Applejack winced as Adam wiped and bandaged her shoulder with a relatively clean scrap of cloth torn from his outfit. “No clean water,” he muttered angrily. “It’s no wonder they need to keep bringing slaves in.” He finished tying off the bandage and gave a dissatisfied grunt. “That’ll have to do for now. If you start noticing any redness or-”

“Ah grew up on a farm, Ah know what an infection looks like,” Applejack interrupted. “Ah’m up to date on all of my shots too, so that’s one less thing to worry about, at least. What now?”

Adam frowned and turned to look around the street. A few raiders were eyeing the pair suspiciously, but so far no-one had bothered them. “Right now, I say we find Midea and find out what the fuck it is that she wants us to do.”

Applejack nodded curtly. “Sounds good to me.” She rolled her shoulder to check its range before setting off towards Midea’s living area; Applejack refused to call such a glorified slave pen a home. It was surprisingly tricky remembering to keep her head down and act like a slave, but none of the raiders paid any attention to the pair once they started walking, so clearly they were doing something right.

The duo soon found Midea outside her quarters oiling some kind of heavy-duty power saw. She looked up just as they approached. “Oh, thank god! I suspected that you’d be up to the challenge of the Steelyard, but I couldn’t help worrying.” Midea handed the saw to another slave and stood up, wiping her hands on her ragged clothes. “Come with me. We’ll get some food, and we can talk while we eat.”

“Won’t the guards find that suspicious?” Adam asked quietly.

“We’re allowed to eat. Also, successful Steelers like yourselves are especially useful, so they tend to get a little leeway with rest breaks and such,” Midea assured him.

Applejack fell into step alongside her with an incredulous look. “Successful? Ah’d be surprised if any of y’all even survived goin’ out in that crazy Steelyard.”

“Around here, survival is success, and it’s not something that most manage for long,” Midea replied grimly. “Those who do are respected and often feared, at least among their fellow slaves.”

“Why would they be feared?” Adam asked.

“That’s one of the things we need to talk about,” Midea said cryptically. She led the pair over to an unusually cheery slave woman, who doled out bowlfuls of what Applejack hoped was stew, then over to a few piles of breeze blocks that seemed to do for seating.

Applejack looked down at her bowl with a grimace. She had eaten plenty of dodgy crap in the wasteland, but this slop was looking to be the worst of the lot. The broth was somehow both transparent and a thick brown color at the same time, while the grayish chunks of meat looked about as appetizing as ghoul-flesh, and almost as fresh. Still, food was food. Even the taste wasn’t that bad, all things considered.

“I’m not sure you should be eating that.” Applejack glanced at Adam curiously, but he turned to Midea instead. “I heard that there’s no clean water, and I sure as hell don’t see any brahmin around, so what's this stuff made of?”

“You probably don’t want to know, but it’s as safe and nutritious as we can manage under the circumstances.” Midea subtly checked to make sure no guards were watching before saying quietly, “Besides, if you refuse to eat even though you look healthy, the guards will get suspicious.”

Applejack sighed and shook her head. “It’s fine, Adam, Ah’ll just get the Scribes to give me a look over when we get back to Rivet City. Right now Ah just want to hear what it is we’re supposed to be doin’ here.”

Midea got the hint and explained quietly, “It’s simple, really. From time to time, Ashur opens up his arena. We call it the Hole. Any slave who wants to can fight against the gladiators. If you win, you get your freedom. More importantly, you get an audience with Ashur. It’s the only way a slave will ever get the chance to talk to him directly.”

“That’s where we come in,” Applejack put in.

Midea nodded in confirmation. “You fight. You win. And when you talk to Ashur, you take the cure. Wernher has a distraction planned that should give you a chance to grab it and bring it back to me.”

It certainly sounded simple enough, but somehow Applejack doubted that things were really going to be so easy. “When’s the arena due to open?”

“I don’t know, but it should be soon. Maybe in the next couple of days,” Midea replied. “Until then, I’ll arrange somewhere for you both to sleep. I was hoping to have you running errands to keep you away from the guards, but now that you’ve proven yourselves in the Steelyard they’ll probably want to send you back out there. Just… try not to get yourselves killed, okay?”

“Damn fine work you did takin’ out those guns,” a gruff voice said out of nowhere. “Damn fine.”

Luna raised an arm to shield her eyes as her vision went from pitch darkness to blinding light. The light dimmed gradually, but everything was so full of static that she couldn’t see anything. “Wha-? What’s going on? Girls?!”

“Ah, mein apologies, Frau.” The disturbingly familiar voice of the strange little girl made Luna shudder. “Do not fret, your students are fine, I am merely tinkering to make things a little more interesting.” Her accent, if she really was a girl, seemed to shift and switch with every sentence, and the idea that she was tinkering, whatever that meant, was more than enough to make Luna fret.

Oblivious to Luna’s concerns, or simply ignoring them, the voice hummed an annoyingly upbeat tune as she went about her business. Slowly but surely, the static cleared up and the surroundings came into focus.

Luna saw Trixie and Sonata first, standing on either side of her and looking just as worried and confused as she felt. As her vision cleared Luna saw that they were in some kind of oversized military tent; the kind used in movies as a field command post, full of terminals, radios, and all sorts of weird and wonderful military tech that she couldn’t even guess the purpose of. Their previous guide was nowhere to be seen.

Finally, the air in front of the Moons flickered and a man appeared out of thin air. He was tall and clearly well-built beneath his overcoat, with iron-gray hair cropped short and a matching mustache and goatee.

“That would be a digital simulacra of General Chase, the man responsible for this particular simulation,” the strange girl’s voice whispered in Luna’s ear. “Short-sighted and narrow-minded, but useful in his own way.” The voice sharpened as it added, “Of course, if he had properly shielded the cable connection between our two facilities as I instructed then I wouldn’t be stuck in my current predicament, but there we are. Thankfully, that particular miscalculation has been rectified. Now I believe that we have kept the good general waiting long enough. Have fun.”

Luna opened her mouth to demand an explanation, but a loud pop and a burst of static cut her off before she could speak.

“Unfortunately, while you were up there climbing mountains, we were down here getting our butts kicked,” General Chase continued as if there hadn’t been any interruption. “The Chinese decided to use our Field HQ for target practice and damn near blew us all to pieces. We lost some good men, including my Strike Team Commander, Colonel Patterson.”

Trixie gasped quietly in realization. She looked distinctly queasy as she said, “Hang on, I thought this was just an awards screen or something. We’ve finished the simulation, haven’t we? Th-they’re not going to make us do even more? Vice-Principal?”

“I didn’t call you down here for a pep talk and cigars,” the General said bluntly, though he kept his gaze fixed on Luna. “You’ve earned yourself a field promotion, soldier. As of this moment you’re taking over Patterson’s Strike Team. And before you thank me, you better wait and see what your mission entails.”

It took a surprising amount of willpower for Luna to avoid swearing loudly. Real or not, having a military rank dumped on her was a horrifying prospect, especially with an inevitably life-threatening task tacked on. “What do we have to do?” Luna asked in a resigned tone.

“There are three hardened targets that stand between us and the Chinese headquarters. That’s where your Strike Team comes in,” General Chase replied. “Follow me over to the situation map and I’ll bring you up to speed.”

Luna took a deep breath in through her nose and let it out slowly through her mouth. Shoving her own emotions down, she forced a reassuring smile onto her face before turning to the girls. “It’ll be alright, we’ve just got to keep doing what we’ve been doing. Let’s get this over with and get back to Rivet City as quickly as possible.”

The girls clearly weren’t happy with this turn of events, but they both nodded dully and followed the General over to a solid steel table in the middle of the tent. A 3D holographic map was projected across the surface of the table. Under normal circumstances, Luna would have been utterly fascinated by it, but her curiosity was smothered by dread at the thought of whatever nightmare she had to drag the girls through next.

“Okay, pay attention, soldier. I’m only going to go through this once.” Luna snapped out of her funk as the General pointed to a spot on the map. “We’ve set up our new Field HQ down here. The area is pretty secure now that the Artillery Guns are gone.” He gestured to another area and a shining square popped up around it. “The first of the three targets we need to handle is their Chimera depot over here. Be careful on your approach, you’re going to have to get through the Enemy Camp on the way. Once you breach the perimeter of the depot, you need to take out both of the main fuel tanks.”

Sonata cocked her head to the side curiously. “What kind of fuel do chimeras need? Do the Chinese soldiers just have huge tanks full of cheese over there?”

“Your second target is all the way over here,” the General continued without even acknowledging her unhinged comment. The Chinese have set up a listening post set into the side of Calliway Ridge. There are some abandoned mines along the route, so keep your eyes and ears open. It’s a great place for an ambush.”

“Fantastic,” Trixie muttered sarcastically.

“You need to clear the place of personnel so we can get our intelligence boys in there to start decoding.” The General fiddled with the table’s controls and a third area was highlighted. “Once the first two targets are down, the last obstacle standing in the way is their damn Pulse Field. You need to cross it then cause it to overload so we can mop up the place with the T-51b’s.” He fixed Luna with a stern glare. “Let me warn you now. Unless you have some sort of a death wish, I wouldn’t even go near the field until the first two targets are down.”

Luna bit back the urge to say that one needed a death wish to sign up for this stupid simulation in the first place.

“Lieutenant Morgan will be your eyes and ears for Operation Anchorage, so get everything else you need from him.” The General straightened up and clasped his hands behind his back. “Uncle Sam’s invested a lot of money turning you into a killing machine… time to pay him back. Dismissed.” The moment he finished talking, there was a crackle of static and suddenly the General was gone, leaving the Moons alone in the tent.

Sonata stared blankly at the spot where the man had been standing. “Uh… okay?”

“Who’s Lieutenant Morgan? And Uncle Sam?” Trixie asked.

“I have no idea, but I’m pretty sure they haven’t invested any money in me, or turned me into a killing machine,” Luna admitted with a shake of her head. She glanced around, looking for any clues as to where Lieutenant Morgan might be, but on seeing nothing useful she sighed and headed for the tent’s exit. “I guess we should take a look outside. If this is the Field HQ then there should be someone we… can… what in Tartarus?”

Something was wrong with the simulation. The Field HQ itself seemed alright, a collection of military tents and piles of crates gathered in a snowy clearing, but the sky and horizon were both jet-black, as if everything outside of the immediate surroundings had simply ceased to exist. To make matters worse, there were no signs of life whatsoever in the camp. The Moons were completely alone.

“What’s going on? Where is everyone?” Trixie asked warily.

A coy giggle made the trio whip around. The creepy little girl was back, sitting cross-legged on top of the tent they had started in.

“What’s a kid doing here?” Sonata blurted out.

“She’s been following us through the simulation,” Luna replied, not taking her eyes off of the girl for an instant. “She’s working with the Boogeyman, somehow.”

The girl giggled again and spoke in a normal child’s voice, “You don’t need to look so scared, sillies! The system didn’t quite have enough processing power for the game I want you to play, so I just got rid of some of the unnecessary details to free up some space.”

“What game? What are you- hey, wait!” The girl smiled and faded from view, leaving Luna glaring at empty air.

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Trixie said quietly.

Luna pinched the bridge of her nose and heaved a sigh. “Well, whatever that girl wants, and I’m not convinced that she is just a little girl, there’s not much that we can do about it at the moment. For now, all we can do is keep moving through this simulation in one piece.”

Sonata tentatively raised a hand. “Uh, what about Lieutenant Morgan? Aren’t we supposed to speak to him?”

“I get the feeling the Lieutenant was one of the unnecessary details that the girl deleted,” Luna noted sourly. “We already know our targets, so I guess we’re going to have to do this on our own.”

Sonata sighed and rolled her eyes, more aggravated than anything, but Trixie looked justifiably afraid. It was nice to see that at least one of the girls understood the fear of having an unknown entity pulling strings behind the scenes.

“I suppose we at least have an idea of what to expect this time around,” Luna said, trying to reassure her student, even if only a little. “We’ve gotten this far. Let’s finish this.” It wasn’t much, but it at least got a weary nod out of Trixie. Bereft of any other options, the Moons set about exploring the area.

It didn’t take long for them to find a wide path between two tents that seemed to lead away from the Field HQ. Strangely, the path’s entrance could only be seen when facing it directly, as if it was enclosed by a tunnel of pure darkness.

Luna struggled to ignore a bone-deep feeling of unease as she led the way along the path. The knowledge that the creepy girl was watching them was part of it but, beyond that, she couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something else stalking them in the darkness. Half-heard whispers seemed to follow the group at every turn, while half-imagined shapes lingered just out of sight.

“Can I just blast this stupid place to pieces already?” Sonata grumbled.

“I get how you feel, but no,” Luna told her. “Save your strength for when we come across more soldiers.” The path opened up suddenly as soon as the last word left her mouth, unexpectedly dumping the trio in the middle of a snowy forest clearing. “What the heck?”

Luna looked around in confusion. The sky was still black, and the path they had followed was still a lone strip of color above an empty abyss, but the Moons were now standing on what appeared to be an island of sorts. Tightly packed trees obscured the way ahead.

“That’s weird. Kinda cool though,” Sonata said. “It reminds me a little of the kelp forests back home in Equestria.”

“How so?” Luna asked, distracted despite herself.

A nostalgic smile spread across Sonata’s face. It was actually refreshing to see an expression on her that wasn’t irritation or blank ambivalence. “They’re just plants that grow in the sea, but if you’re swimming along and not paying attention then you can end up lost in a forest of it before you even know it. Predators sometimes like to hide in them to ambush prey, too.”

Luna fought back a shudder as the parallels to their own situation sprang to mind. “Let’s try and avoid ending up like prey, then. Keep your eyes open.”

The girls were back on guard in an instant. With their heads back in the game, the Moons advanced cautiously into the woods.

Time seemed to lose all meaning as the trio walked. The trees were identical, all with pale gray trunks and snow-white leaves. Even the ground was white; flat, clean, and featureless, like a sheet of paper. It was unnatural. Of course, Luna knew that the entire simulation was technically unnatural, but up until this point the developers had clearly made an effort to create environments that at least felt real. This forest was different.

“What was that sound?” Sonata hissed suddenly.

The three stopped to listen intently. Seconds ticked by slowly, until finally a faint sound echoed through the woods; a child, laughing playfully.

“Is that that weird little girl again?” Sonata asked.

“I sincerely hope not,” Luna replied. “Which way did it come from? These trees are throwing off my sense of direction.” Sonata pointed and took the lead in what was hopefully the right direction. A short way further on, as far as Luna could tell, the trio found the source of the sound.

A young child was squatting with their back to the group a little way ahead. They couldn’t have been older than seven or eight, wearing a pair of faded jeans, a black and white striped t-shirt, and a strange white balaclava with an orange bobble-hat perched on top. The child was cheerfully humming away while digging in the snow with something.

“That’s not the same kid,’ Sonata noted astutely. “Hey, kid! What’re you doing here?”

Luna felt a sudden urge to smack a palm to her forehead. Or the siren’s. “Sonata, don’t be so confrontati- what the…?” She trailed off as the child looked back over its shoulder at the group.

The helmet turned out to be an oversized clown mask. It had a colorful grinning face sewn into it, but the smile was too wide, the teeth were yellow and shark-like, and thick rivulets of what looked distressingly like blood were leaking from its eyes. As if that wasn’t creepy enough, the child was gripping a bloody carving knife in one small hand.

“That’s sick. That’s sick,” Trixie muttered to herself, backing away with a look of pure disgust on her face.

Luna desperately wanted to agree, but she forced herself to look calm as she tried to remember everything she had learned during her short stint as an elementary teacher. “H-hey, kiddo. That’s an interesting toy you’ve got there. Uh, why don’t you put that down and we’ll, uh, find you something new to play with?”

The kid just stared blankly at her. Luna silently cursed herself for such a pathetic attempt, only for the child to stand and turn to face her properly. “Hi there. Do you want to come with us?” Luna crouched a little to get closer to the child’s level. “It’s okay, we’re not going to hurt you.”

Flecks of blood sprayed from the mask’s mouth as the child let out an inhuman screech. Luna took a step back, startled, and the child took the chance to charge at her with its knife held high.

“Get lost!” Luna’s heart lurched as Sonata darted forward and booted the kid in the face, smashing it off of its feet. “Hah! Take that you little freak!”

“Sonata?!” Luna choked out.

The siren gave her a confused look. “What? It’s not like the little brat's real.” The brat in question was just getting to its feet when Sonata unleashed her magic, sending it flying through the air to slam into a tree with a crack that was audible even over the siren’s song.

Luna and Trixie both stared in horror as the child crumpled to the floor in a mangled heap. Instead of disappearing like the soldiers had, it simply laid there in a spreading pool of blood.

Sonata slowly turned pale, looking increasingly uneasy as the body refused to disappear. “That, uh, that’s definitely not a real kid, right? It’s gotta be just another part of the simulation, ‘cause, like, killing real kids is just the worst.”

Luna rounded on her, ready to tear the impatient idiot a new one, when an awful keening sound came from the corpse. Glancing back, Luna had to clamp a hand over her mouth as she saw the body swelling up like a giant balloon. It exploded a second later, spreading gore and viscera everywhere. She felt her gorge rising at the sight of the mess, only for it to disappear after a few moments, leaving behind a small blue-and-red gem where the body had been.

“Hah! I told you it wasn’t a real kid!” Sonata exclaimed jubilantly. Luna turned to stare at her in disbelief, but the siren ignored her and skipped over to pick up the gemstone. “Hey, look at this! This is my magic!”

“How can you be so normal after that?!” Trixie shrieked.

Sonata turned, wide-eyed, as if only just noticing that the others didn’t share her glee. “What do you mean? That thing had a knife, and it wasn’t even a real kid so, like, what’s the big deal?”

“Knife or not, it was still a child, Sonata,” Luna replied, trying to contain both her temper and the contents of her stomach. “Most people would feel at least a little conflicted.”

“Ugh, you humans are so weak,” Sonata said with a roll of her eyes.

Luna was tempted to say something scathing, but it didn’t feel right. She couldn’t really say that Sonata was right, but it wouldn’t be fair to say that she was wrong, either. Besides, Luna was almost certain that this horrific new element to the simulation was one of the so-called games that the creepy little girl had cooked up. And the idea of technically being rewarded for killing what was essentially a child was a whole new level of messed up.

“I don’t know how much more of this I can take,” Trixie muttered weakly.

Luna gave the girl a worried look. She was genuinely impressed with how strong Trixie’s stomach had proved to be, but there was no doubt that this experience was going to leave a nasty mark in her mind. “It’s going to be alright,” Luna said in the most reassuring tone she could manage. “Let’s just get this mess over with as quickly as we can.”

The others were probably sick of hearing it by now, but neither of them said anything as the trio set off once again. As if the group wasn’t stressed enough, the haunting sound of children’s laughter followed them, faint enough to be a trick of the imagination, persistent enough for them to know that it wasn’t. Thankfully, despite their worst fears, the Moons didn’t encounter any more clown-kids even as the trees finally began to thin out.

“Heads up, there’s a bunker.” Luna raised her stave at the sight of a familiar concrete structure ahead. As they got closer, she spotted a couple more bunkers and a cluster of military tents; clearly a camp of some kind. “Be ready for anything, girls,” Luna warned.

The trio were on tenterhooks as they made their way into the camp. Bizarrely, all of the soldiers they encountered were already dead, sprawled on the ground or over desks with vicious wounds in their torsos.

“Did they all kill each other?” Sonata asked.

“I don’t think so, those look more like stab wounds than bullet holes,” Luna replied. “Either way, don’t let your guard down. I don’t know why these bodies haven’t disappeared, but I doubt it’s a good sign.”

Together, the three cautiously explored each bunker and tent in turn. It probably would have been quicker to split up, but Luna wasn’t even remotely interested in taking a risk like that. In the very last bunker, at the far edge of the camp, the Moons found another one of the strange briefcases.

“What are these things actually for?” Trixie wondered aloud as she collected it.

“Beats me,” Luna admitted. She turned to leave the bunker, then did a double-take when she spotted movement out of the corner of her eye.

A Chinese soldier slumped over a desk in a corner was stirring, apparently not as dead as he had appeared. Luna blasted him with her stave before he could even get his feet beneath himself. The soldier crashed to the floor with a smoking hole blown into his side, but the corpse didn’t disappear.

“Get behind something!” Luna barked, expecting another gory explosion. Instead, the soldier shifted his weight, letting out a low moan as he looked up at his attacker. His eyes were glassy and speckled with blood. The Moons watched in horror as the soldier hissed and pushed himself awkwardly to his feet, ignoring his appalling new wound.

A second shot knocked the soldier back and burned another hole in his chest. He reeled as more magical bolts tore into his body, but even that wasn’t enough to bring him down.

“It’s a zombie, shoot it in the head, you idiot!” Sonata snapped.

Luna didn’t need telling twice. A second of careful aiming, a single crisp shot, and the soldier dropped like a puppet with its strings cut. As if on cue, a chorus of low moans broke out outside. Luna glanced at the girls before darting to the door.

Dozens of zombies were shambling towards the group. More were appearing from inside each of the bunkers and tents, far more than there should have been considering the number of bodies the trio had found. Sonata unleashed her magic with a roar, blasting a swathe of them back, but only a few were broken enough to disappear. The rest either stood back up and resumed their shambling, or simply started crawling towards the Moons instead.

“There’s too many of them. Run!” Luna took the lead, sprinting away from the camp and plunging into yet another woodland. She led the girls on a winding path through the trees, hopeful that she was going the right way, but mostly just trying to evade the zombies.

After a short while, Trixie breathlessly called out to the others, “I… I think we… think we lost them…”

Luna slowed to a halt and looked back at the girls. Both were out of breath, but Trixie was clearly having a worse time of it. Just as Luna was trying to come up with some encouragement, she saw dark shapes approaching from behind. The zombies were catching up already.

“Hey, that’s not fair! How did they catch us so quickly?!” Sonata shouted indignantly.

“I don’t know, but we can’t stop here.” Luna caught Trixie’s eye and saw what she was thinking written on her face; they couldn’t keep running, either. “We’ll walk from here on. If we can’t outrun them, then we’ll just have to try and keep ahead of them instead.”

Trixie nodded and the trio set off again, this time at a brisk walk. The zombies never seemed to fall behind, no matter how fast the Moons moved, but the pace was far more manageable. In fact, the zombies never seemed to gain on the trio either, which raised the awful possibility that they were being herded somewhere, but Luna kept such thoughts to herself.

Eventually, an enormous concrete wall loomed out of the woods. A nearby wire mesh gate allowed passage through it. The Moons eagerly hurried through the gate and closed it, then Trixie used her lockpicking skills to lock it behind them. Not a moment too soon either, as the zombies emerged from the trees and pressed against the gate, moaning and clawing at it in a mindless mob.

“I don’t think that’s going to hold them for long,” Luna warned. “Come on.”

The Moons soon discovered that they were inside a massive walled compound. There were no trees inside, just a series of bunkers, metal prefab cabins, garages, and open-air workshops.Thankfully, there was no sign of any zombies within the compound either.

“Look! In there, one of those healing things!” Trixie exclaimed as they walked past a cabin.

“Wait!” Luna stopped the girls before they could run heedlessly towards it. “Don’t let your guard down just because you’ve found a health thing, there could be absolutely anything lurking in there with it. Keep watch while I make sure that it’s safe, then I’ll do the same for you two.”

The cabin turned out to be safe, so the Moons took it in turns to make use of the dispenser. Trixie even found another one of the strange briefcases under the table it was sitting on.

“Do you think this is the Chimera Depot?” Trixie asked when they were all done.

Luna nodded. “I’d be very surprised if it wasn’t.” A worryingly loud creak from the locked gate drew her attention for a second. “We need to find those fuel tanks before the zombies break through, or things are going to get tricky.”

“Like they aren’t already?” Trixie grumbled.

Sonata cocked her head to the side, looking uncharacteristically thoughtful. “I mean, I can probably blow the fuel thingies up myself, but It’ll probably be easier if we don’t have to deal with zombies at the same time, y’know?”

Trixie scowled at her. “That’s not what I- ugh, never mind.”

Together, the three headed deeper into the compound, keeping an eye out for anything that looked like a fuel tank. It took an embarrassingly long time for Luna to remember that this world was a little different to her own. “Hold on, I’ve just realized, we’re not looking for gasoline tanks, we need to look for something marked as containing radioactive materi- oh.” She was proven wrong instantly as they turned a corner and almost ran into an industrial-sized gas tank. “Never mind.”

“I’ve got it.” The trio hurried to a safe distance before Sonata sucked in a deep breath. Her magic echoed through the compound a second later, reverberating off of the walls and making the ground shake.

The fuel tank didn’t so much as flex under the strain of the attack.

“I guess the kid isn’t going to make it that easy for us,” Luna spat. She hesitated for a moment to consider her options, then snapped her stave up and fired at it herself. Strangely luminescent brown gasoline poured out of the fist-sized hole she managed to punch in the tank. “Do you have any fireworks left, Trixie?”

Trixie actually let out a smug snort. “Why mess with a firework when you can just use one of these?” She pulled out a small firecracker, lit it, and threw it into the growing puddle of gas at the base of the tank.

The pop ignited the haze above the puddle first. Luna feared that it wouldn’t be enough, but the flame soon caught and traveled up the stream in the blink of an eye. She dragged the girls behind a bunker right as a tremendous explosion shook the earth. Shards of steel and gobbets of blazing fuel whizzed outwards, filling the air with flaming death.

“Whoever came up with all of this is a freaking psycho!” Trixie snapped when the noise had died down.

“Blame this country’s old government,” Luna told her, though privately she was certain that the weird little girl was behind at least half of the incidents from this particular round. A quick peek revealed that the fuel tank was gone, replaced with little more than a smoking crater. “Excellent. One down, one to go.”

As if mocking her relief, the distinctive sound of metal being bent out of shape followed by a loud crash came from the direction of the gate. Sonata darted back to the corner to take a look. “Uh, the zombies broke through the gate!”

“Of course they did,” Luna huffed. “Use your magic to slow them down if they get too close.”

“How close is too close?” Sonata asked.

“Just use your judgment!” Luna said, a little sharper than she had intended. She hurried the girls on, leading them along the winding path through the compound, anxiously searching for the second fuel tank. The zombies kept the same eerie pace behind them.

Finally, the trio reached a gap in the wall; presumably a gate or checkpoint of some kind. Despite the zombies on their tail, Luna gestured for the girls to wait as she peeked around the corner. She yelped and ducked back a second later.

“What-” Trixie’s question was drowned out by a barrage of pale blue lasers lancing through the gateway and blasting a bunker to pieces.

“The fuel tank is protected by a Chimera tank,” Luna said shakily, too rattled to keep her voice steady this time. Sonata’s magic erupted an instant later, wreaking havoc amongst the zombies and making conversation impossible, so Luna risked another look.

The tank was broad and flat, almost beetle-like, with two great screw mechanisms underneath that apparently provided locomotion. Some sort of jury-rigged pylon arched up over the tank’s back, bearing a small radar dish and a much larger laser cannon. Luna ducked back out of sight just as said cannon opened fire again.

“What are we going to do?” Trixie asked anxiously.

Luna gripped the haft of her stave tightly. Attacking the tank head-on was suicide, but there was no way they’d be able to hold off the zombie horde forever. She struggled against rising panic even as she heard the tank rumbling closer.

“Swap with me!” Sonata didn’t bother waiting for an answer as she grabbed Luna and shoved her towards the zombies. “And shoot them in the head this time!”

“W-what?” Luna stared blankly at the approaching undead horde. Many of them were dragging themselves on bodies battered and broken by Sonata’s magic, but Luna didn’t get why she had been swapped in. Realization struck when she heard the siren unleashing her magic behind instead. “Sonata?!”

Any reply was lost beneath the crackle of heavy laser fire. Luna desperately wanted to turn and see what was happening, but the zombies were close enough that she could see their bloodshot eyes. She cursed under her breath and fired at the nearest one just as Sonata attacked with her magic again.

Sonata flinched as powerful lasers slammed into the wall behind her. First, the stupid fuel tank had been immune to her magic, and now she couldn’t even destroy this tank tank in one go. At least she could actually damage this thing; not much, but the tank’s shell had crumpled and dented beneath the power of siren magic.

It didn’t take long for the lasers to stop firing. Sonata was ready in an instant, leaning through the gateway and blasting the tank with her magic. A little more of the shell crumpled, and the weird radar dish was twisted off-center, but it wasn’t enough. She huffed and slid back out of sight as the tank started firing again.

“Stupid tank.” Sonata scowled and crossed her arms. Her magic was powerful enough to turn concrete to dust and rip through steel as if it was paper; some dumb little human machine shouldn’t be able to stand against it no matter what any nerdy computer thingy said. It wasn’t fair.

As she stewed, Sonata slowly realized that something about the lasers sounded… off. As if the tank were firing at a point six feet away from where she was actually standing. Curiosity made Sonata poke her head around the gateway even while the tank was still firing. For some weird reason the tank was pointing its radar dish at her, even though that meant that its laser cannon was aiming the wrong way.

“Oh, I get it! That thing must be how it sees!” Sonata gave a satisfied nod, basking in her own smartness. Lost in her own smug little world, it took her a second to realize that the tank’s turret was turning, bringing the lasers around towards her. Panic seized her and she sprinted through the gateway.

Sonata cursed herself as she ran. She could have just hid back behind the gateway, but now she was stuck in the open with hardly anywhere to hide and catch her breath. Finally, just as the lasers were scorching the air behind her, the tank stopped firing.

“Yes!” Sonata skidded to a halt and turned to face the tank. She sucked down air, trying to catch her breath so she could let out a good note, but the tank’s engine let out a deep-throated roar and it started grinding towards her.

Acting on impulse, Sonata charged right at the approaching tank. At the last second, just before it could squish her, she vaulted up onto the tank’s shell. By some miracle, she managed to get on top without falling either over or off. Struggling to keep her footing, she scrambled across the tank and leapt off of the back end, coughing out a feeble magical shot at the radar dish as she went.

Sonata’s knees buckled the moment she hit the ground. She stumbled, scraping her hands and knees on the floor, but pushed herself to her feet and launched into a sprint. It took only a second to dive behind the nearest weird metal structure.

The tank’s screws kicked up dirt as the tank stopped and began to turn. It would have been the perfect moment to blast it with magic, but Sonata just couldn’t catch her breath enough to sing a proper note; a handicap to her magic that she’d never even considered before. Just to be extra annoying, the tank started firing well before it could actually draw a bead on her, carving a swathe of destruction in a wide arc through the area.

There wasn’t enough time. Sonata knew she wasn’t going to get her breath back before the tank turned around fully; she needed to find more cover, and the fuel tank too, while she was at it. With a plan in her head, Sonata quickly scanned the yard. With an awful sinking feeling in her stomach, she checked again, then looked back up at the structure she was hiding behind.

It was the second fuel tank. Sonata had never been that great at math or science, but even she could figure out that fuel plus laser cannon equals problem. A problem that she was standing right next to when she really shouldn’t be.

“Aw, crabsticks!” Sonata bolted just as the first laser struck the fuel tank.

Another zombie slumped to the ground with a hole burned into its skull. Luna shoved the next one back and put it down, then risked wasting a second to wipe the sweat from her eyes. She had taken out half a dozen zombies already, and hobbled twice that number in an attempt to slow them down and space the horde out, but no matter how many fell it wasn’t enough. There were just too many of them.

“Cover your ears!” Trixie yelled. Luna did so just as a bundle of fireworks, all tied together with multicolored handkerchiefs, sailed over her head and landed in the middle of the horde. The blast was muted, but something about the undead mob silhouetted against the explosion of color was oddly beautiful.

Despite the distraction, Luna didn’t let herself lose focus. The blast had knocked a few of the zombies down and set several smoldering, but it hadn’t actually taken many of them out, and it certainly hadn’t distracted any of them. Still, it had slowed some of the monsters down, which was good enough.

Luna quickly set about thinning out the ranks of the closest zombies. Just as she was starting to get into a rhythm, a massive explosion shook the ground and drove her to her knees. “That’s gonna suck in the morning,” Luna growled. She snapped her stave up only to see that the zombie horde had frozen in place, as if someone had pressed a pause button or something.

“Oh ho, that one looked painful ya? Poor little siren!” A masculine voice exclaimed excitedly.

“Sonata?!” Luna tried to stand up, but for some reason her legs wouldn’t work. She was stuck. “Sonata?! Trixie?! Girls?!”

The voice shifted between that of an adult man and the familiar little girl as it laughed maliciously. “They cannot hear you, frau. Not unless I want them to, and right now I do not want them to.” The voice laughed again before adding mockingly, “Do not fret. In fact, as thanks for a good show, I have gifts for each of you. Then we’ll see how you handle mine and the good Colonel’s obstacles when they’re combined.”

Rooted to the spot, Luna could only watch anxiously as a thin jet-black tentacle pushed itself out of the ground like some vile parody of an earthworm. It wriggled obscenely, revealing a vicious-looking spike at its tip, then suddenly lanced forward and punched straight through Luna’s heart.

Next Chapter: Chapter 199 - Along the Dark Path... Estimated time remaining: 1 Hour, 4 Minutes