“Break me in, teach us to cheat,
And to lie and cover up,
What shouldn’t be shared
And the truth unwinding
Scraping away at my mind
Please stop asking me to describe.”
Muse, Citizen Erased.

Interview Record: H. M.
File Codename: “Limiting Factor”.

Interview subject: “Jim”.

Interviewer notes: Jim is something of a mystery to most observers. Our most pertinent theory is that he’s a transient of some sort who stumbled upon whatever he currently knows by accident. Whatever happened to him, he’s become one of the most indirectly influential people outside of the government and major organisations, even gathering followers such as Hiro Mifune.

Jim: Well hey there, Colonel. Or d’you prefer -?

H.M: I think I prefer ‘Colonel’, under the circumstances, Jim.

Jim: Hey, sure thing, man.

H.M: You really get a kick out of having all these people just call you ‘Jim,’ don’t you?

(Jim is silent for several seconds)

Jim: How’s it been?

H.M: It’s been.

Jim: I’ll bet. Hey, is Amber still on your ass about -?

H.M: No. We’ve sorted that.

Jim: Hey, that’s good. I’m glad.

H.M: Afraid we’re here to talk business, Jim.

Jim: Figured that, man. But hey, I’m happy to help. What do you need?

H.M: Luke Scott.

Jim: The kid? What about him.

H.M: You saved his life, didn’t you? Can you tell me why?

Jim: Aw, heck, man. Any other question, I might have been able to give you a straight answer. Now, though? Now you’re askin’ me to quantify the will of the Gods.

---

He is afraid of the dark, because it is unknown.

He is afraid because it waits, long after candles have burnt out, long after the sun has failed faded, long after all Light, however Despondent, has finally gone.

He is afraid of the dark because he cannot see beyond it. He is afraid that he is lost forever in that inky blackness. He is afraid, and he is right to be.

He is lost, no light surrounding him, no joy in his heart.

And then…

Impossibly…

… there is light after all.

---

August 7th, 2022: Nipville.

Luke Scott shot awake, his eyes widening, his breath coming in short, ragged bursts.

“Easy!” an unfamiliar voice said, a hand pressed against Luke’s chest. “You’re okay, son. Just relax.”

Luke winced in pain, looking around frantically. His eyes refused to come into focus. There were two figures near him, human - or at least they looked human.

“What - what happened?” he exclaimed, the breaths coming short and sharp. “What happened?!”

“Easy, man,” the calming voice said, and Luke tried to slow his breathing. “You’re okay. You just need to catch your breath.”

His eyes managed to focus, and Luke found himself staring at a man. A human, salt-and-pepper bearded, with long, shabby hair and a kindly smile. He wore a shabby sort of robe, not unlike a battered dressing gown, and he had open-toed sandals and loose trousers on. They were in a room - it looked like it might once have been someone’s front room, but the TV was tipped over, the sofa he was lying on had holes in it, and he could smell burnt flesh and wood.

“Hi there,” the man said, catching Luke’s attention. “I’m Jim.” He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder, and Luke caught sight of a man in battered Hardball armour with a dirty hooded robe flung over it, the hilt of a sword poking out from beneath the robe. “That’s Hiro.”

The other man nodded once.

“I… I’m Luke,” Luke said.

“We know,” Hiro said gruffly. “Luke Scott, HLF militiaman. Your group was drafted by several officers of the Menschabwehrfraktion and the Sons of Macha to take and hold this town.”

Luke blinked. At the mention of his group, he remembered screaming, fire, gunshots -

“What happened?!” he asked, his eyes widening as he felt his breath quicken. “Where is everyone?!”

Jim and Hiro exchanged a look.

“That’s, uh… a little difficult to explain, man,” Jim said after a moment. “Look, uh… you know your pals in the Sons and the Fraktion were, uh… well, being a little bit…”

“Dishonourable and cruel,” Hiro put in.

Luke frowned. “They didn’t tell us what they were doing, they just drafted us. Waved an officer badge in front of us, claimed to be acting as part of a greater op. They put us to work guarding the town’s borders.”

Jim winced. “Those guys were your guys?”

“Yeah, that was ‘my guys’, but I wasn’t in charge, Dan was,” Luke said slowly, looking from Hiro to Jim. “What happened?”

Jim winced. He didn’t look like this was a conversation he wanted to have: all of his previous levity had evaporated, replaced by an awkward expression that looked somewhere between embarrassed and… sad?

The older man ran a hand through his hair. “I’m… did you… uh, were you close to them?”

“What happened?” Luke asked again, his voice taking on an insistent tone. “What happened to them?!”

Hiro grunted. “Jim. Tell the boy.” At the dirty look Jim gave him, he only shrugged. “It’s only fair.”

Jim sighed. “Fine. Go… go get someone. Tell them we’ve got a survivor. Yeah?”

“If you insist,” Hiro said evenly, before stalking out of the building.

Luke looked back at Jim, waiting for him to speak.

The older man stroked his beard, before letting out another sigh.

“Yael Ze’ev,” he said quietly.

“What?” Luke said, feeling the blood drain from his face.

“You asked what happened to your guys,” Jim said quietly. “That’s your answer. Yael Ze’ev happened to them.”

“Yael… Yael Ze’ev.” Luke swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. He had heard of Yael Ze’ev. Something of an extreme member of the UN Taskforce, known for being less than cordial around militiamen like his group. They’d been warned to not operate near her, or if they did encounter her to stay away from her personally. “What happened?”

Jim kept stroking his beard. “She, uh…” He swallowed. “Well, there was a tank. Uh, and a flamethrower, and a flamethrower on the tank, and Heliotrope was involved…”

As Jim continued, Luke felt his gorge rise. What the older man was describing was…

Holy shit. How am I even alive.

---

Sam Yarrow smelt burnt flesh, and saw burnt ruins all around her. The feeling of nausea was threatening to overpower her, and she had one overpowering thought. She would never work with the PHL again.

Yael Ze’ev, she thought, you… fucking… monster.

The people of Nipville hadn’t been angels by any stretch of the imagination. Nor had the HLF that took it over. By all accounts, the new Lovikov-run Menschabwehrfraktion, the Sons of Macha, and Christian Marines were unpleasant people, or at least led by them (though she’d heard slightly more positive things about Bowen), and her father had been pushing for more of the Spader-loyalist HLF to come in and ‘police’ them (by which he meant ‘arrest their commanders and reorganise the troops so they’re being supervised by officers and troops we trust’).

But in Sam’s estimation, whatever the people here had been guilty of, didn’t condemn the people they’d taken prisoner, or the militiamen the Fraktion and the Sons had co-opted. That didn’t mean Yael’s astonishing orgy of flamethrower tank-fueled destruction was anywhere in the neighborhood of ‘okay’. HLF and civilians alike had been butchered, trapped in burning buildings and immolated and crushed all at once, ripped apart with stray bullets and explosives, hit with combat spells from PHL unicorns, electrocuted, stabbed, slashed, and bludgeoned.

They had torn through terrified militiamen who hadn’t known any better, slaughtering them in their dozens, and then butchered the soldiers within… and many of the civilians, too.

It had been called ‘the Liberation of Nipville’ in the news.

“You sure liberated the hell out of this place, fellas,” she heard one of her troops saying, pushing up a massive slab as he looked for more survivors.

These people… they were people, dammit! Sam thought, her mind racing as she looked over the ruins. Her troops were picking through the scorched wreckage, and Sam could have sworn she saw Martell - Martell of all people! - throwing up in disgust.

“Anything?” she asked one of her people, a soldier in full-body Armacham armour. She tried to ignore the burnt doll in the trooper’s hand - a relic of one of these destroyed homes.

The soldier shook their head. “No, ma’am.”

Of course not, Sam thought. Anyone left’s probably been rounded up and told to shut up or else.

She didn’t want to be that cynical. She really didn’t. She tried to tell herself that maybe - just maybe - this was worth it. Maybe, just maybe, there had been good enough reasons for this. She’d read the reports, knew what these mutineers had been doing…

“Aw shit,” someone said from nearby. “I think there was a kid in here…”

No. No way is this alright, I don’t care what was happening here. Sam closed her eyes. Damn you Yael. And you, Heliotrope. And everyone else you had following you in this fucking abomination. If it kills me, I’ll make sure you go to fucking trial. I will see you fucking pay for this!

“Officer Yarrow!” a voice said from nearby.

She opened her eyes.

“Yeah?” she said, not trusting her gut not to heave if she gave a more elaborate reply.

The next words surprised her. “We found a survivor!”

She gave a small smile. Well. That’s something, at least.

---

“How… why…” Luke didn’t know how to process what Jim had told him. The description had been nothing short of horrifying. “How did I even survive that? I was on the town’s border, with the others.”

“Yeah, you were,” Jim said, smiling ruefully. “Kinda hard to explain, but we think you were… well… lucky.”

“Lucky,” Luke echoed hollowly.

There was a cold, dank feeling settling into his gut, twisting it from the inside out. Jerry and Tina had both called him ‘Lucky Luke’. He’d laughed, waved it off, chuckled about it, and now they were dead and their bodies were somewhere out there, burning or crushed or riddled with bullets.

“I know,” Jim said with a sympathetic smile. “It doesn’t feel like it now.”

“No, it really doesn’t,” Luke agreed, nodding absently. “They’re… you’re sure there’s no other survivors?”

“There are a few of the ringleaders alive, a few stragglers from the proper groups,” Jim replied. “But… no. Not really. I almost hope I’m wrong, but…”

There came a knock at the ramshackle door, and Jim turned.

“Hiro?” he asked. “That you?”

“Came with help,” the voice of Hiro replied. “HLF. Reavers, to be precise.”

Jim raised an eyebrow. “Well, potentially crazy help is better than no help.”

“‘Reavers’?” Luke murmured, frowning. “The ‘Fraktion guy said the Reavers were traitors.”

“Yeah, well, don’t say that to them,” Jim murmured back. “Come in!”

The door to the broken building opened, and a woman in heavy armour stepped into the room. Luke blinked in shock: she was beautiful, albeit the expression on her face made her look more likely to kill something than smile. The armour was marked with a symbol that Luke vaguely recognised as the Armacham Technology Corporation logo, and there were a few symbols painted on in crude red paint - small, but there.

“This the survivor?” she said, looking at Luke. Her voice was English, though he couldn’t quite localise it. Somewhere North, maybe?

“Uh, yeah,” Jim said.

“And who are you guys?” she asked, glaring at Jim. “Passers by?”

“Jim,” Jim replied. “And the other guy is Hiro Mifune.”

The woman’s eyes widened in recognition. “I see. Well, then. Thank you for helping this man.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Jim said quietly.

“May I speak with him alone?” the woman asked.

Jim looked at Luke. “Well, kid? May she?”

Luke hesitated for a moment, but then nodded.

“Thank you,” the woman said, smiling softly. It made her look much younger.

Jim stood. “We’ll be outside, me and Hiro. We still gotta talk, kid.”

He walked out, his battered dressing gown of a robe flapping behind him, and then the woman and Luke were alone.

Her smile faded slightly. “I’m Officer Samantha Yarrow. HLF ID 003-2113.”

Luke nodded. “Luke Scott. Uh… we, uh, didn’t have ID numbers in my group.”

Yarrow clicked her tongue. “Were you even HLF?”

Luke looked at his arm, and then pulled off the raggedy armband that was there, handing it to her. She looked it over.

“The 243rd HLF Militia,” she muttered. “Signatories, but you guys must have been one of the poxiest…” She trailed off, her eyes widening in horror. “Sorry. I shouldn’t… sorry.”

“No, it’s okay,” Luke said quietly. “We, uh, we were pretty poxy.” He paused. “I… I don’t know how much help I’ll be. I don’t… I don’t really remember what happened here.”

“It’s pretty obvious what happened here,” Yarrow snorted. “Your group got drafted by the ‘Fraktion and their mates, and when they fucked up, Yael Ze’ev came and slaughtered them all. Except for you.”

“Yeah,” Luke said, looking at the floor. “Except for me.”

Yarrow sighed. “Look. I can’t do anything about your friends being dead. But we can try to do something about their killer.”

Luke looked up. “Like what?”

“Like tell my father,” Yarrow said, a dangerous glint in her eyes.

Luke blinked, and then let out an involuntary chuckle. “Why, is your dad bigger than the PHL’s dad?”

Yarrow just smiled. “My dad is Maxi Yarrow, Commander of the Spader-Loyalist HLF. He can bring them to task.”

Luke’s mirth faded, replaced by a wide-eyed expression.

“You serious?” he asked.

“Deadly,” Yarrow said.

Luke ran a head through his hair, trying to think about everything that could possibly come of this. A few days ago he’d just been a militiaman: now?

… now he could change the world.

“Well…” he finally said. “I guess I can’t say no.”

Yarrow smiled. “Great. Come with me.”

---

Hadley’s Hope.

“Sir. Processing has begun.”

“Very good, Lieutenant. Keep me informed of our progress.”

Warrior Cairn, that was his name. His father had been a Unicorn Guardspony, and his father before him, stretching back generations. If there was such a thing as an Equestrian warrior tradition, Warrior Cairn’s family had been the family with that tradition.

Sat in a tent, signing off on the latest orders he’d received, he sighed.

Warriors, he thought, and I’m stuck here, on glorified prison camp duty.

Hadley’s Hope was a shantytown, a temporary pre-fab filled refugee camp with delusions of grandeur. It was little more than twelve rows of houses (many of which were made from shipping containers) and a warehouse with supplies stored in it, all on a lonely road in the middle of nowhere. It’d been a so-called “deliberate community” set out by the PHL on a lonely little spit of disused road near a river, then subcontracted to some other company that had made an absolute hash of it and found themselves unable to supply more than these very, very basic housing units.

The only thing that made it interesting was the existence of the seven hundred and twelve people that would make for seven hundred and twelve semi-useful meatshields.

Because, of course, that’s all they’ll ever be, Cairn thought dully. He knew some of his colleagues felt there was more potential to all of this - indeed, he knew that Shieldwall, working with Captain Cactus, was working on making a lot more potential come of it all - but he had seen Newfoals. He’d met precisely one Newfoal worth spit, and Imperial Creed had been sent off to Celestia-knew where.

“Here,” Cairn said to his adjunct, a Newfoal named Dare or Derry or something similarly stupid and provincial. “Send this off via prole.”

“Right away, Cairn-san!” the Newfoal said, grinning that obnoxious rictus they all had.

“Thanks, Derry,” he said automatically.

“Dere, Cairn-san!” the Newfoal corrected chirpily.

Cairn blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Sun Dere, Cairn-san!” the Newfoal.

Cairn blinked again. “Whatever. Go do you job.”

Sun Dere saluted again and walked out, and Cairn sighed.

“Problems, Commander?” an unwelcome voice said snarkily.

Cairn sighed, and looked up, to see Commissar Straight Arrow, his unit’s ‘political officer’, enter the tent. Arrow was a dark brown Unicorn with a shock of white hair and a white moustache, a scowl on his face. His uniform was a shining suit of silver Guard armour, and he wore a saddlebag and a peaked cap.

“What do you want?” Cairn asked irritably.

“Having problems with your adjunct, Commander?” Arrow asked.

“No,” Cairn said. “What do you want, Arrow?”

Arrow sighed, before bringing a small black object out of his saddlebag.

“You need to inspect and sign off on this,” he said disinterestedly. “It was recovered in the possessions of one of the humans and it has a vague thauma signature.”

Cairn raised an eyebrow. “Yay. A trinket. Put it on the desk, Arrow, I’ll see to it presently.”

“Don’t take too long,” Arrow warned, placing the object on the desk. “You know we have an ordained schedule.”

“I know,” Cairn said, returning to his work. ‘Same as always, he thought. ‘Hurry up and wait.’

Shieldwall had asked for a suitable test area to use as a Reconstitution Camp, so Cairn had taken Hadley’s Hope… at which point, Shieldwall had been delayed by something by the Great Lakes. Shieldwall had requested several newfoals to be kept specially decontaminated for a new variant of Reconstitution Potion, only for him to later announce - within almost two weeks of the same orders! - that all his plans involving Reconstitution were currently in limbo.

“Celestia protects, Commander,” Arrow said, his business concluded, and walked out.

“Celestia protects,” Cairn repeated idly.

He glanced at the object. It was spherical, and seemed to be made of some sort of onyx.

I’ll test the thing later, he thought. Got work to do.

Got work to do, something echoed… somewhere. Cairn blinked, looking around.

“Hello?” he said. “Is somepony there?”

Is somepony there? something whispered.

Cairn frowned, and then shook his head. Working too hard, Cairn. Maybe I need a rest leave after this tour.

The object on his desk glimmered, and he smiled reflexively.

Well, he thought, looking at it idly, at least its a pretty paperweight.

He kept looking at it.

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