locate her. There was a lone white mark on the compass back towards the front of the building. When I blasted the door that separated us down and I saw her, dread filled my entire being. She had been knocked through the window with such force that she sailed all the way across the room where she was impaled on a set of large stag horns mounted to the wall. She was breathing very sporadically and blood dripped slowly from her mouth and the three points that were sticking out of her body, dripping into a small puddle of blood beneath her.

“Oh fuck fuck fuck! Azura!” I galloped to her side and almost slipped into a panic attack. I had no idea what to do or how to help her. I lit my horn and got ready to levitate her off the horns when she stopped me with a cough. She hacked up a mouthful of blood and moaned in pain at the slightest movement.

“Don’t…” She whispered. “I’ll bleed…out.” She was fading, right before my eyes.

“Shit…h-how can I help you? I’m not losing you…” Azura could barely keep her eyes open but managed to crack a weak smile.

“Ha…you do care…about me.” Her head fell to the side and her mark vanished off of my compass. It felt like time had stopped. I don’t know how long I stood there looking on in disbelief before my body would listen to me and I checked to see is she was alive. A fragile hope bloomed as I found a soft pulse. Once I confirmed that fact the others arrived and took in her injuries about as well as I did. I was the first to break down though.

“Grim! I don’t- you- she’s still alive!”

“Okay okay, let’s all calm down. We can’t pull her off the horns but we can’t leave her up there. Does anyone have something we can cut the horns with?”

Sunny spat her bloody fang blade onto the floor in front of Grim. “Think that’ll work?”

“It might. Sparks, I’m gonna need your magic to stabilize her while I cut her down. Make sure she makes it to the floor carefully.”

“Yeah alright, please hurry.” Grim cut through the aged horns rather quickly and once the final one went, I wrapped her body in my telekinetic field and slowly lowered her to the floor.

“Sparks, everyone, turn out your bags. I’m going to need a lot if I’m going to save her.”

I dumped the medical supplies I took from Cutter’s clinic on the floor without hesitation and the others followed suit. Grim picked through the pile of medicine and took out his first aid kit, setting up to evaluate the damage and what had to be done.

In the next few moments I couldn’t sit still. I paced the room over and over again, restlessness refusing to let my body stop. Grim took a step back and made to address the room but I was on him faster than he could react.

“Is she gonna make it?” I hadn’t realized that I had grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him slightly. Grim pushed me a step away from him and cleared his throat.

“There’s a chance. I have almost everything I need to heal her but…”

“But? But what!?”

“Blood. She needs blood. She’s already lost a lot and as soon as the rest of those horns come out she’ll be in serious danger of bleeding out.”

“Okay, easy. Take mine.”

“I’m afraid that won’t work. She’s a griffin and you’re not. What I’m going to need you to do is find the infirmary and hope to your goddesses that there is some transfusion equipment that I can use to give her some of my blood. If we’re very, very lucky there might even be some griffin blood packs inside but I wouldn’t hold my breath. I’m going to stay here and take care of her, make sure she doesn’t die. We don’t have a lot of time so you better get moving.”

“Understood. Aurora, you stay with Grim and Azura. Sunny I could really use your help.”

“Like you have to ask. Come on.” Sunny managed to beat me out the door but only just. We had no luck finding any kind of map or signs that pointed to where the infirmary might be. Thankfully repeated looting attempts had seemed to clear out most if not all of the threats we might have run in to. On the opposite side of that coin though was the chance that we were looking for something that had long since been taken. No! I couldn’t think like that. I couldn’t afford to let pessimism get the better of me and possibly hamper my search. When we neared the center of the base we found what I assumed was the armory, locked behind a heavy set of steel doors with a pin pad as the only interface.

“Tell me the truth Sparks. Did you kill Cutter?” Sunny demanded from my side. I gave her an exasperated look, annoyed that was what was on her mind in this moment.

“Are we really going to do this now? What difference does it make? He’s dead and we got what we needed.”

“What we needed? I thought we were working to pay him back for saving your life. Pretty shitty way to pay him back if you ask me.”

“So you’ve already decided I killed him then?”

“I’ve been your friend long enough Sparks. I know you. I don’t particularly care that you killed him, I just want to know why. Especially after you were so set on repaying him for saving you.”

I hadn’t told anypony about the shadow of Fancy Pants I saw in my head and it was at his urging that I became so interested in what Rarity had worked on here as he alleged that it related to his fate. It was a moment like this that I was hoping to avoid but it was obvious that lying to Sunny wouldn’t work anymore, so the truth would have to do.

“Sunny…do you remember Fancy Pants?”

“Who?”

“Right, the Lone Wolf? The pony we rescued Aurora from?”

“What does he have to do with this?”

I levitated out the unicorn horn knife my PipBuck called Heart’s Promise. “More than he should. I…I’ve seen him in my dreams and at times I’m convinced he is more than just a ghost haunting my memory. He claims his spirit is in this knife and it was him who guided me to what lies inside the Ministry of Image hub beneath the theatre.”

Sunny looked the knife over with a studying eye. “Your knife is…a soul jar?”

“A what?”

Sunny leveled her battle saddle at me and blasted the knife out of my magical hold, sending it skittering down the hall. She followed it to its resting point and blasted it two more times before she forwent her guns and stomped the hell out of it with her hooves. Having seen the kind of damage her hooves could do I was worried that I had lost my knife.

“Sunny what the fuck?” I trotted up to where she was looking down on my…still perfectly intact knife. “What the…?”

“What did he say was under the theatre?”

“Umm he said that a project Rarity was working on that he helped fund could be found there.”

“He was a pre-war ghoul? Hmm…what kind of project?”

“He wouldn’t say but he hinted that what’s inside could explain how he still exists.”

“I think I understand why you’re so interested.” She bent down and retrieved my knife from the floor, offering it back to me before moving to head down a corridor opposite us. “We should split up for now, cover more ground that way. If you find what we’re looking for, fire off a round and I’ll come running, I’ll do the same.”

She trotted off before I could say anything more but in truth I didn’t have anything to say. She seemed to have some kind of knowledge of just what I carried with me. She also confirmed what I had been thinking for a long time now, that I was carrying the soul of Fancy Pants with me. Now I could say for almost certain what was inside the Ministry. Rarity was working on some kind of magic that involved souls.

As soon as that thought crossed my mind my vision went dark like I was asleep in the void. Far off in the distance in a space that couldn’t exist if I was still awake stood the red outline of the void pony. Every time I blinked he came closer and closer to me and no matter what direction I looked he was always there, always coming. Soon it was right in front of me and it smiled, flashing its blood red teeth against the deep abyss that was its body. Before anything could be said my ears were assaulted by the sound of breaking bones and tearing flesh as two large bat wings exploded out of the void pony’s sides. Throughout the whole process its smile never faltered. It reared back on its hind legs and extended its new wings, revealing that their entire surface area was covered in eyes that were slowly crying tears of blood. They all blinked in random intervals, independent from each other. The new sight of this monster almost made me sick, a reaction that it noticed and laughed at.

“What is your interest in soul magic?”

“W-what are you?”

“I am everything you need. When you are weak, I can make you strong. When you are ignorant, I can grant you knowledge. When you are lost, I can give you direction…and more.”

“What do you want from me? Who are you!?”

“All good things to those who wait. I’ve waited decades for this chance. How long will you wait?” A pillar of pink and black fire erupted from below the void pony and in a second, he was gone. As his form dissipated I felt the call from the swamp from when it first touched my mind. It was harder to ignore than it was before, a deep disturbance in the back of my conscious. I had already let him in when I took his power. Its hold on me was growing which most likely explained its metamorphosis. It was getting stronger.

All at once reality came back to my senses with the force of a ton of bricks. I fell against the closest wall, breathing heavily and sweating buckets. How long had I been standing there? I stumbled forward and peered down the corridor Sunny went down to see that she was still in sight. It had been less than a minute. Everything that was wrong with my body was exacerbated by the experience. My tired body struggled to obey my commands, making the task of getting back on my hooves look as graceful as a newborn foal. Everything about me felt wrong like I was the sickest I had ever been. My head was throbbing and all of my old wounds ached with a dull pain, blurring my vision with sensory overload. I don’t know how far I stumbled, only staying on my hooves with the assistance of the wall, before I spotted what appeared to be the signature yellow cross with pink butterflies. I barely made it to the door’s threshold before my strength gave out and I fell forward, taking the old door down with me as I hit the ground. The immediate area appeared to be a waiting room with several small wooden chairs along the wall to my left and in the opposite corner was a low table scattered with rotted piles of what I assumed used to be magazines or books. Above the table mounted to the wall was an old TV that flickered on when I hit the floor, causing it to display a screen filled with static and the sound to match it. I slowly tried to crawl to a set of double doors I saw past the row of chairs when the static on the TV cut out and was replaced by an old recording.

“To all you stallions out there proudly serving your country, we have a special treat for ya’ll. Field Commander Big Macintosh came in earlier this week and recorded a song written by him and his squad, reminding some of us what this war is taking from us and why some of us are fighting in the first place. Special mention goes out to Commander Macintosh’s special somepony who helped inspire the song. Without further ado let’s hear it.”

There was a pause in the audio for a moment before a jaunty riff played from a fiddle sounded, followed by a deep voice with two higher backup vocalists to start the song.

“Oh, that mare that pretty little mare that mare I left behind me! Well, I weeped and I cried ‘till the day I died for the mare I left behind me.”

The two higher voiced vanished leaving only the deep voice of who I assumed to be Big Macintosh.

“I’m a lonesome since I crossed the hill and northern moor and city! Such heavy thoughts my heart could fill since partin’ with my filly. I seek no more the finer game for each just does remind me! How swift the hours did pass away for the mare I left behind me!

Oh, that mare that pretty little mare that mare I left behind me! Well, I weeped and I cried ‘till the day I died for the mare I left behind me.”

The two softer voices returned for the chorus and surprisingly I found the lyrics to be rather poignant to my current endeavor. I had barely made any ground to the double doors since the TV started the song but found that I had just enough strength to try and get to my hooves again. The song had just finished a brief fiddle interlude and Big Macintosh came back with more.

“Oh, ne’er shall I forget the night the stars were bright above me and gently lent their silver light when first she vowed she loved me! Now I’m bound to Trotton Camp cryin’ heaven may they find me’ and send me safely home again to the mare I left behind me”

A second fiddle interlude started and by that point I was halfway off the ground, struggling to find stability on my wobbly legs. I would not be dissuaded though, the message from what was being played giving me the push I needed to hit my second wind.

“The bee shall honey taste no more the foal become a ranger, the crashin’ waves shall cease to roar ere she’s to me a stranger! The vows we’ve registered above shall ever cheer and bind me, in constancy with her I love the mare I left behind me.

Oh, that mare that pretty little mare that mare I left behind me! Well, I weeped and I cried ‘till the day I died for the mare I left behind me.”

With that, the fiddle played them out and as soon as it was done the screen cut out again and returned to noisy static. I was fully on my hooves now and took several slow and careful steps forward, cautiously using my weight to shove the double doors open to reveal two rows of stretchers and several medical stations that had been picked clean by looters. Thankfully it seemed the raiders or whoever long ago raided this place neglected the value of blood transfusion sets as there was one just in front of me on the first medical station. I smiled a weary smile knowing that what we needed was within reach. I silently thanked Big Macintosh for his song that gave me the drive I needed to find what I was looking for. Though that wind was fading fast as darkness rippled on the edges of my vision. I could feel my weight getting ready to take me down for the count so I expended the last of my energy to get off a shot from my pistol, hoping that Sunny or anypony heard it. I collapsed to the floor, the shot ringing in my ears. With that I let the rest I so desperately needed take me as my eyes fell shut and refused to open.

Footnote: No Level Up.

Next Chapter: Chapter Twenty-Three: Light the Fuse... Estimated time remaining: 16 Hours, 39 Minutes