Entry 017 - The Whirlwind Romance of Garden Path (Part Two)

I LOVE GIZMO!

Sorry, sorry, sorry, I mean, hello! Day three and, ohhh! Great Grand Master Snips must be smiling on me because he kissed me! Gizmo, I mean, not the Grand-Master. I… I should probably explain, right? I mean, how can you fall in love with somepony you only just met? But I have…

Okay, calm your hoofsies, Path. Here’s how it went down. First I woke up and had a piece of toast. The toast is amazing here! I was expecting Gizmo to come to greet me, but I never expected him to appear with flowers! I mean, they have gardens in this place somewhere and everything, he promised to show me them someday as well. He passed them over to me, and as he did he said, “You’re going to think I am crazy, but I’m crazy for you.” I mean, it was the cheesiest line ever, but it worked.

He had this big date planned, wanted to take me to see that lake, and then those gardens, and maybe the fair. B-But… we didn’t do any of that, PipBuck. Oh no, we didn’t. Instead, he showed me back to his place, put on some coffee, and was showing me how his camera worked, he took this really nice photo of me. And then he held it in his magic to take a photo of us when he turned and started kissing me. Gosh, he was a good kisser, but not as good as… as… Oh PipBuck, we… we... we did it. Y-Yes… that…

Oh my gosh, it was amazing! He was just so gentle and sweet and wanted to make sure I liked everything he did, and how could I not? We just couldn’t keep ourselves off of each other, even when we stopped for lunch! He was so big and strong and masculine and… and…

And when he held me, I never wanted to be held in any other arms ever again. We lay with silly smiles afterward, just giggling to ourselves and talking about the future. I mean, he did say relationships usually start this quickly in the Stable, because you never know when it’s your time to ascend, and he didn’t want to waste another minute wondering if we were friends or more. Well, Gizmo, if you ever listen to this, you know your answer now.

I guess I should wake him so we can shower soon. We have to start our next shift at work and I wanna get a few kisses in before we do. I mean, maybe a little something more.

I love this place, PipBuck. I never want to leave.

“She sure loves saying, ‘I mean,’ a lot,”

“You mean ‘loved’” Corrected Elm.

“Morbid,” I grumbled, scowling his way. I’d managed to come up with a box of matches, more snacks than I could stash, a fully loaded first aid kit, a couple of bottles of Sparkle-Cola (one of which I popped open when I realized how little I’d had to drink that day) and an alarm clock. The clock puzzled me the most and had me wondering whether some pony had been sneaking in here for a few crafty winks.

There was also a terminal in the storeroom, but after discovering that it was blocked by the world’s easiest password, ‘Password,’ I found that the content was duller than century-old dishwater. The author had written about his daily life activities, which only ever amounted to working, sleeping, eating and moaning about the wife’s friends. Only one entry did catch my eye, and I opened it up for a quick read.

“Day 234/ Year 2076/ Time 17:22/ Entry of Mr. T. Dunker;

“Entered Western Maintenance at 12:01, pump pressures normal and energy levels were fluctuating slightly. Brought levels down and reminded Mr.Ring for the fourteenth time this year that he needed to keep the levels steady. He called me some unsavory remarks and advised that I was not his supervisor, suggesting I could not correct him on his job. A letter of complaint has been sent to Mr.Minion in regards to this. This is his NINETEENTH OFFENCE.

“At 13:34 all drilling systems were stopped due to a mistake by Ms. Path, leaning on the emergency stop control. I logged that this was likely to be her FIRST OFFENCE of falling asleep on the job, as well as poor attempts to excuse herself and not admitting the truth. Systems were down for two hours, restarted at 15:17.

“Odd, unregulated bangs and clanks heard in the mine at 16:10. Investigations were inconclusive.

“At 17:29 precisely, Mr.Minion announced a total of twenty-four more workers to arrive for the night shift at 18:30, an hour from now. At that time, all unnecessary staff are dismissed, and Myself, Mr. Ring and (regrettably) Ms. Path are to remain and train parties of eight each.

“I already know that my colleagues are unequipped professionally for this task, I have made my comments known to Mr.Minion in a strongly worded letter. I will document everything.

“Daily report closes at 17:29/ Day 234/ Year 2076.”

I was turning to Elm to deliver my latest findings to him when he shoved something into my chest that reminded me of a large battery. It took me a few short seconds to realize I’d seen one of these before, but not quite as clean.

“You’re only now giving me a StealthBuck?”

“I know,” he shrugged, eyes just as wide as my own, “look how well you were doing without it! You only nearly got us caught once.” I glared at him and waited. I knew that if I stared long enough, he would be compelled to tell me the rest of his plan. It worked.

“We need these to sneak into the Mineral Mine,” he told me, “all we have to do is follow the rest of the walkway to the end, where Officer Boner is waiting for us. You’d do her, wouldn’t you?” I held my hostile expression.

“And she’s gonna just open the mine doors for us?” I asked, plain and simple.

“Huh? No, no, no, no, those big blast doors would alert all the other guards, and then not even a couple of stealth bucks would be able to hide us. No, you’ll have to fly us up onto these trucks that are suspended on a rail about, oh, I don’t know, forty feet high? Then Bones will ‘accidentally’ push a button, and we’ll be carried into the mine.” He finished his details on the plan with a friendly smile. I did not return it.

“Fly? FLY?”

“Shh!”

“I’ll ‘shh’ you, yer wanker!” but I did drop my voice, “What’s the three things I never do, laddie?”

“I know, I know, ‘own a cat, skip a bathroom and-’”

“Fly higher than I can stand,” I finished, forelegs crossing. He groaned and pushed his forehoof into his head.

“I need you to do this. Gypsy and Molasses need you to do this. It’s just a few feet and hey, if you fall, at least we fall together. I’ll even cushion your fall, how about that?”

“Buck off,” I declined his offer and turned myself to the corner of the door, “Come up with a better plan.” I peered through our door on the lookout as I listened to him mutter to himself, and his hooves pace the room. Finally, he stopped, and I believed he might have found an alternative.

“Okay, okay, okay, okay,” he murmured as I turned to see him scanning his PipBuck, “if we switch the StealthBucks on now, hurry to tell Bones to open the main gate and run as fast as-” I didn’t hear the rest. My infernal leg brace chose that moment do something nice and loud.

“It’s tiiime~ for the PipBuck Boop game!”cheered Bucky excitedly as he bounded into my vision. I yelped as the plinky-plonky music began playing, losing one of my bottles of Sparkle Cola. In the sudden explosion of noise, the bottle shattered, sending fizzy sticky liquid everywhere. In an instant, I was slapping, twisting and struggling with my FunBuck, snarling words that would have made Bucky’s ears gush glowstick-green blood. Outside, I heard someone yell, “Hey, where’s that noise coming from!” and had enough time to stop the game before Elmwood reached me.

“StealthBuck,” he snapped, “now!” Instantly, he disappeared before my eyes. I fumbled for my own cloaking device and twisted it, poofing out of existence temporarily. I pushed myself to the wall, covering my PipBuck screen to avoid the glare, and watched the stallion from before galloping into the room with four others.

“Look around,” yelled one, “They have to be in here somewhere.”

“You know what that sounded like?” enquired the stallion we knew, walking dangerously close to my gut, “sounded like that damn PipBuck Boop game. That thing was the worst!”

“A foal then,” finished a mare, looking to the smashed bottle. I felt Elm’s foreleg move me away from it. “Search everything, the Chief is going to want a report, especially if we have a breach.” Their investigations began, and Elm took a hold of me.

As guards moved towards us, we would shift out of the way. When someone grew close to where I could envision Elm being, I pulled him to me. He returned the move for me. We turned, we twisted, and we aimed for the door. What began as an attempt to hide, turned into a dance to avoid capture and escape.

“Hey! Who’s hoof prints are these?” We froze. We were almost at the door when the call came across the searching team. I looked down, expecting a trail of cola to be leading to one of us.

“Ah, that’d be me, sorry,” a klutzy stallion admitted sheepishly, “stepped in it as I was checking that area.”

“Great,” grunted a jurisdictional mare, ”now we gotta add spoliation of evidence to the report. Thank you, Officer Half Job.” She sighed and examined the room, “They can’t be here, but they cannot be far. Spread out and search…” We hadn’t waited to listen to the rest. As soon as we found the blame for the spread of the fizzy drink wasn’t our responsibility, Elmwood got us moving again. We were a good distance along the walkway by the time they peeled out and were splitting up.

Ahead, I could see Bones waiting for us by a control panel twice as big as her. Above her were huge metal trolleys suspended on a mechanical rail. I glanced up at the height and lost an ounce of my nerves through the souls of my feet.

“Bones, fire ‘em up, we’re going for a ride,” hissed Elm as we screeched to a halt beside her, startling her. I felt as his forelegs reached out for me, bumping me at first then feeling and holding my shoulders. “Crow, it’s now or never,” he encouraged me, “if you don’t fly us up there, we have no more options left, our girls die and we live with that. You live with that.” He had me between a rock and a hard place, but I was broken from my contemplation as a klaxon sounded out and the train of trucks above us started to move. Guards saw this and yelled, running towards our masked location, and the last second arrived.

I snatched him under his front legs, using his hold as a guide, and flapped my wings harder than I had for many years. Even with the extra weight, I lifted us both off of the ground, my aim to get to the closest bucket. It was hard to do with my eyes closed, and Elm noticed that in my direction too.

“Tilt us forwards!” He barked, prompting me to check my surroundings. The floor was a dizzyingly long way away and the moving skip didn’t look much closer. I faltered, starting to shake, and began struggling to keep myself flapping. My invisible weight grunted.

“Crow, I swear, if you do not snap out of this, I will hit you again, and hit you harder,” I recalled his punch to my jaw. I remembered how it felt. I stopped being afraid, not because he had told me to, but because anger and adrenaline replaced it.

The wings thrust us up again as his StealthBuck ran out of juice first. To the guards who spotted him and started to aim, an Earth pony gliding through the air on his own steam must have been an unnerving sight, and I was certain I even heard one yelp, ‘ghost!’

The realization came to them once my own sneaky accessory gave up all of its energy and revealed me. By the point, however, the buckets were in range. I dropped Elm into it with a clang as the gunfire started, then tucked my wings in and dropped into the same cylindrical basin as him, landing on a huge pointy mound of rocks. The bullets and blasts ricocheted off the bowl for a moment, then ceased as we continued moving into the mine.

“Get the doors open!” cried someone, “we have to go get them!”

“No,” I heard Boney call out, “we cannot open those doors without the Security Chief Procrustean’s orders. Somepony go get him! The rest of you hold the fort here until they come out or our orders change.” I looked to Deadwood, worried our ace in the hole was betraying us, but he wasn’t judging on the smile he wore.

“Good girl, Bones,” he said, “she’s giving us enough time to get the mole rat.” The barrier between the maintenance sector and the mine passed overhead. Grey and red beams held the ceiling of rock and stone up from this point onward.

“Hope you’re right, lad,” I mused, not sure who I could trust. Mole, I could trust Mole… I could hear the occasional sound of heavy things falling every few seconds, and wondered what the sound was.

Elmwood grasped me again after a pause and looked me dead in the eye. “Flap.”

“What?”

“Flap. Flap now. Quick, or we’ll-“ the floor suddenly plummeted from beneath my hind feet. The trap door in the bottom of the bucket had automatically released its load, and us along with it. I squawked in terror as I was dropping suddenly, but Elm snatched me and yelled for my feathers to save us again. I looked, seeing the small mound of rocks promising a broken end to our story.

I pumped my wings, and it was only just in time. Only just, for we still hit the small mountain of rocks with a strong blow and tumbled out of each other’s grasp, rolling separate directions down the hill of jagged edges and wannabe-knives.

I came to rest finally at floor level and moaned, wanting to lay there for a second to recuperate. However, as though we’d not been divided, Elmwood came charging around the foot of the slope and grabbed me, hoisting me up.

“Move!” he demanded, and together we ran just as a fresh load of boulders crashed where my head would have been from the trucks up above. The doors beneath it gaped in shock at the tragedy it could have caused with its accidental delivery. The car gave a screeching groan as an apology, then it rumbled on in shame of its failure, letting its siblings release their own burdens into the growing mass of wasted minerals.

Dunker is an absolute asswipe.

He claimed I had been sleeping on the job when all that really happened was a bang deeper in the mine startled me, and I fell on the big red button that stops everything. I mean, if it’s that important, why make it so easy to press? I really hate that guy.

Okay, hate might be a strong word, but I’m just… I’m really upset, PipBuck. Not just that, something strange is happening right now.

They sent Gizmo and the other maintenance workers from this Stable home. There’s only three of us left now, but that’s not even the most worrying part. They’ve sent my brothers and sisters to be trained on how to work here! The guards said it was some kind of rehabilitation process so that they could learn how to behave as proper Stable-Dwellers. The ponies in this Stable still think they’re the raiders.

I started telling them what to do and where but, I could see their eyes hating me and I-I panicked. Dunker sent me to this bathroom, said he’d report me but I don’t care about that. And what with all the weird noises that I keep hearing in the mine too?

PipBuck, I’m scared. What if one of these ponies tells the others who I am? What if they tell Gizmo? I don’t want to lose him, he’s my first true love. I mean, I only just got him. He makes me happier than my wildest dreams and I … Huh? What’s that?

Hello? Is someone else in here?

“Hello, is someone else in here?” Garden had asked during the middle of the recording. It didn’t end there, the counter told me it still had seven minutes and nine seconds left, but Garden stopped talking for a brief moment, and what sounded like the squeak of a door at first turned into quiet sobs.

“Hello?” Path attempted again, followed by rapping on something distinctly hollow. I knew what was coming before I heard it, and my heart was not prepared for the voice.

“Go away!” squalled Molasses Candy on the holotape, her voice muffled by the restroom stall she had sheltered herself inside. Despite knowing the outcome, I found myself urging them to escape, even if it was just for the sake of this recording. I was hoping things would end differently.

“M-Maybe I can help. I mean, Come on, don’t push a friend away. I’m Garden Path, what’s your name?” There was hesitation, followed by a click and a squeak. Mole had opened her toilet door?

“... You came here with Cap… with Crow, and her friends?” She asked nervously.

“Uhm hmm, I promise I’m nice,” Garden had offered soothingly. I could hear Mole’s deep breathing through little nostrils. “Did something happen?” Mole had wavered, and I believed she was going to refuse her again.

“... I was horrible,” she suddenly wept, and I found myself wondering why a muffled slap followed this, and why the woeful mare’s voice had gotten closer. “I was mean and evil and I said some really nasty things because Crow said she loves me and she cannot love me, she’s not allowed!”

“There, there…” They must have been hugging, as a pattering on the recording told me Garden was using her PipBuck leg to pat and comfort my girl. “What do you mean she’s not allowed? I mean, don’t you love her?” I waited with Garden for the delayed answer.

“I love her,” my heart soared, even as I knew that danger was fast approaching them.

“Well then,” Path told her contentedly, “tell her. I mean, you never know when it’s your time to ascend. You’d feel bad for ascending before telling her, even if someone tells you not to, right?”

“But I’m not allowed-”

“Oh, pish! No one can tell you that you’re not allowed to love someone, and if they are, they’re probably not a good pony. Love finds a way, Sugarcube, trust me. Okay?” Garden laughed as there came more rustling and squeezing, and I heard Molasses squeak a thank you. At that moment, I was more grateful of Garden Path than I was of any other pony. And then things went to shit.

“What’s that?”

“Someone’s coming! I-I’m not supposed to be here,” whimpered Mole, “I’m supposed to be on my shift! If Mr. Minion finds me…”

“It’s okay, hide in the stall, I’ll cover for you…”

“But you’ll-”

“Shh! Just hide!” I heard the door shut and lock, the filly peep the last thank you and Path start to march over the tiles. No...

“What?” I could hear distant screaming. Snarling. Smashing. No, no…

“Garden Pa-”

“Stay in there, Miss!” Garden ordered shakily. I heard her open the main door. No, no, I couldn’t listen to this...

SCREEECH!

“AGGHHHHHHH!”

“NO!” I yowled in anguish, ripping the earbloom off of my bandana and tossing it across the room. Elmwood was at my side in an instant, taking the PipBuck-bound leg and turning off the recording in a matter of seconds. I pushed my face into my free leg and howled, my shoulders shaking and my claws clenched. I needed to destroy something, and all I had at reach was my StealthBuck. The weight flew with the greatest of ease and blew up against the wall like a firework made of bolts and magic. Once my energy had been dispelled in the act, I sank down and let my eyes drain themselves of the tears I’d held onto for the past few days.

“She died protecting Mole,” I finally afforded an explanation to my watcher, who thankfully did not look too disappointed about the wreck of the device he’d lent to me.

“You’re not going to let her death be in vain then, are you.” It wasn’t a question, and it was very accurate. I settled back and sent a silent prayer for the soul of the pony who’d comforted then shielded my fillyfriend in her time of need. Elm fetched my earbloom for me and I put it back into its place on my FunBuck.

I retrieved my bow and turned towards the door of the wooden storeroom shack we’d taken a brief break in. Elm tugged out a fold away cage from his saddlebag and set it up, nodding orderly to me. He blithely explained that he’d got it from the pet store and that the store owner had been confused when Elm wouldn’t buy a canine to go with it.

“Now what?” I asked, ready to kill more of the vile cretins.

“Now, we walk, we make as much noise as possible, and we get it to come to us,” Elm advised.

“Oh, good,” I exclaimed as loud as I could, still hurting from the last words of Garden Path, “I’m good at that.” I reached for an arrow, but a hoof stopped me.

“Sorry, Squawk, one more point of order. We need to catch it alive.”

The caverns echoed with every noise. Every noise. From the sigh of a low breath to the irritating tales and chit-chat shared by my forced companion. Yet, every sound was far from the sounds I wanted to hear. In this partially natural and partially pony-made hall, everything was still and calm, and that unnerved me, especially as it had been this way for at least an hour now.

After a walk along paths of varying sizes and lengths, taking twists and turns, we came across a great opening with busted machinery, crumbling wood shacks and many mounds of upturned earth. This, my PipBuck informed me, was the ‘Mole Rat Nesting Grounds’. This was where we would find our last mole rat.

Walking around the huge hall for the umpteenth time still earned me a few new sights that I hadn’t spotted previously. I spotted a group of stalactites that had built up in such a way with ridges and bumps that it looked like a palace built upside down. Staring at it brought thoughts of Canterlot to me, of the city tainted by immoral bombs and insidious magic. That once-great city became a beacon for all that was wrong with Equestria, and wrong with its inhabitants. My dark and gloomy mind pondered that as I rambled the rocky concourse.

My PipBuck bleeped at me. A glance told me the prey had moved back into the deeper end of the cave again and was not taking the bait. It was selfish, in my still grieving eyes, for it to only care about its own self-preservation whilst the lives it could be saving were on the verge of leaving their mortal coils.

“Ack, this is getting stupid. It’s not coming to us, we need to go to it,” I complained, thumping a large rusted metal carcass of a digging machine to accent my frustration. I shook the pain from my claws as Elm walked up to examine the place I’d hit.

“I imagine that hurt...”

“It did,”

“Oh, sorry, I was talking to the excavator, not you, Squawk.”

I growled in irritation and organised the arrows in my quiver, then pushed my bow into a more comfortable place before looking back towards the exit. Enough time had passed for Procrustean to raise a team capable of storming in and taking us, yet the coast was still clear and the mine remained undisturbed. When Elmwood voiced the same concerns, I remembered what Garden Path had said in her last message.

“The other ponies in the mine were the last of the Snips,” I revealed to Elm, tapping my claw on the ground as I replayed the events on a timeline in the dirt, “Path confirmed it, she was enlisted to work down here on her first day in the Stable, but the Snips were moved in on the day of the mole rat attack, about an hour before.”

“That’s not a coincidence,” Elm reasoned.

I agreed, “he brought the Snips down here because he knew the mole rats were due to attack-”

“-Or he created one,” the bleached stallion suggested. I gasped in anger. The idea of somepony, most likely Procrustean, using the infestation of mole rats to remove the Snips from the face of the Stable, like snubbing out a cigarette. The butt remains, but the smoke is gone. I didn’t want to think it was true, but with the operations that the Security Department had set up down here, it was more than possible.

“Crusty was cleaning house, he destroyed the mole rats before they could use them to cure Gypsy and Mole, ”I continued, mulling over my inductive rationalizations, “can we really believe he wants to snuff them out because they annoy him?”

“You said Path saved big ears,” Elm gestured to his own, showing that he meant Molasses.

“...And right before that, Garden Path was discussing the Snips, something that Molasses Candy would have heard,” I deducted. Had he heard these recordings though? Impossible, I assumed, as he would have destroyed the holotape if he had.

“It’s going to be fun trying to get out of here. He’s going to try to kill us too,” offered the blue-maned colt with the scratched eyes. I moved away from my previous thoughts to consider that.

“Your right, he is,” I acknowledged, shuffling with my bolts once more.

“So what I suggest,” he drawled, leaning against a large stalagmite sticking up out of the ground, the largest in the room, “is that you get over that little slap from earlier and prioritize getting this mole rat so we can get out of here.”

“Little slap?” I asked Deadwood darkly, once the frost had started thawing inside the heart behind my feathery chest.

“Yes, because you’ve been acting like I shot your grandma ever since,” he chuckled, patting my back.

“You think I left Gypsy to die,” I countered, rounding on him. My body was between fire and ice, fury raging at the fact he’d hit me, horror at the fact he dared to challenge me on it chilling me. “Do you think I left my best friend in such a vulnerable place so easily? It hurt, pal! Hurt a lot more than your ‘little slap,’ aye. You think you can judge me after everything you’ve put us through?”

“If you’re waiting for my apology-” he started, his matter-of-fact way of speaking enraging me further. I was in such a compromised state that I didn’t notice his eyelids had drooped.

“I’m looking for you to stop pretending you’re some Prince Charming who galloped in at the right time to save the day!” I began to pace, voice crackling, my angry fires growing wilder with each word, “Gypsy was safe, and Mole was going to die. I made the hardest decision of my life but she knew the risks.”

“-I cannot forgive you for that.” The stallion pushed his back off of the stone pinnacle, and approached me.

“You can’t forgive me?” I threw down my wings to hop the distance between us. “I can’t forgive you! You dragged us down here. You are responsible for the deaths of all those Snips! You dropped a building on me!” Landing, my beak and his face met with a bump, in a competition to see who could intimidate the other more. My furious energy was on my side, but his quick tongue was on his.

“And you endangered my pregnant mare willingly for our own selfish desires.” The response had the effect of Elm pushing me under the ice of a frozen lake and holding my head beneath the water whilst whistling ‘Dixie.’ He won the shoving competition over me, sending me stumbling back to sit on the wet dirt, my jaw wobbling a few times.

“She said you didn’t know. She said she didn’t tell you…”

“No, she didn’t,” he confirmed, “I just guessed, and you just confirmed it.” My heart burst. He’d tricked me, I’d fallen for it like a drunken idiot in a rigged card game. I regained myself quickly, using my annoyance at the fool as my mental booster. I pulled back, stood tall and straightened up, looking down on him. ‘Stand tall,’ my mother once told me, ‘even when you are in the wrong. You’re a talon, be proud of it.’ It was some of the only advice my mother gave me that I actually held on to.

“Ye had to have ken before I said anything, and if ye did then ye had no excuse! You shoulda been there-”

“She shouldn’t have been there in the first place, you were responsible for-” he argued over me.

“She’s a grown mare, I have no right telling her what to do, you cannot tell her what to do either, she-”

“Both she and my mare could have died,” Elm was shouting now, and his dead eyes were locked on me, “but I guess that’s not a stretch for a foal killer!” The last part of my rational mind was plucked out. My chest burned hot, my heart twisted itself hard, the corners of my eyes trickled with acrid acid. I felt my claws scrunch as Deadwood attempted to talk over the thump-thump-thump in my head. The beat egged me on.

“Cr-” Blam.

My fist impacted without warning.

The stallion flew without wings until gravity slammed him to the ground.

“You BASTARD!” Punch number two was ready and locked on, and yet it missed as Deadwood anticipated it. He weaved out of its way, burst into me to knock me back just as hard, and clocked my beak in an uppercut.

I fell, one wing jarring in a difficult angle painfully, the other spread out unguarded. A hoof dropped fiercely on the appendage and pinned it, the second raising threateningly over my head. Wood balked; tried to speak again, to apologize or to goad me further, I do not know, he never got the chance to say it.

I swung for him, but he moved. I threw out my open talons again, eager to purchase some red in his white fur. It didn’t catch, and I got a taste of the hoof he’d held back.

“STOP! I-OOF!” I dug my hind feet into his gut and kicked, flinging him into the air. As I rolled on the ground, I saw him touch down with his forehooves first. He must have recovered fast, I was still finding my feet when his leg swept me. I was forced to twist again, to try to escape a second hit, but his body was on top of my back again before I was up. It was a bad decision.

My wings flicked out and clapped him in the head.

Feathers hurt more than you think if used with the right strength and velocity. When I heard him cry on the third slap, I knew I’d hit him in the eye. The wing-bones snatched around his neck and held him as I threw my head back. My cranium smashed against his nose, I heard a crack, his weight leaving me.

“Aggh!” I flicked myself back onto my feet and twirled to see him standing once more. He was clutching a bleeding snout, eyes glared at me. “Stop, Crow!”

“No!” I screamed back, “Not ’til you stop fightin’ like a feckin’ pussy and do the job proper!”

“You want me to put you down, Squawk?” he asked incredulously, smearing the red across his nose.

“I want you to try, you cat-sellin’ bastard!” I spat, wings flared from my back and feet taking slow, meticulous steps towards the horse. He moved into a fresh stance and snorted a spray of crimson onto the gritty floor. He nodded and entered my bubble.

An incessant dripping of residue in the cave wept for us. The lights of our PipBucks splashed over the walls that rarely if ever received illumination. The supporting beams groaned, the long open spaces mocked us with our own echoes, and the occasional screech or click of what, in retrospect, I assumed were bats in the deeper half of the cave, cried at us to have mercy on ourselves, and on our relationship.

But we ignored the protests of our surroundings and fought. This time, Elm fought magnificently.

A griffon hates a lazy battle, a Trot hates an easy fight, and a MacRural hates to be beaten by brains over brawn. Finally, the duel between Deadwood and I was none of these. We were equally matched in skill, and from his first jab to my first block, we kept landing attacks and defending ourselves like we were captured in some violent dance craze. We bobbed and weaved, struck heavy blows as we went toe-to-toe with one another. Elm had speed, I had strength. He could whip rings around me, but I could knock the air from his lungs with a single punch or kick.

When he faltered and dropped to a knee from a southpaw, I thought I had him on the ropes, but how wrong I was. The instant I prepared to lay the final judgment on his fallen form, he revealed a feint, rounded himself to let his hind half face me, and bucked me square in the chest. I thought something went snap and tumbled backward over and over until I landed near a sharp rock that almost threatened to crack my head open like an egg if it had been any closer. I choked on lost breath but was relieved to find no blood on my claws in the process.

I didn’t have time to celebrate the fact, as Elm charged towards me. Despite the stabbing ache in my chest and headache behind my eyes, I wasn’t as easily apprehendable as the floppy-maned stick figure was assuming. He leaped, launching towards me with his leg raised to post a final blow into my face. I was ready for him.

My first claw snatched his protruding leg, my second grabbed his throat. I forced us off the ground for a moment with my wings, seeing the surprise in his popping eyes as I spiraled us around. Then, he winded himself as I slammed his back into the ground and pinned him there, keeping his movements restricted. Finally, the match was over, both of us knew it no matter how much Deadwood struggled.

“Gypsy’s pregnant, but she does not want you on the scene, Deadwood. You’re not fit tay be a father! Yer not even fit to be her stallion,” my words were harsh and cruel as I choked the life from the stallion’s lungs. My body heaved with his at the exertion of our dispute above him. My feathers were ruffled and out of place, salted with dirt and sand, and minor cuts dripped through my azure coat. I didn’t clock the clicking on my PipBuck through the noise of my righteous anger.

“And at least have the decency t’ look at me when I’m strangling some sense inta ye!” Deadwood’s gaze had turned, his one hoof was slapping me faintly on the chest, his other gesturing behind us. I shook my head and snorted, sneering, leaning into his face. “That old trick dosnay work with me, la-”

Some of the fight returned to Elmwood as he found footing under me with his hind hooves and booted me backward. I had no time to be angry, as a glowing body whistled past my shocked beak. It had no sooner hit the floor, that it scrambled again, this time its course in motion for the wheezing horse I’d just been saved by. There was a cry, a screech, and it’s effulgent gnashers sank into my friend’s neck.

I howled out and leaped, forgetting the reason we had been down here, the reason we had sought this monster and the reason it needed to be alive. I snatched the bow from my back, readied an arrow, and fired without S.A.T.S. to aid me. Like a record-breaking speedball, my projectile threw the powerless creature straight into the unmoving, jagged rock face. It stayed in one place on the wall, almost comically, for one moment before tumbling off with the elegance of an old bandaid, snapping the bolt when it hit the floor.

“Elm!” I reached to help him up, a waterfall of blood leaving from his bite wound, yet thankfully proving to have not killed him yet. The dazed horse looked paler as his eyes searched the area in a state of confusion, struggling on weakened legs before seeing the limp rat.

“Shit. Fuck… C-Crow, t-tell me you didn’t…” he croaked, stumbling towards the defeated and unmoving animal. I aided him across, whimpering myself.

“I-I’m sorry, Elm, it was killing you, I had to stop it somehow…”

“I-I thought you’d just…” he started, before coughing and shuddering hard. As his hooves peeled back, the dashes of crimson could not be denied. Spilling another swear, he crouched to check what I surely thought was a dead mole rat.

“It-it’s still alive!” he gasped, pointing. Sure enough, the small creature’s rib cage was rising and falling, albeit with dying breaths. It was enough to prompt hope.

“H-Hurry. The-” Wood’s lungs erupted again, and he shoved me towards the cage as he covered his bleeding muzzle. I could make amends, I thought, as my cheeks began to drizzle with tears, I could fix all the mistakes I had made with Elmwood, Gypsy, Mole…

I ran back to him with the cage, moving carefully around Elm as he lay staring nearly nose to nose with the beast that had put him in this critical condition. Then again, I had the overwhelming guilt gurgling in my gut as I knew I’d had a claw in his fate as well. Collecting the unconscious potential savior, I eased it into the small prison cell whilst my PipBuck tutted at my task and locked the door to it just to be safe. Then I went to reach for the stallion I’d given the beating to. His hoof reached up and pushed me back with a strength he shouldn’t have had.

“Don’t. I… I’ll… I’ll slow you down…. Get out of here. I’ll be right behind you.”

“Bullshit,” I hissed, going for him again, only to be rejected once more. “I’m not leaving you this way,” and I started unpacking the medikit from my belongings, refusing to listen to his protests. I wasn’t the best medic, we had better in our band of Raiders back in the outside world, but I could apply ointment and a bandage, and was even lucky enough to find the case I’d swiped contained a serum which I hastily had him drink.

“I’m sorry,” I offered him as I patched up the stallion, whose droopy scribbled-on eyelids took a melancholy expression, “that shit. I shouldn’aw said it.”

“Yeah…” he uttered huskily, “but… I... needed to hear it.” He closed his eyes, and I panicked, but then he smiled at my hasty reaction, “thanks for the honesty, C-Crow. That’s why you’re…” He stopped, trying to clear his throat and shaking his head. I rubbed his back once the coughing stopped and he pointed back out to the exit.

“Go… the mole rat, it’s…” I looked back and could see the creature was convulsing. I whined out and looked quickly to Elmwood, pushing back the sting in my eyes.

“I’ll be back for ye, dunnae do nothin’ stupid!” I demanded.

“Hey… it’s … me,” he managed a shrug and the last wave before sinking back into the wall I’d propped him against.

I spun quick, grabbed the weighted cage in my claws, and cried out the Speedster creed to the parroting empty cave as I fired up my wings like missiles. I launched myself to the exit, dodging turns and twists in a bid to get the being to the doctors before it expired. The journey was a blur as I retraced the steps we’d taken to get to the mole rat nest. It was only as I neared the tower of rocks we’d landed in on that I realized there was still a problem to overcome.

I skidded to a halt at the door, wishing I had gotten the full plan from Elmwood as I crashed my palms against the half-meter thick steel stopping me from accomplishing my escape. I had only one option, and I knew the odds of it working were horribly slim.

“Hey!” I cried through the door, slamming my cut knuckles on the metal, “I have the mole rat, I can save my friends, ye have to let me through! Don’t let them die! Please! Don’t let them die!” I broke down, sobbing against the cold wall that I deserved. I had earned this punishment, even if they hadn’t. I had ruined everything.

“Please…” Thrum. The door vibrated as I heard mechanisms unlock, and moved back hurriedly as the halves parted, spilling fresh lights into the cave, blinding me. I covered my eyes until they found a mutual understanding with the blinding glow, at which point I recognized the face of the friend approaching me through the still parting doorway.

“Bones!” She didn’t make time to return the greeting, instead grasping the mole rat in a magical glow and levitating it.

“This is it? I thought the aim was not to kill it!” she turned quickly and started running for the way out again, forcing me to follow her at the same speed.

“Bones, Elm got bit as well, he-” She skidded through the gate, looking mortified at me, then tossed her head to the closest two guards.

“Gears, Solid, head back into the cavern. The coast should be clear but remain vigilant all the same. Collect the injured party, no matter what state he is in, and get him up here as quickly as you can!” she ordered, sending the two members of her team back into the cave before galloping again.

With Elm covered for, and the mole rat out of my grasp, I could finally take in the changes to the Maintenance Sector. In our time down in the hole, somepony had been very busy. Where it had once been dark, riggings had been set up to fill the hall with glaring light. What had once been a deserted square was now teeming with soldiers thundering up and down on the silver floors, patrolling or preparing their equipment. I realized at once that none were attacking me, although some shot me curious looks. I noted that even the stallion who’d been fooled by us earlier was now trying not to stare at me. I found myself wondering what had changed.

At the center of it all was a temporary wall built up of white panels, enclosing machinery that clicked, squeaked and peeped. Ponies in white lab coats appeared from it, and as Bones reached it, the second familiar face of Dr. Wolfsbane slipped out of the coverings as well. The officer hailed her, and she immediately shot her gaze at the cage that might as well have been holding roadkill by now. I saw her relief turn to disgust, but she accepted the gift and quickly conversed with Bones before she disappeared back into her pop-up office with the mole rat.

I staggered towards it in a vain attempt to find out more, only for the diligent guards on the scene to step into my way.

“Sorry, Guardian Griffon, you do not have clearance into this area,” the male told me as Bones was returning.

“Don’t worry, Ma’am,” she informed me, “we’re doing everything we can.”

“What is this? What’s going on?” the mare with the cute hiney turned me around and walked me around the white panels, where shadows moved behind them in an odd style of puppet theatre.

“Come on, let me get you patched up, I’ll explain everything…”

Coffee tasted amazing, I came to realize. At least, it did in Stable T-Thirty. Out in the wastelands, you were lucky if sugary mug of coffee wasn’t mud, saliva and somepony’s flaky scalp.

I nursed my hot drink as I took in everything in the debrief Bones had given me in return for my own story from the deep, dark pits.

“So what you’re saying,” I uttered over a dull pain in my beak from one of the punches that had landed perfectly for Elmwood, “is that this is all Procrustean’s doing?”

“Is that so hard to believe?” The voice that had come to fill me with dread made my head turn quicker than my brain wanted it to. My vision spun as I identified the fortress of security trotting into the area that had been lined with seats and included several blackboards chalked up with orders for his men.

“Aye,” I mumbled bitterly, “it kind of is.”

“Nonsense,” A new visitor joined the party, one I’d only heard speaking on the radio that very morning. The Overstallion joined us with a respectful smile, stood beside his faithful rottweiler of a security pony. “Procrustean’s goal here has always been the safety and protection of our people. That is why, when he heard that you had risked your lives yet again to try and retrieve the cure for our mutual friends, he organized this operation. He knew that the Stable would be too broken hearted if it lost the ponies and griffon they have all come to admire. He had the patients brought here to be closer to their cure, and was about to send in a search party when you came knocking on the door.” Overlook gave me an impressed smile.

“That’s correct, sir. I am glad to see you escaped mostly unharmed, Crow.” I really didn’t like when Procrustean used my real name, but I did not dare bring it up. Nor did I choose to address how this must all have been a ploy to make Crusty look good whilst plotting his evil plans against us, even though afterward I would wish that I had. I simply nodded, sighed, and moved my inquiries to my real worries.

“Mole, Gypsy, are they…?”

“Dr. Wolfsbane is doing all she can…” his words trailed off as a commotion at the main door had us all turning around. Fearing the worst for Elm, I flew up before anyone could stop me and raced overheads of the forming crowd, reaching the front where I touched down in a flap. I was expecting to see the stallion on a stretcher or see him carried out by the guards in a bad way. In all honesty, I presumed he’d already be dead. However, when I spotted Gears and Solid walking out of the black grotto without the pony, my puzzlement and fears grew. Had they left him to die?

“Ey, Squawk!” I spun around to the voice in shock, and let out a half terrified, half ecstatic screech. “You can patch me up anytime. I feel great!” Elmwood stood amongst the surprised crowd, grinning at me like a bloody idiot. His smile weakened as I raced for him.

“No, no, no, wait!” but he wailed as I grabbed him and cuddled him tightly, breaking my personal space rules with the stallion. “Ouch! S-Still sore.”

“Sh-Shuddup, pussy,” I sniffled and sighed gratefully as his forelegs returned around my aching and bruised ribs. I never asked how he had recovered so fast. I assumed the serum was better than I’d given credit, but looking back I should have asked questions. I should have asked a lot more questions.

“Wh-What? Where… Where am I?” Gypsy’s eyelashes crept open, revealing the rose-red irises beneath. I let out the deep breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding ever since Dr. Wolfsbane had administered the antidote. The studies on the fresh mole rat’s blood had come through, and with them, the doctor and her team had worked throughout the night to uncover the cure. The first two tests had given positive results, but it was only after the third tests that simple hopes became signs of healing.

“Still alive, sorry,” Elmwood offered soothingly, taking her hoof. She looked at him with painful confusion. He smiled at her with more affection than I’d ever seen him display. “Although you gave dying a really good go, you almost had me believing you were a goner. I was about to start courting Crow instead.” He was trying to make her laugh, and yet it didn’t seem to be working. She turned her head to me, and I could tell she knew something else was up.

“I… didn’t…” she lowered her ears and her hooves drifted to her stomach as she took a long, shuddering breath. The doctor stepped in at that point.

“Miss. Breeze, you’re in a field hospital set up in the Maintenance Sector of Stable T-Thirty. You were bitten, but at present, the antidote we have administered you with appears to be working successfully. We will continue to monitor you until you-”

“Please, don’t tell me…” she interrupted, looking from the doctor to me, and finally to Elmwood. He lowered his eyes regretfully and cast them away. The doctor took a long breath and released it like a dead man savoring a last smoke before going to the gallows.

“I am sorry, Miss. Breeze. Your foal… has not shown any life signs for the past few hours. I am afraid you have had a miscarriage…” Gypsy closed her eyes. The first wet pearls dropped over her cheeks and her shoulders trembled. Her mouth parted, and her horn glowed, and Elmwood held her tight as she brayed in grief.

“No…”

“I’m sorry,” he told her, over and over, despite the magical disruption from her horn glowing brighter and fiercer. The Doctor moved in to attempt to calm her, but Elmwood got in the way. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“No.”

The other doctors, the Overstallion and the Security Chief all backed up as Gypsy’s aura encompassed her entire body, even stretching into her squeezing partner. Even I, who wanted to join Elm in clinging to her, had to pull away as the glow became too intense.

“NO!” She screamed, tossing her head back and forcing out such an astonishing blast of power that it knocked out machinery, obliterated lights and send Dr. Wolfsbane tumbling over her desk. Elmwood, in the heart of the storm, seemed unaffected, although he still held to Gypsy Breeze with his eyes shut as her body turned into a magnanimous radiating light bulb. Her horn spat arcs of magic and spewed energy as she burned up in her bed like a dying star.

There was a whumpf.

A pop.

And then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was over. The magic shattered, it crackled out of existence around the deploring pony, whose fluorescence died out with her consciousness. Apart from the dead lights and alarmed sounds of guards trying to find out the cause of the explosion, all was calm again. Regaining herself, Dr. Wolfsbane lit up her PipBuck and hurried to her patient.

“What in the name of Celestia was that?” demanded Overlook in a state of absolute shock.

“That,” proclaimed Elmwood in the darkness, shifting out of the doctor’s way, “is what happens when you upset the Element of Magic.”

FOOTNOTE: Quest Begun: Hole In the Wall

Quest Completed - Hole in the Wall
Quest Perk added – Here, Kitty, Kitty - Creatures are now 10% more likely to follow commands or be startled and flee from you.

Quest Penalty - Molasses Candy and Gypsy Breeze now have a permanent loss of 10HP.

Level up!
New Perk: Beat Up The Bruiser - Add +1 to Stamina

Author's Notes:

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

Song for this chapter; You Want It Darker - Leonard Cohen

Apology for the delay in this chapter; family matters and other things sprung up and had to be dealt with. Thankfully, I have had this chapter to take some frustrations out on. Apologies it got fairly dark in places, but it was great for stress relief.

Thank you to Blazie, this is the second published chapter he's edited for me, really super appreciate his hard work. Aannnnd not forgetting Doomande, thanks for picking the nits <3.

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.
"It's only when I'm cheating death on the battlefield. The only time I feel truly alive.” Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid.

All good things,
Duskhoof