Entry 015 - Palpitations and Tremors (Part Two)

“I’m pregnant, Crow.”

The disclosure sank my revelation with lead weights around its ankles. I don’t think either of us did anything for several minutes, I certainly didn’t and I couldn’t recollect Gypsy doing anything either. We sat in a closed shop that didn’t belong to us, leaning on a counter that bore my claw marks and pen lines where we’d missed the thing we were signing, lost in a universe we were utterly disorientated by.

“Elmwood doesn’t know and I’d like to keep it that way for now,” my unicorn friend finally obligated me, when she was ready to speak again. I tried to piece the words she’d said into the right order in my head and then said the cleverest thing I could muster.

“Holy mother of the biggest bag of dicks, Gypsy. You’re pregnant,” It was the smartest thing my brain could work out to say, but it was not a lesson in how to speak egghead.

“Okay, we’ve established that,” mumbled the mum-to-be sassily, “my moods have been all over the place. My head is on the moon and my stomach isn’t sure whether to squeeze or expand my waistline.”

“You don’t want Elmwood to know?” I was following this at the pace of a turtle and she made a point to make me aware of this before she continued.

“I love Woody, but sometimes he scares me too. The masks,” she reiterated, and this time I understood.

“But he is the Pa, aye?” I asked cautiously. Whilst I wasn’t expecting Gypsy to be the type to sleep around, common relationship guidelines did not really apply to Equestria anymore and even less to Raider groups. I still deserved the hard stare I received for the question.

“No, it was that one magical night with a hellhound. He was such a surprisingly gentle lover,” she laced her reply with sarcasm.

“Oi! How am I supposed to know? You two were bucking last night, but I dunnae think babies work that fast, do they? Unless yer magic stretches to midwifery now?” My rant brought the laughter out of her and together we were finally able to relax before she spoke again, moving closer to me.

“I think it was two months ago, when we were on the coast of Side-Saddle Island, camped outside Fort Berrytwist. There was that epic bucking sunset, when the grey skies turned pink for a little while and the water burned orange,” Gypsy smiled comfortably as she reminisced on that moment’s reprieve from being the villains if the Wastes. I nodded, remembering that night as well. I’d eventually spent it with Poxy, because you couldn’t witness a rare beauty alone in the world where clouds reigned the skyscape.

“Even if it wasn’t then, I’d lie and say it was.” She appreciated the sentiment and began to lean towards me for a hug when we both had the same thought spring into our minds.

“You bucking snogged me,” I crowed, whilst Breezy went with the more tactical, “listen, about that kiss…”

“Kiss? Your tongue was trying to find the candy I’d swallowed!”

“It wasn’t as bad as that,”

“It wasn’t bad at all, just bad timing!”

“I gotta agree, dudette, but I had my reasons…” she stopped and I think she expected me to interrupt her again, but this time I stopped as well. Was I hearing this right; The Prench embrace had not been an accident in her eyes, so much so that she had even liked it? I patiently gave her time to say what she really needed to say. Realizing she definitely could not put off the inevitable this time, Gypsy sighed and moved her head into my shoulder. I didn’t stop her and accepted her with forgiveness and love before I’d actually heard her excuses.

“Elmwood’s not fit to be a father,” it was a strange beginning to this explanation, but this had been a bizarre day all around. A bizarre week, in fact. “He does some wonderful things, gets us into some utterly-crazy fun situations, and I do love him, Crow, I do, but he can’t be a dad. He’s too self-centered and egotistical to be in charge of a life that needs him.”

“You’re gonna abort then,” I assumed rather than asked. To my surprise, her head was shaken, sending flutters and ripples through the multi-color ribbons in her mane. At some point, I noticed that she’d changed the old, fraying and filthy ones for pristine ones, their colors bolder and fresher.

“I want to be a mom, Feathers, and in this world, I don’t know how many chances I’ll get. Thing is, I can’t do it on my own. I’m strong and I can fight with hoof and horn like a bad flank but I’m not dumb, I need someone to help me in this. Someone I trust…” someone she trusted. Not somepony. I did not know whether to feel exploited or cherished.

“You kissed me to claim me,” I figured carefully, deducing the reasons from the moment her lips found mine, “you weren’t trying to push Mole to me. You were trying to freak her out.”

“No,” Gypsy denied solemnly, holding up a hoof, “I wanted that to work on a small level so that I could move on from thinking about you. Only, when it looked like it wasn’t, my other desires pushed me to make it fail harder. I saw it as a sign saying, “Mole’s not interested, go get her, Breeze,” and that’s exactly what I did.” I still held her as my mind wandered across the last few words that my old friend had said. My heart was skipping beats, struggling to find the right tempo for this moment. The Radio was playing “Mane Squeeze,” a ‘new’ track that DJ Dreamer was excited to have received from one of the Stable Fifty-Four ponies, who had recorded it onto their own PipBuck. The group who sang the song were extremely firm favorites of DJ Pon3 in the Wastelands, so I’d heard the song often. This time, however, it felt just right.

I felt like any moment Mole and Deadwood would leap out from a hidden doorway and point at me, laughing about how all three of them had tricked me. My concerns never came to pass.

“You knew how I felt for you all this time, didn’t you?” I asked, a feeling akin to being able to ask what the meaning of life was on the day of your death.

“How could I not? The little bird who cannot sing, and lets me sing for her. Who else listens to me the way you do? No pony, I can tell you that much. I knew how you felt about me, and I admired how long you did nothing about it.” I thought I would have been upset, and I had every reason to be, but instead, I felt comforted by the knowledge that I had been noticed.

“I loved you, Gypsy.” I told her importantly.

“I know,” she hesitated, “loved?”

“Loved,” I assured her, although I was not sure I meant the words really, “right now, I don’t know what to think. There’s still Elm, and Mole, and you’re pregnant.” She went limp in my careful grasp, her forelegs held around my waist. There was something missing from her explanation that was as blindingly obvious as a tank-sized turtle playing the trombone to me.

“You haven’t said you love me.” It was a point of fact, not a question, and it made her stiffen once more. She held her breath for a long time. Too long for her next words to be genuine.

“Crow, I-”

The klaxon was the death rattle of an ursa major and a scream of a hydra in constant battle with one another, crying out in unison. Gypsy and I leaped up with a start immediately, thinking we’d precariously set off any thievery alarm. A hole opened up in the ceiling, and down dropped a cylinder with silver metal pipes, pointing straight towards us. A turret!

Cursing profusely, the pair of us dived behind the counter and wondered what our rotten luck had tossed at us now until we realized, huddled without a weapon to claw and hoof, that we were not being shot. Despite this, Gypsy still gave a few paper bags a wave to test the system. The gun swiveled and whirred to follow the bags, but never fired, and this peaceful reservation continued when we plucked up the courage to look at it. Our heads remained intact and un-shot.

Now we could see the other Stableponies dashing past the shop window and not attempting to force their way in to challenge us. The dawning revelation that whatever was going on was bigger than us forced us to race to action, hurrying through the door and attempting to flag a pony down who could tell us what was occurring.

Upon turning, I was instantly greeted by a floating mare with a short mane and one big ribbon around her head, tied in a bow at her forehead to keep her fringe up out of her eyes. Her wide, concerned eyes had to be foreseeing a prophecy that I was not privy to. Gypsy yelped in shock when she saw our pollen-collated phantom.

“Warning, warning,” professed the minstrel girl with a young but familiar Manehattan accent, “a civil danger has been announced in the Western Sector of Stable T-Thirty. This is not a test. This is not a test. Analysis; hostile takeover in the Western Sector of Stable T-Thirty. For your safety, the Stable Emergency systems have been activated and the Minstrel Defenses have been released. Please follow your Minstrel to the safe rooms until the threat has passed.”

My heart cut through my chest and plunged itself to the cold floor. The Western Sector. That was where the danger was. That was where Molasses Candy had last been seen.

“Gypsy, Mole’s in trouble!” I yelled, spinning on my hind paws and starting to pound my wings to burst myself along the catwalk, whilst already commanding Bucky to give me directions to Mole’s bathroom hideout. I wasn’t more than a few wingbeats in when something cold and strong wrapped itself around me, snatching me from the air. I was being wrapped up by a spinach snake, my wings tugged together and my limbs forced up under me so that I became a parcel, bouncing hard on the bumpy walkway and coming to a halt.

“Do not fight. Cease all movements. You were going the wrong way. Relax and your Minstrel will correct your retreat path.”

The jade serpent rose a pony head as it lifted to look at me, speaking as calmly as a mother correcting a placid child whilst I struggled in vain to escape the chokingly tight grip of the new form the Minstrel had taken. It repeated the message as Gypsy hurried to try and free me before it faced her and flung extra castigating vines out to hold her hooves down as well. Her horn lit, but before the intensity had wrapped around her spire, a blanket of green snagged it and neutralized the spell.

“You are becoming a hazard to your fellow ponies,” the collection of particles squeezed tighter, “if you do not cooperate, then you will be extinguished. Please, abandon your fight and return to your attending Minstrel.”

“Oh, this isn’t fair,” whimpered Gypsy, trying to pull herself free and shake the matter off of her horn. I went to speak but the coiled body covered my mouth and forced my tongue flat in my beak. I was helpless, trying to fight back and failing Gypsy, Mole, everyone…

“Minstrel stand-down code ‘P0W3R P0N135,’ came a sudden male voice, too high an octave to have been Elmwood. The password worked perfectly and the Minstrel instantly slid off of the pair of us, regrouping as the mare with the bow whilst I returned achingly to my claws and feet.

Before us stood a guard, wearing the typical security uniform with extra armored padding for a riot or attack and a helmet with the visor raised. Under the attire was a salty-sea blue stallion with a messy curl of blackened-green and dark azure mane, his eyes a cool turquoise. He wasn’t built like the other guards, and his manner didn’t suit the, well, suit. He wasn’t another stuffy representative of Crusty’s core, instead, he was smiling ever-so-kindly at the pair of us and reaching down to help us up.

“Aren’t you a little short to be a Stable Security guard?” I grunted at him as he got Gypsy back onto her hooves.

“Huh?” he tilted his head at me, before laughing jovially, “Good one! I can tell I’m gonna like you, Crow.”

“This is Private Joke,” Gypsy introduced us as I marveled and feared yet another pony I’d never met who knew my name, “I met him on my first day here. He’s on our side, him and a few of his colleagues.” She turned to face down the Minstrel with a look of vengeance in her eyes. Before either me or the strange stallion could figure out what she was planning her horn sparked up, and like a dying balefire phoenix, the specter burst into a flash of green flame, turned to smoke like a lit torch paper in seconds. It didn’t scream, or complain, or get angry, it just blew away in the fire. Gypsy stumbled back, as though pained for a moment, and Joke hurriedly caught her before she could go down on her flanks again.

“There’s a group of ponies on our side?” I asked Private, after composing myself at the thought that Gypsy could create fire from nothing.

“We call ourselves the Tunnel Bugs. Tunnel Bugs rule!” he celebrated, posturing. Oh god, I thought to myself, not another Molasses. Luckily, this thought put my head back in focus and I spun around to start flying again, telling the pair that my mission was to save young Candy. I was shouted by name as Gypsy hurried to stop me this time.

“Jokes could know a better way, he’s grown up in this Stable!” she urgently explained, and I considered her logic.

“Western Sector, maintenance, the toilets,” I told him, as he was already nodding.

“I know it, follow me!” He almost flipped as he turned himself a full one-hundred and eighty degrees, taking the same direction the Minstrel had wanted us to go. My PipBuck vibrated regularly, but I chose not to look at it, just to stick to running after the strange friend of Gypsy’s. Around us, other ponies were following their Minstrels, ensuring that they placated them. Seeing the trust the rest of the Stable was putting in the ghost army filled my stomach with poison, knowing there would come a time when their protectors would turn against them.

Private Joke’s tail disappeared through a gap into an alleyway, which my partner and I hurriedly followed, spying a dead end ahead.

“You sure about this, fella?” I called over the wails of the sirens in the complex, echoed by the tight walls. The greyish blue pony looked over his shoulder, just grinning at me, then sped towards the solid wall ahead as though he expected it to part once he was within range of it. I wasn’t quite as ready to take this blind leap of faith, and I slammed my feet and claws down to stop myself before I made a mess of my beak on that wall, with Breeze colliding into the back of me. We recovered from our crash just in time to see Joke dive through the wall, the surface swallowing the body without a sign of him once his tail had been absorbed as well.

Short-winded, I gawked at the mirage that had just accepted a new member. Whilst I was overtaken by the vision, my blonde friend weaved around me to make her own way to the pretend wall. She stopped at it, reaching her leg up to watch the mass part and ripple when she stuck her hoof through the barrier. I moved to ask if she felt alright, only to witness two black legs snatch Gypsy’s leg and haul her through.

“Gypsy!” I croaked and rushed for the wall myself. Despite having seen two ponies go through it already, I still felt a moment’s panic and shut my eyes tightly, certain I’d end my charge with a broken beak and a headache.

Instead, I kept going, galloping until I hit something strong, furred and firm that partially yielded to make my impact less tremendous. I freed my vision from the fleshy lids protecting them to look up at the tallest, burliest stallion I’d ever met. He looked like he could even give Crusty a run for his bits, and maybe even win the fight. Even as I regarded this, I couldn’t help noticing that I wasn’t afraid of him. His face didn’t command discipline by fear the way Procrustean’s did. Behind the black, white and coffee fur and cobalt eyes, there was something easily calming about him.

I stepped out of the stallion’s hold to right myself, Gypsy and Joke moving over to me. I took one glance back to see the alley was still behind me for a moment, before the gentle giant pushed a button, causing a pair of metal shutters to close up the gap. We were now in a curved iron-encased corridor, lit by orange lighting that made the passageway feel as though it ought to be hot to the touch rather than cold as stone.

“Lumbah, we’re heading to the Western Maintenance core, tell me we’ve stored something away to fight the beasts with,” The one called Lumbah looked taken aback by Joke’s request, and then buried his eyes with his brow.

“Tell me there’s a good reason?” was all he asked.

“We’ve got a friend down there, Molasses Candy, we’ve got to rescue her,” I pleaded, pacing. I had no idea which way to go in this rat warren. Big Lum looked between us and gave a noise I could only describe as a kind of croaky whicker.

“It’s not good down there. Your friend, she’s probably… Look, I’m sorry…” My eyes widened, my head shook, my tongue went dry. No. No, she couldn’t be…

“Wait,” I lifted my foreleg and jabbed at my PipBuck until I’d successfully cured most of the warnings I was receiving so that I could reach Bucky.

“Bucky, location, and status of Molasses Candy!” I shook nervously and hunched my wings as I watched the foal dance onto the screen and shoot me a reassuring wink. The map returned, the diagram zoomed down to that restroom in the lowest maintenance areas. My heart spun several times in my chest like a cheap, crap novelty bow-tie.

A green light. She was a green light, sat in a sea of red, but very much alive.

“YES! Yes! Oh, thank you Goddesses!” I squawked, smacking invisible opponents away with my fists. This was short-lived, however, as Mole might still have been alive but alone she was in very grave danger. I could see on the map she’d held herself up in the last stall of the bathroom, and the red lights were trying to get in there to join her on her toilet break. She had minutes if that.

“Right, you, Big Lum, I need whatever you’ve got that can help me take on-” I stopped, realizing something terribly important, “what’s down there? Other ponies? Raiders? Slavers?”

“Fearsome creatures, like mad dogs but with buck teeth and-and... glowing!” Lumbah gave me a rough estimate of their length with his hooves. I looked to Gypsy, her face showing the same bout of skepticism as me.

“Mole rats?” I asked with uncertainty. The two ponies didn’t seem to have a clue, shrugging with penitent expressions. There was no time to analyze it though, Mole’s life depended on us.

“Get us there! Now!”

“Shit!” I hissed as we found the secret entryway into the Stable’s security munitions, only to find it swarming with Procrustean’s men. Even if Gypsy lassoed a weapon or four with her magic, there was no way she could bring them through to us without being spotted.

“Can’t you march in there, collect a few and come back out to us?” I posed to Private Joke, trying to find every possible solution to the problem that there was. He shook his head so that his hard hat rattled, and pointed to the security mare with a clipboard.

“They note everything a guard takes, and not even Tunnel Bugs are sneaky enough to skip past their gaze. The weapons are tracked, all of them. Best I can do is get one and-”

“Then do it,” I commanded without a second thought, then looked to the other two once the security stallion was through the gate.

“Tell me we’ve got other options. We cannot beat this many mole rats with one gun, my talons, Gypsy’s magic and a gender-bent Saddle Rager.” Before either could answer, I caught the tail-end of urgent whispers from the guards closest to our hiding space. Lumbah urged me to keep my voice down for a moment so that we could listen. They sounded frustrated.

“What the buck is going on with our Stable?” complained one, “first those outsiders move in, then all Tartarus breaks loose. I’ve been comforting Tidy Springs over the loss of her brother for the past couple of nights, she’s a mess, and now this?”

“You’ve liked Tidy since you were a foal, Pink,” replied the other officer, “this has played straight into your hooves. It sucks about her brother but look on the bright side.”

“You’ve changed, Malt,” murmured Pink, clearly unnerved by the cold way in which his colleague was looking at the silver linings.

“Nah, I’m just seeing things the way the chief is, for once,” responded Malt.

“Did I hear that right?” asked a third, female voice, “you think Security Officer Procrustean’s latest orders are ethical?”

“That’s contempt, private Jewels. We follow his orders no matter what they are, he would never deliberately give us orders without considering the consequences.”

“Oh, really?” bit back Jewels, “there are ponies in the Western Maintenance hall that need our help, but Procrustean is holding us back as he ‘assesses the situation.’ We should be in there, saving and defending lives!”

“Jewels, I’m warning you. One more word and I’ll have you repeating them to Security Officer Procrustean yourself!” I heard a grunt of indignation, and Jewels fell silent. Even in Procrustean’s ranks, ponies were starting to notice things were off with his rulership over the safety and protection of the Stable-dwellers. Maybe I had a shot at making others see that too, after all, I thought, before spinning back to Gypsy and Lumbah.

“Come on, ideas! Now!” I hissed as I spied Joke carefully weaving his way back. The pair thought for a long moment, too long for my liking.

“Mole is going to die, come on!”

“I’ve got an idea,” admitted Lumbah finally with a sheepish hoof scuff on the metal plates, “but you’re not going to like it.”

Big Lum had not been wrong. I didn’t like his idea at all, but I didn't have any better suggestions, so it was this or nothing.

He’d taken us to a storage facility for the Stable, which served to provide all of the recreational equipment. Thankfully, no pony had come in here, but there had been a good reason for that. There had been no weapons in there unless a box of misplaced knives we found that should have belonged to the storage center for kitchen equipment counted. We collected several and moved on.

“Here,” called out Lumbah, waving me over to a separate shelving unit. He collected a bat in his teeth and tossed it across to me. I caught it, examined it, very perturbed by the thought that a wooden bludgeon would be my weapon of choice against the nasty, bitey, irritating creatures. More baseball bats along with golf clubs were tossed between us and we turned to leave.

I cannot say what caused me to glance into the shadier half of the storage block, but something drew my eyes there as we were returning to the concealed doorway. A bench of archery bows had been stored in the darkest corner, gathering dust. I changed course and raced across the depot to the rack, casting my eyes over them.

Arching had been a small past time of my Pa’s, and he’d often encouraged me to try picking up the bow myself. Now I was cursing the fact that I’d only done it once, and regretted that I’d given it up after the string had grazed my leg. Hindsight was a very cruel bitch.

These were meant for shooting at targets for fun, not pest control, but as I picked one up and gave it a testing tug I was more confident that I’d be able to fend off the attack with this than by swinging a club around. I kept my bat tucked in my Stable suit as a backup, but slung the bow across my shoulder and kept searching. A quick duck into the lower half of the trestle produced arrows with sharp tips (I’d half-expected rubber ended suckers and was pleased that Stable-Tec hadn’t brought health and safety standards down on this collection) and a quiver to store them in.

“Alright,” I nodded to them as I glided back over, “now let’s go save maid Mole!”

Lumbah and Joke led the sprint, taking us down flights of stairs and through sliding doors. We barely met a single pony, and those we did were too preoccupied with their own escape plans to stop us.

Finally, signs and stamped directions on the walls told us we were getting close, and the sounds of commotion ahead soon followed. I checked on Mole’s status via Bucky as I flew along the route, seeing her green dot turned to yellow.

“Boys, we’d better be bucking close!” I fretted, lifting my head to look to them.

“That door there!” Joke yelled back, then both threw on the brakes, their hooves skidding on the smooth surface. Gypsy slipped into Lumbah, who managed to catch and stop her conscientiously, and I landed beside them. Inside the doorway, we could hear the sounds of the villainous beings that were putting my floppy-eared sweetheart in jeopardy. It was a colossal tumult of scraping, quarreling beasts tumbling and thumping into the barrier between us and them, as though they were already aware of our presence and impatient to be feasting on our bones.

“Ready?” Joke asked with a hint of trepidation, as he reached for the door release button. Gypsy and I nodded. She produced two bats and spun them in the air, whilst I readied my bow. Lumbah growled on the club between his teeth and offered a salute.

“Hold onto your flanks,” Joke told us apologetically in advance, and smashed the button, “right NOW!”

Discord burst into the corridor in the guise of a heaving mass of black bodies, verdant with luminous sour-green radiation. For the first time since owning it, I heard my PipBuck click as the built-in radiation detector did its job. I lifted up swiftly as the first of the onslaught figured out its new surrounding and snapped at me. I drew my bowstring back, arrow loaded, and my vision changed. I was now seeing the creatures highlighted in a red band, as though I needed to know what I was supposed to be hitting. Mentally, I realized this had to be another enchantment feature of my PipBuck that I had yet to discover. Bars and symbols told me all sorts of other things, but I had no time to figure these out now.

Before I had released my projectile, the creature that had come after me was sent careering across the floor by a pair of spinning brown circles. The hurlyburly bats smashed into its brothers and sisters of their own volition, clearing the writhing siege of irradiated mole rats in the entrance in a matter of seconds.

I turned to Gypsy, the operator of the manic wheels, and pointed through the doorway.

“Clear a path!” I didn’t need to tell her twice, the baseball bats twisting in the air and whizzing into the next aggressive freight train of sickly rodents charging for us. Every rat hit flew up and out of the way, spiraling ragdolls tossed through the air like out-of-control Wonderbolts. The moles missed were left to Lumbah, Joke and me. Joke had the best advantage as he was able to fire on and vapourize the skittering, screeching beasts, whilst Lumbah swung his bat hard enough to knock several of the diseased beings further than Gypsy was throwing them. I felt useless in comparison, but loaded my bow and fired at anything I hoped to hit, then swooped to collect what arrows I could retrieve, and repeated.

The maintenance room was huge, dark and full of machinery that I had no time to consider the uses of. Only emergency lights and scurrying glowing bodies lit the hall, but it was enough to see that the mole rats had infested it like flies on a dead body. They were everywhere.

“Crow! UP!” Gypsy bellowed, thrusting a hoof to the catwalks above. I looked up just in time to see a fat mole rat leap and plunge towards me.

Whoooossshhhhh~

I was drifting in a single photograph of chaos, my body suddenly very aware of the cold. My eyes adjusted to the better aid of a luminous marker around the attacker falling my way. My S.A.T.S. had kicked in, I realized, and then I knew just what to do next.

I focused on the diver and prayed to Good Ol’ Luna, Goddess of the Hunt (as Pa would tell me) that I could make this shot count, as percentages promised I had a good chance for a headshot. I aimed for its body rather than its head out of a lack of confidence in my novice ability. I noted I could try for more, but right now I just had to hit the kamikaze jumper before it hit me.

Breath held I remembered to flap my wings again as I allowed the targeting spell to take over in real time, bedlam returning to overdrive.

Whumpf ~ went the world around me.

Shwink ~ sang the string as it snapped out of my claws, thrusting its missile up to meet my falling foe, its mouth wide open and it’s fangs bared.

Shlak! My arrow had been a little high on its target. Instead of finding the pudgy middle of the mole rat’s belly, it sped through the stretched maw of the creature, sank through its throat and burst from the back of its spine. A contrail of ichor spilled from it as it flew past me, hitting the floor below with a wet splat.

“Whoa! Guardian Griffon for the win!” Cried Joke gleefully, taking a moment to pull out the arrow from my kill and toss it back up to me to be recycled.

“Aye, nothing to it!” I lied. Gypsy let out a scream.

I spun to find another dirty fiend had got the drop on my deepest crush, latched onto her leg with a venomous bite. I yelled out to her, placed the arrow on the bow and dropped into S.A.T.S. again to save her, only to find a polite message asking me to abide with my active stamina as I did not have enough. Cursing wildly, I released myself back into the moment and hoped my aim was enough to save her. Gypsy saw me pull back the string, whimpered in horror and shut her eyes.

Oh eggs, I thought fearfully, I’m going to miss.

Shlink~!

Fwap~! It wasn’t clean, it hit the floor first and then bounced, but it struck the rat in its hip with enough power to pull its jaws off of Gypsy’s ankle, leaving a pair of bite marks drizzling blood and poison into her thick purple fur. Despite this, she still breathed a sigh of relief and mouthed a thank you before limping back into action. I glided over her to be her back-up, and checked my PipBuck hurriedly to get the trail to take us to Mole’s bathroom.

“This way!” I squawked and dove across to a stairwell, once protected by a now broken in doorway.

“Hold on!” Joke cried as he took down three more hairless land sharks, waving to me, “the security features have failed in here.” I remembered the gun turret presenting itself from Mole’s shop ceiling, and realized that nothing resembled that in here. Not even a siren. The private reloaded, shot another racing assault before it reached him, and continued, “Lumbah can fix them, but it’ll take us a different route. We’re going to have to split up!”

“Aye, do it! Gypsy and I will find our friend!” I called back, blasting another pair of arrows into a bouncing rat before it could snap onto Joke, “Good luck, don’t die!”

Lumbah smacked a mole right out of the playing field, then gave us an ecstatic wave as though he was a foal showing off his baseball prowess to his mom. I saluted both and drove Gypsy into the stairwell. She set one bat to pinwheel ahead of us, one to rotate behind, and started struggling down the stairs at my command, leaving a dark lane of red from her injury.

“Are you okay?” I worried, even as I kept shooting at any stragglers attempting to breach our oscillating defense walls. She gritted her teeth and moaned as she squinted ahead.

“Fine,” she uttered, “but when we get outta this, you and I are havin’ a little talk about activities you do and don’t do with pregnant ladies.” I winced, missing my shot on a rat and having to dive in to kick it, sending it bouncing down the stairs and bowling into its fellow pins. I wasn’t just worried about Gypsy’s leg. She’d been using her magic for a while now, and I had been reliably informed once that magic was as exerting as having to sprint with a heavy backpack on. She was going to exhaust herself at this rate, and then we’d really be in shit creek.

We weren’t far now. We turned the last corner before the bottom of the stairwell and found a breathing, alive blob of moving mole rats climbing over each other. They were all so preoccupied that they didn’t notice us on the stairs, and Gypsy was able to stop her makeshift batons for a merciful minute so that we could attempt to stealthily creep past them.

The closer we got, the more we realized, with an attempt not to sound horrified, that the bulk wasn’t all the black and nuclear beings. There was a stench of wet iron and another smell, not unlike halitosis, coming from ripped and gnawed bodies piled at a door that should have given them a safe exit. It had never opened, those worker ponies had died trying to escape.

Gypsy’s magic spluttered. Her hold on the bat ahead of us faltered and dropped, clattering along the brushed metal stairs that led to the feasting horde. They all stopped, and all turned to look at us, all still insatiably hungry for fresh meat. My bow wasn’t going to hold them all back, and I had to protect Gypsy, get to Mole and avoid death. I replaced the composite over my shoulder and tugged out my bat, motioning as they spun around to come for us.

“Stay back, and don’t use too much more magic,” I protested before driving a hard swing down on top of the first mole rat’s skull. Once I got into a rhythm, I was beating this real-life game of Whack-a-Mole with a ton of points already in my favor.

I felt Gypsy slump behind me and inwardly cursed, but I couldn’t go back to her yet. If I did, the rats would kill us, so I fought. I fought with bat, claws, knives, and beak.

“You have got to have an extra edge, babe…”

The last of the greedy bastards at the doorway was the biggest, it’s huge clawed foot managed to smack the bat straight out of my claws. I recoiled, it followed and leaped. I fell beneath it but already had my hind feet up into its stomach as I fell back. I drew it down to me, talons snatching its throat, and kicked. Its teeth barely scratched my beak before it flew backward, and my claws followed it. It hit the door, my talons hit its neck, and I held it, burning with rage. I was stood on the corpse, and I couldn’t care. I just had to get through the door.

SMACK! I threw the struggling beast into the door.
When they call it love then what will you do?

SMACK! I repeated...
When they boil your faces in a horrible brew!

SMACK! And repeated….
The Gardens of Equestria will be all burnt up,

SMACK! It buckled...
And monsters will turn you into a terrible stew,

SMACK! It broke...
Soooo... Watch out!”

“AGGGGH!” BANG! The force of my last slam ruptured the door open, the grisly body in my grasp dead as a doornail. More fierce eyes turned my way, only to squeal as the corpse of their biggest and best hunter slammed through them like a cart crash on a busy junction, spilling them all over.

The door to Mole’s bathroom was right there on the left, but Gypsy was fallen behind me. I had to choose, and I damned Celestia, Luna and every other deity I knew for putting me here. I looked back to the unconscious mare behind me, prayed for her safety, and ran for the restroom block.

Wham! I kicked open the door with my powerful feline legs, my wings beating as I drew my bow string back horizontally, three arrows attached to it. A risky move, only one struck a target, the smallest of the three falling with a bolt through the neck. The other two turned away from the stall they’d forced a hole into, screaming at my presence. I snatched my last knife hugged on my belt as the pair came for me, and thrust myself to the ceiling, dodging one and dropping onto the other with my blade sinking through it’s back.

I landed by the busted stall, catching a chance sight of Molasses inside. Her eyes with huge and terrified, she was deep in a state of shock and bleeding from scratches all over. My heart wept.

The last mole rat fell through the door into the bloodied hallway, screeching disgustingly, and turned back around to face me. The magical display in my eyes told me that, if the rat I’d thrown through the door was the King, then this was the Queen.

“Let’s dance, bitch!” I snapped, and slung out my talons, lunging towards her. She shrieked and kicked off of the ground to come at me.

BAM!

My talons swiped through burning green gloop as a ball of plasma impacted it before I could. I skidded on the remaining mess of the body and slapped the wall like a wet fish, my head spinning and my body bruised.

As my eyes recovered from the suckerpunch, a barrel rose between my gaze and two blackened eyes glared at me.

“You left her for dead?” demanded Elmwood around the gun in his mouth. Gypsy was slung over his back, groaning and trying to protest, too weakly to fight her corner and mine.

“Elmwood, I didn’t~” WHACK. Of all the hits and scratches I’d taken in the battle for the Western Maintenance wing, the one that hurt the most was Elmwood’s punch to my face. I staggered, blindsided, and rose my dukes, prepared for more. The stallion was already leaving.

I thought about chasing him, telling him she’d been safe when I left her but I couldn’t be sure that was the truth. Feeling my cheek slowly puffing up red and balloon-like, I turned and did the only useful thing I was capable of right then; I went to Mole.

“Molasses!”

I dragged the deceased mole rat from the smashed door and ripped it off of its hinges to get to her, finding her huddled in the corner by the u-bend of the toilet. Another dead mole rat was in here with her, half of its body protruding from the toilet bowl.

“You’re hurt,” I mewled, seeing the bite on her foreleg. She was trying to cover it as though she’d been bitten by a zombie.

“I-I’m s-s-sorry I-” she began, but I hushed her.

“We’ve got to get you to the infirmary,” I explained, and turned around, “get on my back, hold onto my wings as best as you can. I’m going to have to run.” As I felt her slip out timidly and touch my back, I used the opportunity to look out of the stall. It looked like the coast was clear.

“A-Are we… S-Safe?” Whimpered Mole. I gave a nod and a quick glance back to the beast drowned under the toilet seat.

“You kill that?” I caught a soft “Uh huh, Captain,” and smiled, “Way to go, Moley. Mole the Mole Rat Assassin.”

Soft lips found the back of my neck before I’d taken a step, and they lingered. The tempo of my heart lifted once again, and I craned my head around the look at the battered, banged up mare with the sweet floppy ears.

“I love you.”

“I love you.” I don’t remember which of us said it first, and which of us agreed, but we both said it. We both meant it.

The turret dropping from the ceiling startled the already nervous creature clinging to me, but I wasn’t afraid. It aimed towards us, examined us, then went back to staring straight ahead.

“Nice one, Lumbah,” I murmured, knowing my new friends had fixed the system, then gave the quivering mite a reassuring glance.

“Hold on, love,” I whispered, and then I ran. I ran like my life depended on it.

In a way, it did. More than ever.

<sub>FOOTNOTE: Quest Completed - Mane Squeeze
Quest Perk added – Princess of Thieves (level one): You are now 10% more adequate with a composite bow.

Quest Failed - Bun In The Oven

Level up!
New Perk: S.A.T.S. Legend - Add +1 to Success</sub>

Author's Notes:

Want to discuss the story? Follow me to the Scoundrel’s Settlement on Discord...

Song for this chapter; About Her - Malcolm McLaren

YES! Yes yes yesyesys yesitty yes yes yes! They said it! They said it!
Okay... damn... now I've done it. Two birds, Crow? What do we do now?
Also, I guess the Guardian Griffon is Katniss Everdeen now ... I just hope Moley isn't Rue...

Thank you to Blazie, this is the first published chapter he's edited for me, really super appreciate his hard work.
Thank you again for reading up to this moment. Ask me anything.
If this is when you stop reading, goodbye and safe travels.

If you're still strapped in for the ride, see you in the next chapter.
Life's a happy song, when there's someone by your side to sing along!

All good things,
Duskhoof