Mount Pleasant Island: Heartstrings Cove

“This… This is Twilight Sparkle, Ministry Mare and Princess of Equestria! Can… Can anybody hear me?”

The message rang loud and clear, like a bell through the misty harbors of Heartstrings Cove catching all by a quite understandable surprise.

“I repeat, this is Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship and Ministry Mare. Is anyone out there?” the voice of the long thought deceased Alicorn asked, seemingly in desperation. “I send this message in hopes of anybody who might receive it. If you’re listening, please send me some sort of sign!”

“Can we transmit back?” Target asked, End of the Line hoisted over her shoulders. The white wolf painted on its side was clearly visible.

“The question is, should we?” Henri pointed out. “Remember, this is Twilight Sparkle, one of the six mares who, if I might remind all of you, helped and fucked up our world beyond recognition. And she got absorbed into the Goddess… Hell, she helped create her!”

“By accident, remember?” Riptalon pointed out. “And if that really is Twilight Sparkle, we’d need all the allies we can get, as we’re stuck here until further notice with the Enclave. So is she actually, for all we know. She needs our help, and we need hers. I scratch your back, and you scratch mine type situation, right?”

“Ugh… I see your point…” Henri muttered, weighing over the pros and cons of this situation. On one hand, they had Twilight Sparkle, who was a definite danger if crossed. She had the knowledge to create either your best friend, or your worst nightmare. She also had plenty of power as well. Plus, they had the Enclave who also fell under the same banner of highly dangerous albeit for different reasons, namely fanaticism and extremely powerful technology and probably more knowledge of the terrain than they did. On the other hand, they had Twilight Sparkle, who, if they allied themselves with her, could grant them a good solid trump card in the battle to retake the Island, and the fight against Winter Breeze’s Enclave in general. Twilight also, depending on how long she’d been on this island, might have had the same knowledge of Mount Pleasant’s landscape.

“Now…” Target began as she spotted a nearby building, one of the few that had been mostly left unscarred. On the side, in big letters read: “Mount Pleasant Island Communications Center”. “My bet is, if we go in there, we can get a message out to Ms. Sparkle and let her know she’s not alone,” she explained, as she set up End of the Line and peered through its scope. “I’ll be keeping watch from here, serve as a look-out and if any Enclave troops come up the road… Well, you’ll be hearing a lot of shooting and a lot of screaming. Hopefully from them.”

“Okay then…” Henri said. “Midnight, Iron, you go into that Comms Center and get the message out. Me, I’ll stay here and keep an eye or two on our beloved Riptalon here, eh?”

“So nice to be trusted… And after all I’ve done for you. You’re a pack of real ungrateful bastards, you know that right?” Riptalon drawled out but was ignored of course.

“Just shut up and help me keep an eye out for the Enclave, okay?” Henri asked in a particularly annoyed tone of voice. If Riptalon had been a smarter griffon, he might have picked up on the way she said it. Her tone basically said for him to watch his mouth. But of course, Riptalon wasn’t as smart as he thought he was.

“So, you’re trusting moi of all griffons?” the ‘Blackhawk’ asked in a tone of mock-surprise before he deadpanned. “You do realize I’m someone who you probably shouldn’t have your back turned to, considering my track record and all...”

“Who says I’ll have my back to you?” Henri snarked back as she pressed either White Rose or Black Rose up against Riptalon’s rear. “It’s more like you’ll have your back to mine, and if you try anything, it’ll be a back that has a bullet or two in it. Shame, it’s a really nice ass I’d love a piece of… That is, if I was into backstabbing vermin.” she teased.

“Hmm, keep that flirting up, and maybe you’ll get some of it…” Riptalon remarked cheekily, as if all was right with the world and he didn’t have a pistol ready to put a cap in his ass.

“Yeah… Think somepony else has already staked that claim.” Henri retorted. Notably, she didn’t say if it was somepony interested in her, or somepony interested in Riptalon. The griffon in question simply rolled his eyes.

Meanwhile, Midnight and Iron made their way to the comms tower. Every so often, Iron picked up ammo for his rifle. It may have been given golden paint in some areas and wooden fittings for a steampunk style aestheticism, along with being equipped with a scope, but it was the same general style of semi-automatic hunting rifle the Enclave’s newest recruits had used.

An M16, to be exact. Bit dated as it was over 200 years old in design, but it seemed some things never went out of fashion.

“So, what’s the story between you and ole Blackhawk over there? I mean, where’d he dig you up, ya old fossil?”

“You know, if you weren’t one of the only allies I had right now, I’d be putting a bullet clean through your head for that remark,” Iron said coldly, and from the sheer way he said it, Midnight shivered. He had no doubt that wasn’t any form of joke on Iron’s part. “I’m only about ten years older than you, dumbass. So, by your little whippersnapper standards of you being about early thirties, I would be an old fossil. But make no mistake, just because I’m a decade short of being shy of middle age means I can’t pull my weight around here. Just ask those Enclave soldiers scattered about,”

Midnight swallowed as he saw the results of Iron’s sharpshooting. A recruit lay dead, a hole going clean through his skull. “...I… I see your point. But still, where in Celestia’s name did he find you?”

“Old Appleloosa, nothing more I need to say on the matter, as if I did, you’d probably trust me even less,” Iron replied.

“You putting it like that is already starting to make me lose more of my trust in you,” Midnight remarked and sighed as he looked at his semi-auto buckshot and it’s empty magazine. He really hated custom weapons at times. Could be real hard to replenish ammo for them if you had one on hand.

“For the record, no matter what Riptalon may have done to earn your ire, I’m not trying to do that,” Iron continued.

“Yeah, but you’re managing to do that in other ways, like being a general dick,” Midnight replied as he pushed the Comms Center’s front door open. “Plus, don’t think I didn’t hear about you throwing those dead bodies to the Radigators back when we were en route to Neigh Orleans,” he continued.

“They were starting to stink up the place, and so they had to go. Simple fact of the matter,” Iron said, as he scanned the area around him with Vox Populi, his Pipbuck’s inbuilt flashlight lit up.

“They had faces and names, you know that right? Or has that not crossed your mind at any point?” Midnight growled out.

“Maybe to you, but not to me. To me, they were just dead bodies who were an unnecessary load at the time,” Iron replied simply, still in the stone cold tone of voice. “They were dead, and that was the end of it. If you’re trying to be my morality pet, don’t. It’s not going to work with me, as I do what I want, and I do it how I want to.”

Midnight snarled, having finally had enough of Iron and shoved him up against a well. At the same time, he’d managed to grab Iron’s borrowed Peacemaker from under the pegasus’s nose and was pointing the barrel right at him.

“Listen, I’m not trying to be your morality pet or whatever the Hell that is, I’m just sick and tired of your bullshit okay?”

The cock of the pistol was heard, and one wrong word by Iron would result in a hole through his skull.

“And I’m sick and tired of your holier than thou attitude, and Henri’s, and Target’s for that matter,” Iron growled, completely calm even with his own pistol turned against him. “Ask yourself, would you really want to kill one of the few ways you have of getting off this island alive?”

Midnight shuddered as he took a step back, that ask yourself line sounded almost exactly like something Winter Breeze might say. He’d been getting suspicions that Iron wasn’t all he claimed to be, and that particular phrase -Which seemed to be a favorite of Winter’s- only increased them.

“I should shoot you here and now...” Midnight snarled.

“But you’re not going to, are you mate?” Iron said as Midnight released him from his grip. He smirked when the earth pony dropped his pistol. “Yeah, didn’t think so. Now, we have a Ministry Mare to talk to.”

“No, not just yet… Maybe you’re right, maybe you don’t need a morality pet. At least… Maybe you think you don’t. But remember what happened the beach, when we found the conductor’s hat?” Midnight asked. And although the darkness prevented him (Midnight) from seeing it fully, Iron’s eyes widened visibly. He did indeed remember.

“I… I never asked for their names, either of them you know? The conductor, nor the engineer.”

She then turned to the rest of her squad. “Did any of you?”

The silence said it all.

“Yeah… that’s what I thought.”

Finally, after a short while, Iron spoke. “She… she was so full of life, y’know? Talked about her kids back in Neigh Orleans. Her husband as well. They’d just moved to the city, now that it was safe from the constant threat of something called ‘Firerain',” he said softly. “Said as soon as she was done with her job of taking us here, she was going to go back and see them. ...What… What are we going to tell them?”

“That she died like a hero, doing her duty. Nothing more, nothing less.” Riptalon answered quietly, though at once he knew that was the wrong thing to say and regretted it at once.

“Really?” Iron snarled, getting up close to the griffon’s beak, nose barely a few inches away before he grabbed him by the throat looking ready to throttle him. “Doing her duty? Cause I don't think that’s good enough! This wasn't a job, this was a suicide mission and we all knew it! Fuck, I suspect she knew it as well!”

“Well, what the Hell am I supposed to say? Be upfront, brutal like you are?” Riptalon snapped back, wrenching himself from Iron’s grip and shoving him away. “Say that she was slaughtered in cold blood by the Enclave?”

“...Well, at least that way you’d be honest about her death!” Iron growled.

“Yeah, but in some cases, a lie would be better than the truth. And this is one of those times…” Riptalon trailed off, and he said no more on the subject, collecting his belongings in silence.

And Iron said nothing more as they moved forwards.

Back outside, Henri and company were getting treated to a special visit from… well, guess who.

“Sprite-bot!” Target shouted, as sure enough, one flew up.

“As a young colt, I had a pet named Bill. Like all pets, Bill was a loyal friend. If we had not fed him, Bill would still have been loyal. If we had struck him, Bill would have been loyal. He’s like a member of the Enclave in that regard, my Enclave. Loyal no matter what you do to them. Only when the Wastelanders can start to make that claim, can they join us in society,” Stormy Skies began to preach.

“Oh yeah, we’d be loyal alright… To someone who’s not genocidal to anypony who’s not pure, cleansed in the waters of paradise’s baptism… AKA only those who are your little lackeys.” Riptalon snapped, and suddenly the Sprite-bot got in his face.

“And what would you know about being loyal hmm Blackhawk?” Stormy asked, and with horror, Riptalon realized. And Stormy knew it. “Yes, I’m watching you. I’ve been watching you ever since you set foot on my island. I’m terribly sorry about the poor greeting you’ve been getting so far. Cleared out my social calendar just for you, as soon as I heard from one of my little birdies -Winter Breeze isn’t the only one with spies on the ground after all- that you were a’comin. Gotta prep for the storm, after all. Trust me, you have no room to talk about being loyal, considering half of what I’ve heard. The backstabber, the long-tongued liar. How does that song go? Oh yes… Now I remember.

“Well my goodness gracious let me tell you the news
My head's been wet with Luna’s dew
I've been down on bended knee talkin' to the mare from Galilee

“She spoke to me in the voice so sweet
I thought I heard the shuffle of the angel's hooves
She called my name and my heart stood still
When she said, “Stormy, go do My will!”

“Go tell that long tongue liar
Go and tell that midnight rider
Tell the rambler,
The gambler,
The back biter
Tell 'em that Celestia’s gonna cut 'em down…” he sang mockingly. “That’s what’s going to happen to you if you don’t follow her will. You’ll just end up ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

“You’re completely nuts, you know that right?” Henri deadpanned. “Bet you all the caps I own when someone writes your biography, they’ll spend the damn first 30 or so pages quoting scripture! Regurgitating it, really…”

“Have to agree with Henri here really, much as I hate it,” Riptalon agreed. “You’ve spent so much time in that bull, you’re starting to believe your own shit even as you spew it out!”

“Well, when the Lady Celestia gave us Heaven in the form of Cloudsdale, who were we to disagree with her? She gave us the tools, the tools of the emancipator to build us a new heaven,” Stormy continued to preach, proving Riptalon and Henri’s points exactly. Still, he continued. But when the striped devils came, they brought war with them, and the fields of the Hell below us were soaked with the blood of brothers. The blood of our pegasi brothers! The only emancipation they had to offer was death. Nothing else but death, and her welcoming arms. But no more, I aim to cleanse the Wastes of those impurities, along with anybody else who dares stand in our way!”

“You just going to keep talking the same old story, or is there anything new for you to offer us?” Henri asked sarcastically.

“So, I’ll do you a favor. There’s a Dust Devil waiting for you at where you first landed. Take it, and your company and leave this island in peace and just let us have Twilight Sparkle and the gifts she’s so kindly offered us for free. Our newest emancipation tools, if you will.You shall not be bothered by any of my men, unless you bother us. Are we clear? I scratch your back, and you scratch mine, understand?”

“Tempting…” Henri trailed off, before she shot the Sprite-Bot and turned to the hills where she knew a spy had to be watching. “But no dice! But thanks for the offer, I’ll think about stealing your Dust Devil anyways. Pilot will be dead though, so sorry in advance for that!”

“Well, now you’ve really done it,” Target remarked. “They’ll be after us now in full force. Not just to capture us, as Stormy wanted before, but to kill. You basically just dared them to come and hit us with everything they have,”

“Yeah, suppose I did,” Henri muttered. “But there’s still something that bothers me about this whole scenario, and makes me think that Stormy won’t send a kill team… At least, not yet,”

“Yeah, yet,” Riptalon deadpanned. Ignored, of course.

“So what makes you figure that? Ranger instincts, much as I hate relying on them, are telling us to find a position and make a stand.” Target replied.

“Why would Stormy specifically want us captured?” Henri asked. “Why us? Because if this was any other scenario, we’d be dead already. Sure, his troops may be out to get us and ignoring orders, but Stormy wants us alive for some reason. He mentioned Twilight had ‘offered’ him and his men some brand of gifts. That, and added to the fact that he knows she’s alive leads me to believe that he wants us to talk to her. As obviously, him being a member of the Enclave would not open up any diplomatic doors between them,” she remarked.

“There’s a more obvious suspect,” Target put in. “And it’s one who’s been with us all along. Iron Skies. You know it, I know it, Riptalon knows it. He’s a former Enclave soldier, for all we know Stormy knows this and just wants his man back and once he has him, then he’ll kill us,”

“If that were it, he’d have ordered his men to kill all of us but Iron or whatever his real name may be,” Henri reasoned. “No, I’m going with my gut on this and saying that whatever Twilight Sparkle has to do with this, she’s the main reason Stormy hasn’t come to kill us himself…”

Heartstrings Cove: Communications Center:

Back with Midnight and Iron, the two had made it to the radio room. Midnight was keeping his guard up around Iron, watching his every move.

Iron, to Midnight’s shock, then unholstered his pistol and tossed it to him.

“You do realize I have a very good shot at your head, and now I could very well take that shot right?” Midnight asked in surprise, an eyebrow raised skeptically.

“So do it if you wish,” Iron replied. “But perhaps there’s need of folks like you.”

“And that’s because…?” Midnight trailed off.

“Cause of folks like me I guess. The ones who would send a soldier to his death without a second thought, without a care. Not even bothering with learning the faces and the names,” Iron explained in a weary tone of voice as he sat down on a chair. “Guess you had every right to be angry with me, for dropping those soldiers and feeding them to the Radigators and not giving them a proper burial. You were right, they did mean something to somepony. Everypony does I guess...”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa… Back up. That line about you sending soldiers to their deaths, not even caring, sounds like you’ve done it all before.” Midnight trailed off, this time his eyes visibly widening.

“Who’s to say I haven’t?” Iron asked. “I’m a former soldier of the Enclave, probably one of Stormy Skies’ men I’m willing to bet you so it’s a probability,”

“And what makes you so sure about that?” Midnight asked. “The part about you being a former soldier for the Grand Edginess Enclave, I mean?”

“Hard not to figure that out when you’ve been getting flashbacks that all but outright say it, that I was a former soldier under Stormy Skies, or at least a former Enclave soldier. Still not sure on what I did there, aside from training troops on how to fire a Novasurge Rifle and spending half of my life away, if this Buttercream character’s to be believed, in bars drinking my life away.”

“About how long have you been having these… flashbacks to this other life of yours?” Midnight dared to ask, not sure if he really wanted to know.

“About shortly before Riptalon found me in Old Appleloosa,” Iron said. “Now, I should probably be asking you a question. Fair’s fair, right? What’s your beef with Riptalon?”

“Aside from his chronic backstabbing disorder, and him being a general jackass?” Midnight deadpanned and Iron laughed a little at that.

“Besides that, I mean.”

And so Midnight explained his story.

...Grabbing his weapon, Midnight rushed outside to see what was going on. And she found herself in the middle of a particularly intense firefight. And in the middle of it was Riptalon himself, dodging and weaving through the shots laid down by the NCR troopers and slicing them in the throats and letting their lifeless husks drop dead in the street.

Interestingly, Midnight had noted, he never once picked up a gun from one of the carcasses despite having every chance to do so. It’d long been a subject of speculation why nobody had ever seen Riptalon just pick up a gun and use it to shoot somebody dead. Maybe he hated them on some sort of matter of principle, or maybe it was just because he preferred things up close and personal. Nobody had ever quite managed to figure it out.

Right now, as Midnight watched in shock at the blood frenzy in the streets, -forgetting for the moment at least, that he had a gun himself- he would lay odds that Riptalon never needed to pick up a gun as he never found himself needing one for any sort of situation.

Finally regaining his senses as he saw Riptalon slash the throat of another pony, Midnight reached for his carbine and fired a full casing of rounds at the griffon. But the target that Midnight hit… wasn’t Riptalon. Or even a griffon for that matter. It seemed Riptalon had grabbed one of the NCR troopers -His own comrade!- and thrown him in front of the shots to use as a meat shield.

Then he heard the thundering of metallic hoofsteps and sighed in relief as Riptalon’s eyes widened in fear. Midnight allowed herself a smirk as the red and silver Power Armor clad forms of Applejack’s Rangers rounded a bend, their battle saddles spinning up before finally letting out a spray of bullets, golden shell casings flying every which way. Riptalon snarled before he threw down a smoke bomb and Midnight coughed as her vision clouded.

“Activate your infrared vision and motion trackers now.” the lead member of the Rangers ordered before they searched the cloud for any sign of Riptalon. The gunfire had stopped, as in the smoke it would be impossible to make out friend from foe, or Riptalon from any of the civilians who had taken shelter in the nearby buildings or behind supply crates or barrels. But the odd thing was, he’d completely vanished from their sight. Then, Midnight saw him. He’d climbed above the cloud of smoke in the confusion and onto the rooftops. Riptalon used one of his charcoal black wings to make a very rude gesture before he took to the skies, and that was the last anybody ever saw of him in Junction Town.

At one point, Midnight could have sworn he heard him mutter “Gawd was gonna cut you down anyways, just sped up the process…” but he’d brushed it off as his imagination getting the better of him.

“Ah, that would do it wouldn’t it?”

“Those were my friends, blood brothers I fought alongside in the war between the Wastelanders and Red-Eye! And he… he just slaughtered them like that.” Midnight whispered, his voice beginning to break. “Now don’t you see? Why nobody in the NCR trusts him? Why… Why we always have one eye watching him? To… To… see who he tries to kill next?” the pony asked, tears falling from his eyes. “He’s a psychopath, through and through. And that’s the end of it. Eventually…” the stallion choked out. “Eventually he’ll stab you in the back and leave you bleeding out, just another broken and used toy. Do you trust him?”

“N-no,” Iron said a little too quickly for Midnight’s liking.

“Then I’d suggest you stop trusting him. That’s what psychopaths like him do, they worm their way into your heart and then stick a knife through it just when you think you’re completely fine. If I was you, I’d be watching your griffon friend a hell of a lot more closely than you are right now,” Midnight snarled out in warning before his tone became a little softer. “Now, we’ve got a message to send out to a former Ministry Mare, and without power to this place, it ain’t going to be sent. So… Shall we?”

“Agreed,” Iron said gruffly. “You go and find the power switch to this place. I’ll keep an eye out for any unwanted visitors.”

As Midnight left, Iron found himself -On account of having very little rest or relaxation since he set hoof on this island- drawn into another flashback.

He didn’t know when it was, or where aside from Cloudsdale but he found himself leading a squadron of troops through the streets. An execution squad.

“Gentleponies, before we get started, I’m the only authority you’ll ever need. Now, you lot… You all know our mission. Got some… dissenters who’d rather return to the Wastes below as they feel life’s better down there than up here in our little slice of paradise. Our little Garden of Eden in what’s otherwise Hell all around us,” Nimbus lectured. “Our job, teach them it is not to disobey the will of the Enclave. We are Celestia’s chosen, the only pure faction left in the Wasteland! We do not tolerate those who think otherwise. After Rainbow Dash, after Scootaloo! They were examples of what happens when things go wrong, those who would carefully upset the balance we created.”

Iron could only watch in horror as he saw through his past self’s set of eyes what could only be described as a massacre. Ponies, dragged out of their houses and fired at with Novasurge rifles and turned to nothing but ash. Ashes beneath his hooves that fell through the cloud cover below and became nothing but dust in the wind. Iron didn’t know if his past self was acting out of falsely given information or these actually were dissenters from the Enclave’s rule, but he knew, he knew right then and there what he was seeing was nothing but pure fanaticism. Fanaticism, and a twisted sense of loyalty to a country that decided who got to live, and who got to die. That was the cold hard truth of the Enclave. You decided to become a Dashite, and you earned yourself a death sentence.

Looking at the pile of ashes in front of him, Iron’s eyes widened in horror as his past self then spoke into a radio. “It’s done… Commander Stormy. Scootaloo’s great-grandchildren are dead.”

“Good. You’re a damn good soldier Nimbus. Damn good. I may just strike up a friendship with you yet. After all, isn’t that what they said in the old days? Friendship is Magic?”

Nimbus-No, Iron Skies as he couldn’t find himself to go by the name of Nimbus after this- found himself releasing his stomach contents to the floor below. And that was how Midnight found him as the power returned.

“You… You alright?” he asked, as he hurried over. “What… What happened?”

“Another… Another flashback.” Iron said as he took a deep shuddering breath.

“What… What did you see?”

Then, Midnight found himself with a very ugly glare pointed in his direction.

“I...I will tell you this,” Iron whispered in a tone that anybody could tell was pure self-disgust. “We were both right. I need a morality pet like you said, and me… Well, I was right about having need of folks like you.”

With that, he spoke into the microphone in front of him, and in one tone of pure rage, directed towards Stormy Skies and his perversion of the term he said this to Twilight Sparkle: “Friendship is Magic.”

Author's Notes:

So, ringing in the new year with a real whammy of a chapter! Anyways, if you absolutely despise Iron after this chapter, can't say I blame you really. But... Keep this in mind, with these flashbacks you're never getting the full story. Just snippets, so there's still more of his life in Cloudsdale and what he exactly did to be told...

Thanks to Kyler Adams for editing this chapter as always, he's awesome. Also, huge thanks to both Scarletsfeed and Rainbowsurvivor for these pieces...

https://scarletsfeed.deviantart.com/art/Iron-Skies-Commission-722072861

As always, comments and thoughts on the chapter are appreciated.