Chapter 8: Counting bodies like sheep...

The long and solemn walk as they listened to the radio filled the two with a strange form of drive. All but tuning out the world the steps came easier and the small hours of the morning passed them by as they neared the northern mountain range of The Hoof. The songs passed between sad and easy to upbeat and cheery, all of them bringing smiles to Sparks’ slate-blue cheeks as she bobbed to the music without a current care in the world. Red Eagle however just immersed himself in the tunes as they filled the air of silence pierced only by their shuffling limbs; the sounds of talons, paws, and hooves between them subtly kicking up loose dirt and dust nearly dry from the lack of terrible rainstorms.

He looked about the cloud heavy skies -the Sun neared the eastern horizon, bathing the world in its sickly pale light- in wonder to that very question; it hadn’t rained in nearly an entire week on the road, which was odd. The skies always seemed to threaten rain, no matter how little, and the almost dry feeling left him uneasy.

He peered over to Sparks, who danced subtly in her stride alongside him and all but missed his gaze. She clammed up slightly and returned his flat expression with curiosity. “Something the matter Eagle?”

He merely shook his head and looked to the skies, speaking in low faintly concerned tones. “No. Not really, just hasn’t rained in a good while.”

She walked on maintaining a look of confusion as she peered up into the sky, her legs becoming subtly shaky as she stared into the vast skies above her. She had never been in a rainstorm, or thought about them with such worry as Eagle seamed to show. She voiced her confusion in a somewhat worried tone as she turned her radio down low enough so it became no more than a distant noise strumming along to their steps. “What happens when it rains?”

“Nothing really, it gets wet and loud but... it’s hard to keep a heading when you can barely see twenty yards out.” he returned his gaze to the path ahead and his beak formed a small smirk. “Besides, can’t wait to see you get hit with probably your first full force thunderstorm. Stable dwellers always blow their stacks when they see one.”

Sparks had heard about thunderstorms before, even read about them in her small preparation class for leaving her stable. She roughly knew why thunderstorms existed, how they worked and all, but Eagle had gotten it right. She had never seen one like so many other wonders that her home didn’t offer. She puffed out her chest and spoke defensively. “I’ll have you know I’ve heard of Thunderstorms, never seen one firsthoof but it’s not an alien concept to me.”

Eagle’s smirk gained a low, short chuckle as he shook his head. “Yeah, but until you’ve heard the ground shaking explosion of the pure wrath of nature you don’t know what a thunderstorm actually is.”

His words made her uneasy, as they were intended to. Her face screwed up as she tried to conceptualize it, but as usual like with almost everything outside she had no frame of reference. The ground shaking tremors she... unfortunately did from last night’s battle, and she quickly changed her attention to the lightning itself.

She had seen pictures, admittedly blurry and overexposed ones, of what looked like great white tears in the sky; raw electricity that hung in the clouds as if it was a weapon of the Goddesses themselves with descriptions of massive cavitating explosions in their wake. After some thought though she had to agree with Eagle; she didn’t have a clue what lightning or thunderstorms really were like, and as she scowled longly at the path ahead she came to realize another thing along the same thought.

She really didn’t know what this place, The Wasteland, really was. She knew how it was made and objectively what it was, but the afterthoughts of looking at her PipBuck’s map gave her nearly ceaseless questions that she doubted she’d ever get answered. She looked to Eagle with an inquisitive expression.

“Well Eagle, you’re right. Come to think of it I really am a grade-A ignorant for the wastes, the Enclave and my Stable gave me a small ‘survival class’ and training regimen before I left but they... they seemed to leave a whole bunch out of the brochure.” Her eyes trailed up to the skies with a newfound unknown to fear. “Things like thunderstorms for example.”

Eagle scoffed slightly as he nodded his head lazily, speaking in a faintly cynical tone. “Yeah, the pegasi up top know how to live among clouds... but stick them down here and they barely know how to function. Let alone survive.” He looked at Sparks and spoke flatly, his expression cold but curious. “I take it the ‘survival class’ involved little to nothing beyond radiation and disease paranoia? Maybe a little bit of firearms training if you were lucky?”

Sparks’ expression became one of meekness, a slight embarrassment that showed her lack of education in that regard, and her voice struggled to explain it. “Well, more or less... I already knew of radiation and contamination safety from my diversions in medical, and even knew most of the weapons class except for... well, using them. They didn’t...” she sighed deeply, and shook her head as she fixed her eyes on some distant detail. “Well, they didn’t tell me much I didn’t already know. Suffice to say the... worst shortcoming was the, erm... mental preparation. I... can’t even begin to describe how anypony could prepare for a day out here in some book or class.”

“So they gave you a bag of supplies with little direction on how to use it, and kicked you out of your stable without even a cap on your collar. Lovely.” He chuckled grimly, andSparks gave a confused look as she tried to understand the phrase.

“A... cap in my collar? Why would they put a hat on my neck?”

Eagle’s expression changed into one so commonly held by wastelanders when dealing with the fresh faced ignorance of stable dwellers; a flat but baffled face as it seemingly took divine protection or pure luck to keep a majority of them breathing and standing. “A cap; bottle caps, not hats. We use bottle caps around here as money, not the paper notes or bits you probably got used to with the Enclave.”

Her face twisted with confused eyes as she tried to wrap her head around the concept as Eagle stifled a laugh from the ignorance. It wasn’t her fault she didn’t know, but for all the Enclave’s posturing Eagle knew they didn’t know the first thing about The Wasteland, let alone one day coming down on wings of flame to save their ‘dirt slogger’ brethren. Eagle had heard several pegasi claim they would over the years, and time after time found more evidence to the contrary.

Sparks looked up to Eagle again, maintaining her expression of curiosity but edged with bafflement. “Why would you use bottle caps for money? That seems a little...”

“Weird? Yeah, I know. I asked the same question years ago but it was explained to me in so many different ways and reasons it just made my head spin. Some said it was because caps are plentiful, others said they were hard to forge, some said that the old bits were too plentiful and weren’t valuable enough to warrant use. Many didn’t care in the end as to why caps specifically, but the underlying reason made sense to me.

“Long story short the creatures around here don’t really use bottle caps as a currency, we use water and food as the truly valued commodity; water especially as you can see for yourself that around here most water is irradiated or contaminated somehow. Caps just allow towns and merchants to trade in bulk, some... abstract value I guess for traders to peddle their goods between places.

“There isn’t really a ‘set’ value on goods either. Most of the time creatures just barter for what they need and that’s that. One gives another a can of beans and the other gives them a dozen bullets; that kind of thing. But... I suppose as long as folks accept it though, it’s a currency. You can usually get a cap in one town and spend it in another.

“To the point though... when I say they didn’t pin a cap to your collar, the meaning is worse when they didn’t even tell you what a cap is.”

Sparks stared into the distance as Eagle explained Wasteland economics to her, listening to the low and almost distant music of the radio that mixed with subtle breezes rolling in across the valley. The confusion of bottle caps being used as money shifted to the notion that water and food being the main commodity. It boggled her mind for a moment, but realized quickly as her stomach gurgled. She didn’t have all that much in the way of food herself.

When she had vomited up her dinner from the night before, she had been hungry ever since but lacked any appetite for eating until now as he mentioned food. All she had stowed away in her packs were a Stable orchard ration or two with a few of the Enclave’s nutritional protein bars, and she suddenly became aware of just how little in the way of edible foodstuffs were just lying around for the taking.

There were no dispensers or cafeterias for her to lounge in and eat her fill then get back to work no fountains or sink taps to grab a glass of one of the most rudimentary necessities of survival. Water, a necessity up until now that she, along with everypony else in her stable, had taken for granted. Her lips felt chapped at the sudden dryness.

She lifted her PipBuck and used the inventory management spell built into it to find one of the protein bars she had and took it from her saddlebags, peeled the wrapper off she delicately nibbled off the bar as it floated in her magical grasp. She still didn’t feel quite a hundred percent when it came to eating, but knew she couldn’t ignore her hunger for long.

Eagle eyed over to her as she chewed on her snack and stifled a chuckle. He decided to continue with her crash course wasteland education he went on speaking flatly and matter of factly. “Speaking of food, don’t eat anything around here unless your proof positive it’s safe or plain desperate. That goes double for water. Any and all surface water may as well have a giant label on it that says ‘irradiated’. Suck down to much radiation... well, I’m sure you’re aware of how fast radiation poisoning sinks in. Even if you’re ‘lucky’ -and I use the term loosely- and ghoulify I’m sure you wouldn’t want to endure that headache.”

The words dragged Sparks’ eating to a full halt at ‘ghoulify’. She screwed her face up in more Stable dweller steeped ignorance and peered over to Eagle as he talked. “‘Ghoulify’? What do you mean by that?”

“Ghouls are what some creatures become after being exposed to enough magical rads over time, but not enough to outright kill them. Some shrink tried to explain it to me long ago -far simpler than caps yet in too much detail. In short the bombs that dropped a century ago spat out magical radioactive fallout from the warheads they used. Balefire magic in such an amount coated a majority of Equestria, even a bit of the eastern lands apparently, in that nasty clicking hot ash of balefire winter. The fallout still lingers in spots, but overall it’s concentrated in pockets.

“At first glace you’ll probably think a ghoul is a zombie or something like that, and depending on their mental faculties you’d be right to assume. Their skin practically hangs off their muscles in strips and their eyes are glossed over almost solid white. The ferals have a strange need to kill and eat non-ghouls, but luckily not every ghoul is feral; it just depends on how well preserved their mind is after decades -if not a century- of being a walking corpse.

“‘Don’t eat the local fruit’, I mean it; unless you want your shiny coat to get mottled and half rotten as your mane falls out. Then you’re faced with a hundred years or more of that shit.”

The description of ghouls left an uneasy feeling in her stomach as she looked back to the protein bar floating in front of her, and what little appetite she had was gone again as she imagined it, like some demented horror creature given form. She had a clash of thoughts between what she thought she knew was possible and the imagination of a fear stricken filly who had already seen horror after horror proven beyond her worst nightmares already. She shuddered at the thought of herself facing such a grisly fate, and she folded up the remainder of the bar and stowed it back in her saddlebag with a subtle unconscious paranoia that grew about eating anything.

Eagle watched her apparent queasiness and shook his head with a smirk. “Don’t worry to hard about it; if you’re starving a little radiation can get fixed later. Usually your PipBuck’s rad counter will tell you if food or water is really dangerous, and as a doctor I’m sure you know what’s relatively safe...”

Sparks had to keep herself from reflexively gagging at the thought of eating anything that had radioactive contamination at all from both her own education and the newfound knowledge of what could happen, let alone what would be considered ‘harmless’. “Now I’m not so certain any of it can be ‘safe’, roughly, what... five or ten rads worth of a dose a year is considered harmless but even that isn’t recommended. Now I’d say no doses are ‘recommended’!”

“As long as you don’t creep over two hundred and fifty, maybe three hundred rads at the most you should be fine. Usually people only ghoulify after sitting pretty on two-fifty for a while and even that is rare.”

Eagle breathed deeply as he tried to persuade her of the dangers so common in the wasteland, while trying to keep her from being paralyzed with fear of everything. A decent level of respect at least with what she could face -would face rather- now as she plunged into a new life.

He dug deep into his experience, seeking out other little tips and hints that would help keep her alive so he wouldn’t need to hound her every second as if she were a baby from there to Crystal City, but among the hundreds of little survival lessons he had lived through he wished he could just give her a book on the subject. Like some survival guide on the wasteland, but unfortunately Eagle hadn’t heard of such a thing. It wasn’t like any creature around these days took up the pen instead of guns and spears to survive anyways. Writing just such a book required experience besides, less it be riddled with worthless trivia and useless hints.

Hard survival skills came from surviving, and to survive one needs to have the mettle for it; the stubbornness to not accept some grisly fate. Whether it was starving or being eaten by some monstrous creature, but most importantly it needed to be mixed with the skills necessary to ensure it.

He realized as he thought of ways to help Sparks at the very least hold her own weight that he couldn’t teach her how to survive; not only because he was a terrible teacher, but helpful hints and direction will only go so far. She needed to learn how to take care of herself, and he could only play as her guide telling her what is and isn’t safe.

It wasn’t like they were going to be traveling together more than a month anyways, and after Crystal City they were to go their separate ways. She would be on her own, hopefully with some creature that would take care of her ignorance of wasteland life.

The solemn thoughts were plainly etched across Eagle’s face as Sparks looked up to him as they trudged on, and she searched for something to say to him but found little. Eventually she turned her PipBuck’s radio back up and listened intently to the music as it played a cheery instrumental jazz tune of brass horns, drums, and a bass chellos, hoping some music would dispel the gloom. At the very least, it worked for her as she spoke with a small smile gracing her lips.

“You... seem to brood a lot, you know?” Eagle’s mind broke from his thoughts and he glanced over to Sparks. His slightly confused expression became agitated, and he scoffed near silently and turned his head back to the path as he subconsciously listened to both the music and their surroundings. “You ought to smile now and then, since I’ve met you, you’ve had this... severe expression.”

Eagle retorted grimly with a low voice, scowling as he did, and kept his eyes ahead on the road. “Live as long as I have out here and this ‘severe expression’ might be all you have left.”

Sparks’ smile persisted despite the gloomy nature of her companion, and she gave a slight chuckle as she all but disregarded all her troubles in the music’s embrace. Her happiness was short lived however as after some time they neared the hills around the mountain range’s base and Eagle motioned towards her, speaking in a low, anticipative voice. “Turn that off, we’re getting close.”

She did as instructed, albeit reluctantly, and eyed forward where Eagle was scanning the mountains but she found nothing. “Close? Close to what?”

“If we’re lucky? A tunnel with nothing at all between us and the other side of that mountain.” Eagle’s scanning eyes drilled holes into the distance and looked for details thatSparks had no awareness of, but suddenly Eagle gave a deep grumbling sigh that signaled his hopes were once again disappointed. “As it stands though, luck is never something to rely on.”

“What’s the matter, something over there?”

“Banners. Look over there, under those big green road signs.” Eagle pointed a talon in the direction of what took Sparks a good few seconds to even see, but at that distance they were little more than green specks becoming smears against the might of the mountain range’s base of brown.

She saw nothing more than those specks of color, despite straining her eyes immensely. “I... don’t see much of... of anything really. Barely those road signs but...”

Eagle gave a sigh and grumbled under his breath. “You’ll need a pair of binoculars if you can’t see that. Beneath the sign is going to be a tunnel pass through the mountain range, but directly under the sign I see a flag. Gangs of raiders or otherwise use flags or banners to mark territory.”

Eagle’s expression became even more severe and focused than Sparks had expected. He seemed lost in thought and uneasy and that made her share in it despite being unaware of what it meant. He, however, understood full well beyond a doubt, and silently asked himself if they both could manage to slip past a raider gang unseen.

Sparks shifted uneasily in place and spoke worriedly. “Gangs of... raiders? What do you mean by raiders?”

Eagle’s expression turned from one of worry to a cold, but simmering anger that had lost all its edge over the years, and he spoke lowly as the detesting tones were clear as air. “Raiders, ponies or otherwise that give up farming or trading for taking what they want to survive. Usually a desperate pony raids because they feel as if they have no choice but...” Eagle paused in thought, his beak twisting into grimaces. Sparks’ eyes locked onto him, her ears held rapt at his words. “Around The Wasteland some gangs of raiders go above and beyond survival, they seem to live on the blood and terror with some sick and twisted need to cause pain. You’d be lucky never to step a single hoof into a raider den in your life.”

Sparks’ expression became disturbed as she turned her gaze back to the road ahead toward the mountain’s base, and her stomach began to twist at the idea of other ponies being like that. Eagle cleared his throat and swallowed, and spoke again grimly. “Unfortunately, we’re in The Hoof. Apparently the worst raider gangs known make their home here; warring with each other for territory and resources with the weakest gangs getting slaughtered to a head. They’ve made only a few journeys beyond, but Hoofington seems to keep them here. Birds of a feather and all I suppose...”

Sparks’ voice cracked as she stammered, looking to Eagle with fearful eyes and doubt edged her expression. “I...I j-just can’t b-believe that!”

“Stick around in The Wastes and you’ll find all manner of shit ponies, or creatures in general that will make you believe. Raiding? As bad as it is it’s not on the top of the list.” He paused, wondering if he should continue his thoughts. After a few seconds he figured the best thing to do was to throw her headlong into the depravity of the world; let her be sick now and be able to deal with it later. He kept speaking with a sour voice, draped in disgust.

“Slaving and butchering is arguably the worst. A Raider might run in, kill or injure a few creatures and bail after looting a bit. A Slaver gang on the other talon will take everything of value they can... creatures being the most valuable, whether to sell or kill, yet some gangs will simply burn a town to the ground for the sake of it.”

The words Eagle spoke cut a dire path through Sparks’ mind as she tried to understand why anypony would do such things, and she instinctually clasped her belly with her hooves. Her arguably naïve and youthful mind refused to believe it, and she shook her head in the refusal. “I... I still can’t believe that Eagle! Why would ponies stoop to such... barbaric methods!?”

“Because desperation forces creatures in general to be cruel and wicked for their own gain. I don’t expect you to believe or understand it yet anyways, not until you’ve seen it firsthoof. You’re a Stable pony, and I’m willing to bet my canteens that you’ve never even seen a fight there.” He turned around harshly, and closed his eyes for a moment. He decided to use the same speech he had heard decades ago, and continued with his lecture. “Let me ask you this. What if, for the sake of argument, you find such a raider or slaver that is gunning for your hide? Would you try to talk sense into a murderous, gruesome monster and get killed or taken in the process because you refused to stop them? Letting them go off and hurt more creatures just like you? Or would you gun them down, assuring that you -or no one else- gets ravaged by their very real monstrous tendencies?”

Sparks’ expression matched her thoughts, which turned to grim contemplation of such an act. If, and truly if, another pony or creature wouldn’t listen to reason that they would savage her... and go on to hurt more ponies. She couldn’t let them, but that would mean blood would get on her hooves, staining them with the very violence she detested. Sure others would be safe from them if she did but... She stammered, fighting back sudden tears as she spoke. “S-so... the end j-j-justifies the... t-the means...?”

Eagle’s expression turned cold, far colder than she expected or had seen of him. He kept trudging forward a few steps until he came to a stop. He sighed deeply he shook his head and spoke in words she could barely hear. “Not always, no. But these raiders are in our way, and they won’t let us pass without a fight if they see us.” He turned around and eyed Sparks as her expression twisted. “Anything... for home. Right?”

Sparks’ eyes were locked on Eagle’s; the piercing graveness barraged her senses almost as much as his question. That was the second time he asked her that, using her own words no less, and it felt no less wrong and vile than when she first thought about it. How far was she willing to go? Her home needed her to be strong, but as the phrase repeated in her head one question above all came in unison with her thoughts.

Was cutting a bloody path through the wasteland the only way to be strong?

She breathed deeply and coughed as her expression hardened slowly, and with leaden limbs she trudged up to Eagle and looked to his eyes, he stopped and stared into her expression as she mustered her courage as best as she could.

“If I can help my stable out without being knee deep in blood, I’ll do it; I’ll do my... my damnedest to rather.” She scowled a little, and looked to the ground for a few moments as she tried to reassure her companion. “If we get attacked, I’ll... I’ll help defend ourselves, but I won’t go out of my way to hurt ponies. I just won’t.”

Eagle’s expression twitched slightly as he stared at her, and then turned his head towards the mountain as his brow furrowed. “Wasn’t suggesting we do, just asking you what you’re willing to do to keep yourself alive.” He sighed subtly as his eyes methodically scanned the area ahead. “If we’re lucky we can slip past these guys without a problem, only it’s daytime and they’re likely all awake and patrolling the area. Using the smaller access tunnels is not an option.” He said as he remembered the taint fiends, yet refrained from mentioning them. He turned from his scouting and motioned to Sparks to follow. “We’re short on time, we need to get moving.”

Eagle broke off the conversation and tread forward again, leaving her as she trembled slightly. Her words were true and honest but she feared for what would actually happen. Even in self defense she couldn’t guarantee she could pull her pistol and actually use it. The very thought slowly oozed through her mind like tar and it made her limbs feel like jelly; to kill for any reason at all.

She spurred herself to motion despite her conflicted mind, and she sullenly followed Eagle in the quiet left by her silent radio, only pierced by the subtle valley breeze and shuffling limbs.

*** *** ***

It was almost six-forty-five on Sparks’ clock by the time they had gotten close enough to see what Eagle had seen thirty minutes ago in detail that left her slack jawed from the sheer carnage of the raiders ahead.

‘He wasn’t kidding...’ she thought, the hope that it was all just a terrible joke played on some ignorant young girl on her first voyage into The Wastelands dashed against the rocks. As they hide behind a large rocky outcropping they looked upon the mess. The underpass was indeed a camp to raider fiends, and it showed from the sheer gore factor as they had strung shriveled intestines and bleached bones as well as the entire bodies of victims from wires across their little wooden hovels and the tall scrap barrier walls around the camp. All of it painted with blackened crimson red, presumably blood, in large warnings and threats in obscene fashions.

The raiders themselves matched their decoration choices, as not a single one of them would have ever seen a bar of soap in their lives as Sparks could have sworn. They were filthy, sweat matted and wild maned with patchwork armor taken from any scraps that seemed to be there only for aesthetic. Sections of chariot tires were wired to large rusty plates of steel mounted poorly to mottled leathers or fabrics, with jagged rebar or plates fastened haphazardly across the broad sections of plate like spikes or spines.

The worst detail to her however seemed to be the fact they exhibited signs of heavy chem use, as she could see their jittery movements and erratic pinprick eyes if she strained her vision from the distance. Eagle grumbled as he scanned the entrance of the underpass, the large and weather worn green sign declaring directions from The Hoof like ‘Baltimare’ and ‘Canterlot’, but across it’s surface was painted in red a single word stretching from edge to edge.

‘Jockeys’

“That isn’t good...” Eagle said, and Sparks tore her quivering eyes off the grisly scene beyond and turned to him, speaking low with a shaky voice.

“I c-could have t-told you that, t-those ponies are camping r-right on the road!”

“Not that, it’s who they are that’s concerning. See the sign?” Eagle pointed a talon forward up to the highway sign that declared the gang’s name, and the large burlap banner with what looked like a roughshod club crossed with a syringe as its emblem. It swayed in the faint breeze that wafted the stench of carrion the raiders seemed to be marinating in, and after clasping her nose with a hoof she turned to Eagle, her speech nasally.

“Sooo... what does that mean?”

“You wouldn’t know them, but I saw their handiwork on my way into The Hoof. Chem fiends they’re called, high practically all the time on any chems they can get their hooves on. These guys seem to have a particular taste for Rage as well...”

“I’ve... heard of Rage before back in medical, it’s like a steroid isn’t it?”

“Calling Rage a steroid is like calling a mountain a rock; not wrong but it doesn’t do it justice.”

Eagle cleared his throat and swallowed, and after a moment he sat down and fished out a canteen from his packs and sipped on its metallic water. He stared out to the fiend’s camp with a subtle, but noticeable disgust etched across his face.

“Rage is... like a supercharger. It’s a steroid for strength but the main affect is on your mind; it gives you the mental bravery -or stupidity rather- to use it. Equestria’s military used it before The War I think to give their soldiers an edge, but whatever it got them the soldiers paid for it no doubt.” He shook his head slowly as he offered his canteen to Sparks, who drank more than Eagle was comfortable with. He continued speaking. “The addiction rates are terrible for the chem as well. One shot of Rage might be enough to hook any creature.”

As Sparks returned his canteen, her tongue squirmed about her mouth from the steely aftertaste with a slight grimace curling her lips. She looked back to the fiends as they jittered about with seemingly no pattern or routes to their movements. “That explains their... weird behavior.”

“That isn’t the half of it though. They may be flying on Rage a great deal but chem fiends, or just junkies in general, like to shoot up several at once. Cocktail chems are popular among these types. Rage and Buck are often used together, maybe a bit of Dash or even Mint-als, anything they can get their hooves on. Thus the name ‘Chem Fiends’.”

Sparks’ expression shot from worried to outright horror as her mind reeled at the idea. “Cocktail chems!? How are they still standing!?”

“Hey! Keep your voice down.” Eagle’s retort made her reflexively bring a hoof to her mouth as she caught herself shouting in disbelief.

She spoke softly, now in a near whisper. “Sorry... but still, from what I’ve read one dose some chems is relatively safe if properly used, but mixed it’s a biological nightmare. How can they be remotely healthy?”

“They aren’t, but they don’t care. After a certain point when some creature gets a junkie’s taste for highs they might experiment, and if they flop over dead from overdose it’s just how it goes.” He turned back to the fiends as they began to form some sense of direction to Eagle’s judgment, and he began to trace out patterns in their movements. They were rough hewn and amateurish, but there, and it was all he needed to slip past them. “Unfortunately... not enough of them kill themselves on chems. Make trouble for others, even other gangs surprisingly. That’s how I met these particular assholes.”

Eagle blunt and morbid words set Sparks uneasy, but she shook the thought and voiced her curiosity. “What do you mean?”

“When I crossed the border I had to use a tunnel like that one, problem was another gang of ponies made their camp there. I could have snuck past them if it wasn’t for these ‘Jockeys’, who showed up and began carving their way through the other gang with some impressive firepower, which gives cause for concern if they find us.”

Eagle stretched out his body from talons to wings as he stood up, his entirety seemed to ache more than usual; he figured from his previous wounds given little time to truly heal. He motioned for Sparks to follow as he grumbled. “It’s important that we aren’t seen, I don’t think I can handle all those damn fiends if they spot us. Even if they don’t have that chariot in there.”

She stood up and dusted off her barding, but looked up in a slightly confused expression. “Chariot? They actually have a working chariot in there?”

“Yeah, and it’s not a pleasure cruise or the flying type either. This one’s armored and has a massive gun on top of it. It’ll shred you if it gets a bead on you, so follow my lead and keep low and quiet.”

Eagle rounded the side of the large boulder they were using as cover and quickly descended into the scattered boulders and ruined chariots below. Sparks was still reeling from the idea of those ponies below being immersed in chem-crazed lunacy as she slowly followed him, and her mind conjured images of such an armored chariot she had never conceived of before.

She kept low as Eagle told her to, and as she followed her protector Sparks discovered just how easy Eagle had made it seem to descend noiselessly down the hillside. Barely just past the edge a hoof slipped on the loose stone and dirt, and it sent her plummeting down the side of the rock face, exclaiming as she hit what seemed like every jagged stone on the way as her armor absorbed most of the impacts with her body flipping head over hooves.

When she came to the sudden stop at the bottom her saddlebag popped open and spewed her limited belongings around her as she lay there a moment trying to reassert her senses. Her eyes spun like tops from the tumble and her body quite distractingly announced her aches and growing bruises.

She groaned in the dirt and pebbles, trying to pick herself up and failed from her clogged senses as Eagle practically came from nowhere and grabbed her suit’s collar and yanked her to her clumsy hooves. He dragged her as she still stumbled to the cover of another large boulder and fixed his smoldering eyes into hers as they went wide shot from anger in his hushed but raging voice. “What the fuck was that!?”

“Wha-... argh, my head...” She rubbed a sluggish hoof across the back of her head and winced from the numerous pains that throbbed with her heartbeat.

Eagle’s claw, still firmly grasping her collar, shook her hard and brought her eyes back to his. “I swear if you pull a stunt like that again you’ll be trotting off alone to Crystal City, understand!?”

“I... only tripped... my hoof slipped!”

“And with it, you just announced our location.” Eagle peered over their cover and peaked back and forth for a few seconds before he dove back down. He locked his eyes on her as she shook her head trying to dispel the pain. “Luckily, they didn’t seem to hear it. Watch your fucking steps, one noise or slip up can royally fuck us here. Got it?”

“Y-yeah... I got it...”

“Good. Now pick your shit up and follow.”

Sparks did as commanded with an aching pace, and after she crammed all her belongings back into her saddlebags she followed Eagle with a slight limp in her legs as her face contorted painfully with her growing bruises. Her mind had no less discomfort from his sudden curt words, but her preoccupation with the pains that throbbed in her muscles and her subtle fear of Eagle kept her lips sealed from chastising him.

They twisted and turned through the scattered rocks and blasted chariots that dotted the space between them and their goal, and before long they reached a somewhat short distance of open ground that flanked the highway tunnel. Sparks peered over their cover and saw with clarity the Jockeys’ erratic behavior, but beyond that it seemed... as if they were in pain of sorts. Sparks came back down behind Eagle and whispered in curious tones. “What’s wrong with them?”

Eagle tilted his head and held a single claw up motioning for her to be quiet. “Now’s a bad time for twenty questions girl... but it seems like they’re in withdrawal. Looks like the gangs running low on their precious chems. That’s good. Means most of them are probably too concerned on how much they feel like shit to keep watch.”

Sparks watched their jittery and distracted, almost pained expressions, with a hint of pity. Part of her still didn’t want to believe the things that Eagle had told her, but their appearance and decoration choices kept her from trusting that their intentions were peaceful.

There was a hint of that derangement that Eagle described hidden in their eyes, and it kept her breath short with anxiety. Eagle however, seemed to be the face of relative calm with a stony expression that baffled her. “How can you be so calm looking at them? Given all you’ve said already I’d expect-”

Eagle’s sigh cut her short as he shook his head. “Seriously, now’s not the time.” He breathed slowly and closed his eyes briefly before opening them again with a nod. “This might get hot, but you need to follow my every step. Get ready.”

Eagle’s body visibly tensed like a cat on the hunt with his wings tucking close to his body as he lowered himself. His eyes were squinted and locked in place beneath the brim of his dusty black hat, and as the nearest guard on top of the wall turned with a jittering yawn he bolted from their cover like a flaming bat out of Tartarus, and despite Sparks trying to match his tenacity she just barely managed to keep pace with him as she was hobbled by her aches and size.

For a short crouching sprint worth fifty hooves at the most in distance Eagle slid beneath the cover of the tall ominous scrap wall’s shadow with nary a visible difficulty, andSparks all but crashed into its surface with a wrenching halt, short of breath she winced as she rubbed her sore spots with her hooves. Eagle shook his head shortly, and sighed lowly.

He turned about in his crouch and edged his way down the wall to the mountain’s base, and Sparks followed, trying to catch her breath as her heart beat with a heightened pace. She silently cursed her previous inactive lifestyle that hampered her ability to match his endurance, especially after a short run like that, but she shook the thought away as they reached the wall’s end with Eagle beginning to scale a rough hewn rock pile.

As Eagle nearly crested the wall he turned to Sparks with a claw over his scarred beak with a silent hushing motion before he began to inch his head above the wall. He lingered there, near motionless as he scanned the terrain beyond, and Sparks sat on her haunches breathing deeply while she watched intently. For a moment she looked behind her with a subtle paranoia that grew in her mind, but found only the empty expanse of rock and Wasteland to greet her. “Psst! Hey!”

She turned about, her expression startled as she jumped to attention and spoke with a shouted whisper. “Oh! Sorry!”

“Quiet! Stay focused and come on, we’re about to get an opening.” Sparks clumsily, without a trace of the grace that Eagle showed previously, scaled the rock pile up to the wall’s top. Eagle stopped her with a talon and peered back over the edge for a few second’s time, and with a motion to follow him he suddenly pounced over the wall like a cat as she made a graceless attempt to vault over the wall behind him. There was another heap of rocks behind the wall that she somewhat quietly landed on, luckily hooves first, before she scrambled down to where Eagle seemed as if he had already been settled down for minutes now.

He watched her shuffle down to him behind cover and he bore a low snarl of agitation. He wasn’t used to relying on the capabilities of another to ensure a smooth as planned ending, and Sparks was blatantly unable to match his skills of stealth from lack of experience. This began to worry him more than anything as she stopped close to him, crouched low, and her inquisitive eyes asked voiceless questions like ‘What’s wrong?’.

He just shook his head before he inched around their cover and peered about for more paths ahead. He lingered for a few moments, slid back to cover and turned to her as she sat there still bearing the questions in her expression. “Alright... now the fun part.”

“Which is?”

Eagle sat down and fished through his packs and withdrew one of his water canteens, unscrewing the top he offered a swig to her. She took a drink and gave the canteen back to him as she lapped her tongue around the metallic aftertaste. He sighed, shook his head and spook in a low, gravelly whisper as he put the canteen back into his packs.

“Odds are we are going to be found eventually if I don’t do this, so I’m going to give you a quick crash course to stealth. Should have done this earlier but fuck it, can’t dwell on it.” He looked up to the sky with a lingering, distant gaze at nothing before locking eyes with her.

“Now pay attention. When we go forward, you’ll need to either match my pace or be capable of hiding yourself. You’re much smaller than I am, so you should find it easier to manage. Any small crevices or holes, cover of any kind that is capable of breaking visual contact between you and anything else. You’d be surprised to know just how you might be able to hide in plain sight though, slow movements and drab colored clothes, camouflage and the like, all of that can help.

“That blue jumpsuit though will make it difficult for you, so just try to keep behind something.” He paused, tapping a claw to his beak with his eyes wandering to make the fastest and most conclusive guide to stealth he could manage. Sparks watched him with intensity as he went on this tangent, trying to absorb the information as best she could.

“Another bit is that of sound. Sometimes being unseen isn’t enough and you’ll need to mask your sounds. Controlling your body weight and breathing is key to reducing the sound you make, so when you step down on any surfaces try to ease your weight into the motions. Don’t just throw your weight down on a hoof.” He held a talon up and with a graceful motion set the talon down to the ground, bending his joints and dropping his body slowly in an inaudible shift.

“Like so. Breathing is easy enough as you need to breathe in rhythm of your steps, but the ease of it is determined by your heart rate. Keep calm, collected, and keep your breath even and low. Don’t panic, and stay objective. Understand?”

She slowly nodded her head, and tried to replicate it and memorize the movement and breathing in her mind. To Eagle’s surprise she caught on quickly as she demonstrated her ability to learn, and replicate it. He mentally shrugged, as he figured it might be a Stable dweller thing since they spent far more time in classes than any wastelander ever did.

“More importantly, sometimes you can’t waste time taking it slow and need to dive into cover. If this happens just get into hiding and try to keep the volume down as best you can, and don’t settle down behind cover if you have the option to keep moving. If you can go deeper into cover or make your way around and away from where you made the noise, the harder it will be for creatures to find you.”

Of a sudden Eagle’s beak hung in the air mid speech as he tilted his head, as if listening to some sounds. He held a claw up, slowly, and for a few seconds he held the pose before dropping it as Sparks’ eyes went wide with worry, unable to hear what he was. With a deep breath he continued, whispering.

“Speaking of which, you’ll also need to be aware of other noises around you. These raiders for example. Sometimes you won’t be able to risk peeking your head out to see them, so you need to hone your ears to hear them. Most of the time, creatures won’t be quiet looking for you, if they even are that is. If you’re still hidden, they won’t be looking for you, and often tend to be loud and clear when just moseying around camps or... wherever they are. Keeping yourself undiscovered makes it easy, but when one finds you and manages to alert others is when things get... exciting.”

He tapped his claw to his beak, and shrugged finding not much else to cover at the moment with the time they had. “Beyond that, just try to keep a pace with me. Control your weight shifting and breathing, pay attention to your surroundings and stay calm. Got it?”

She nodded after bearing a frown as she reviewed the information in her head. “Yeah, I... think I understand.”

She felt a little better about their chances, and Eagle only hoped that it was enough. “Alright, now with that out of the way, I’ll take point.”

Sparks’ eyes fluttered a touch, and she was broken from her thoughts as Eagle stood up to a low crouch. “What do you mean, ‘take point’?”

Eagle groaned as he rolled his eyes. “As in I’ll take the lead.”

Realization flashed across Sparks’ face, and she nodded with a small embarrassed smile. “Okay.”

She stood up and imitated Eagle’s stance and kept low, her stance wide spread trying to feel her weight shift between movements. Now aware of such complexity to simple walking she realized just how difficult it actually was to control her moves, instead of just moving without thought. She screwed her face up trying to get a feel for the motions, and when she felt somewhat prepared she nodded back at Eagle, who returned the gesture and looked slowly around the corner for any raiders.

He saw two, both of them utterly unaware of all but the immediate world around them. He eyed around for others hidden in the environment, but found none, and with intent listening he heard neither steps nor speech around him; nothing but the lazy Wasteland wind across the valley that barreled against the mighty mountains around them.

He motioned for her to follow him, and together they made their somewhat silent way across the open patches of ground between the hovels of the raiders. They hid close to the small tents and chariot husks that served as domiciles and they stopped frequently so Eagle could look around and ensure their discovery wasn’t to happen.

The next rough ten minutes felt like hours to Sparks who, despite her best efforts to calm down couldn’t shake her thoughts. Between the horrid smells and anxiety of having these raiders almost so close to touch, the fear nearly paralyzed her, but she surprised herself with how well she kept quiet despite how loud her heart felt.

Behind one piled up mess of rubble and trash that flanked one of the raiders’ hovels Eagle looked at her and saw her limbs trembling, like a corked bottle near to burst. He held up a talon horizontally and lowered it slowly with a deep and quiet breath, telling her to calm down and just breathe, and she tried her best without taking huge and loud gasps of air as she closed her eyes. Slowly, but surely, she calmed down somewhat and opened her eyes with a nod. Eagle nodded back, turning to see around the hovel’s corner.

He had to admit he was impressed, ‘a quick learner’ he thought as he eyed around for raiders nearby and other paths to take. Finding one that he was pleased enough with, one that led them through the next half of the camp to the underpass’ entrance with nary a single raider between them and the entrance, he breathed deeply as it meant they were about to really see what these raiders had in store for them.

He stretched his talons and paws, along with his body beneath his armor with dull pops and sighs as he prepared for the worst. Sparks saw him do this with a puzzled expression, to which Eagle saw as he turned back to whisper. “We’re about to make a bee-line for the entrance, and whatever’s inside isn’t going to be pretty. You ready?”

She clamed up for a second and wondered just how these unwashed raiders could make it worse than what she had already seen, but after a few short breaths nodded and looked at him wearing a façade of bravery on her face. “As ready as I can be.”

“Alright then, follow.” He took a few short glances this way and that, and with a launch he strode into a crouching dash along the path, and Sparks at the least kept a decent pace behind him as she tried her best to keep her hoof beats quiet, unsuccessfully despite her honest try. Across sixty or seventy hooves of distance they darted back and forth like gushes of wind between the scattered hovels with the only sounds coming from Sparks herself, and the noises she made agitated Eagle as he moved like a ghost through the campsite.

Finally, after they cleared a good deal of ground quite quickly, they stopped and huddled beneath yet another pile of blasted chariots that seemed to be as common as weeds to her. A passing thought that was cut short when they stopped. She fought for breath as Eagle began to chastise her in whispers. “Come on, girl. You need to be quieter. We can’t go stomping around The Hoof like this.”

She panted furiously and swallowed reflexively. Her expression was winded and slacked as she fought for energy to speak quietly. “I’m... I’m trying Eagle... I really am... It’s just... in a Stable... there isn’t... isn’t a need to... to run around like lunatics at all...”

“I don’t care what you did back in your Stable -you’re in the real world now. If you go stomping past a hive of mutants they won’t feel sad about your childhood, they’ll eat you. Work on it.” the mention of mutants sent questions galore through her mind like wildfire, and her expression signaled questions to which Eagle held up a talon and shook his head. “No, no questions. Just be quieter, I can talk your ear off once we’re clear of here.”

Sparks kept trying to catch her breath, but between Eagle’s chastisement and her confusion to what kind of mutants were in the world they kept a low simmering battle for supremacy in her mind. Eagle looked around suddenly and dropped even lower than he was, with wide eyes searching for the source of some noise that Sparks couldn’t hear with her breathing, and the crudely wrought and suspicious words of what was presumably a raider stallion were heard from behind Eagle. “The fuck’s over ‘ere?”

With that, Eagle spun around in place and with a flash of his talon a silvery white sheen leapt from his chest as he turned the bend behind him. A few short seconds later after a nearly inaudible scuffle he dragged back into their hiding spot the rebelling body of an excessively filthy stallion that leaked blood from multiple spots of his body.

The sight seized Sparks in place and she went silent with a cold chill that ran the length of her spine when the raider’s eyes met hers in his last moments of surprise. Despite her wish to scream or speak her throat felt as if it was under the pressure of a vice.

Eagle pulled his knife from the pony’s neck with a violent slice and held the stallion’s mouth firmly shut with a talon, the claws dug into his flesh with a muffled agonized grunt in response, and a small ribbon of crimson blood squirted from the wound it left as it began to gush in the rhythm of a heart beat. It slowly ebbed as the life left his body and collected in small pools below him on the rocky ground.

Eagle wiped his blade clean on the raider’s clothes when he was finally dead, and with a fierce and threatening glare he locked eyes with Sparks, and he spoke low and dangerously in his gravelly voice holding back a shouting reprimand. “This is what happens when we’re found. Things die; us, them. Either way creatures die, understand?!”

All she could do was muster a small nod as she held back tears from her wide eyes when she stared down to the lifeless pony, his eyes glossed over with a skyward gaze, and Eagle maintained the motionless glare. “You better. Might not be able to catch the next one in time, then a whole lot more will die. Us included. So keep quiet, and keep up.”

With that Eagle sheathed his blade and turned about. He looked around their cover to make sure no one else heard the fight, and to his surprise the space was empty save for the few guards posted far away from their position. He sighed, grumbled under his breath as he knew it was time for them to try and slip past the main bulk of the horde, as it were.

“Come on.” Was all he said, and despite the leaden feel to her limbs she shuffled to him and followed, keeping low and as silent as she could be with an unconscious paranoia that even her heart beat was too loud for him as it hammered her head; the pressure too intense for her to handle.

Step by step they managed to slip their way past the remaining hovels and closed up to the massive scrap gate of the underpass. The giant burlap banner swaying lazily in the valley breeze, painted in an image that Sparks began to detest in the back of her mind.

The wicked barbed club crossed with a syringe began to become a symbol for raiders to her, and she hated the more cerebral concepts behind them she still had trouble believing; violence, their gap of ethics, the willingness to ravage ponies -nay, creatures in general-, and the resulting conflicts that birthed. Her mind couldn’t shake that visage, the deadened eyes of the stallion burnt into her mind, and she began to detest that death seemed to be the only answer as her leaden limbs trembled slightly with adrenaline powered primal instinct; her mind raced.

Her ruminations were quickly yanked short however when they reached the gate and Eagle motioned for her to stop with a talon. His head turned slowly across the face of the large ramshackle doorway, scanning for details that Sparks couldn’t be bothered presently to look for, or understand. He scanned about for raiders who could see them, and finding only a few preoccupied with watching the desert beyond he brought his eyes close to holes in the wall. He peered within the encampment, and after half a minute of searching Eagle shook his head with a snarl, and he began to pry on what seemed like a door of sorts delicately.

Sparks would have begun to ask questions then, but the words hung in her throat like rocks, and shortly after with a subtle groan of creaking hinges the doors opened to a crack. He stopped in his motions and looked at Sparks; the first detail he saw was her almost empty expression with the beginnings of tears in her eyes. He scoffed silently, and after a few seconds he spoke in whispers with a flat expression. “That chariot I told you about is here, along with a good number of raiders. We need to be extra careful here, alright?”

All she did was nod, and all he did was return it. He pried the door open a fair bit for them to fit through, and motioned for her to follow. She did, albeit without any expression of character in herself, seemingly all but ignorant of anything outside her surroundings and what lay in her thoughts as she kept close to Eagle. Once they were inside he quickly sealed the door and they hid behind the cover of chariot husks and heaped rubble, and he peered about looking for threats.

From what Sparks could see, there were a lot of raiders in there with them, and the metaphorical jewel of their armament was that terrible armored chariot sitting serenely in the middle of their campsite down a ways, ‘like an idol’ she thought, ‘to their depravity’.

Eagle shook his head and turned to look at her, her sight seemed distant and distracted, and her expression empty, devoid of all emotion save for that all too common feeling that Eagle had seen, and felt, over his years; the beginning of a mental break.

He stopped, and with as gentle a talon he ever had slowly placed it on the base ofSparks’ neck, driven by some sudden uncharacteristically empathetic surge. She was, at first, startled by the gesture, but refrained from recoiling as she was starved for compassion.

“You okay, kid?” the question hit her like a hammer, and she ripped away from him wearing an expression of deep felt anger and abhorrence. Eagle connected the dots quickly, and answered his question for himself. “Alright, I get it.” was all he said before dropping is empty talon to the ground and turning about to focus on the raiders. He sighed, for a moment conflicted. He turned his head about seeing the receding anger of Sparks as she fell back into ruminations. “Just... I.... I wish there was another way. I do.”

Sparks shot up with a full resurgence of the anger she showed from before and spoke darkly barely above a whisper with accusation dripping from her words. “You haven’t bothered to find another way!”

Eagle sighed, as he combated his wish to retort loudly, and merely spoke softly as his gravelly voice allowed. “I have. In the twenty years I have trudged around your Wastelands I have. Some creatures only know violence; only respond to violence.” He turned his gaze to peer about the campsite, hoping their discussion wouldn’t attract unnecessary attention. Finding no one that had heard them, he turned back and sighed again. “Trying for peace in a violence driven world is a sure way of getting burned, Sparks. I only hope you’re fireproof.”

The comment drove her at first to debate, only the words bored a hole into her thoughts. Her expression went to angered bafflement, but drained quickly to deeper sorrow than her face told. From there, a single tear bearing the power of an hour long weeping leaked from her eyes, and she dropped her head in the sorrow. Unable to believe it, she shook her head throwing the tear down to the rubble strewn floor she looked up to Eagle with a visage embodying defiance. “Burns or not, I will try.”

“Then make sure you stay quiet, or these raiders won’t give you the chance.”

“You can be sure.”

Eagle bluntly turned his head back to the raider camp they hid within. After a few short moments he motioned with a talon for her to follow, and she did with a newfound power in her steps, near silently as she tred behind Eagle as if fastened tightly to him.

They avoided raider after raider, and moments where she felt as if some unlucky noise would attract attention, luck would have it that sudden moments would call those who would have heard her away to other business around the camp; like an itch that needed scratching or another raider among them began to talk with them. Spot after spot they hid beneath the wrecks and garbage of the old world like ghosts, and time after time they made their way deeper and deeper into the heart of the ruined mess.

That’s how it was, until the visage of a massive cage holding in the sodden, bloated corpses of ponies that served as the breeding grounds for hundreds of flies seized both their gazes. More traumatic for Sparks though, was those cadavers were together with the ravaged bodies of still breathing forms, fettered to the chain link fence surrounding them.

The sight set off certain rages in both of them, and Sparks began to tremble, and slow tears trickled down her slate cheeks of a sudden, eyes wide blown with realization that Eagle’s stories weren’t a fallacy. They were true, in untold ways as she saw the abuse on their flesh, the ribcages like whipping marks on their bodies and their hooves were held above them; slack with weakness.

Eagle merely stopped, took short and shallow breaths as his eyes locked emptily on the sight; the shock long since filed away from atrocity after atrocity he had witnessed before. He turned back to her and he tilted his head with a dull visage of grim reality, but sympathy to her feelings he knew too well.

“They beg for mercy. Daily.”

The comment drove Sparks to an even deeper despair, as she grit her teeth behind a now steady flow of tears. Her entire body trembled with a newfound rage, her hooves itched and her vision began to redden from the beating of her heart, and her breath was shallow and hastened. She took a step forward, and another, and another until Eagle put a talon to her chest and stopped her, but the gesture didn’t break her eyes away from the travesty before her.

His low gravelly voice was all but unheard by her thudding ears. “You try and help them, and every fucker in here will pounce on us until we’re dead.”

Her retort was chocked, clogged by the obscene anger and overflowing emotion in her throat as she fought to speak. “I... don’t care... they need our help!”

“You know we’re outnumbered by nearly sixty to two?”

“I... I don’t c-... care!”

Eagle screwed his face up, grimaces flashed across his face as he was conflicted about helping them himself. Nearly an army of raider fiends with them in the middle, and he merely shrugged for a moment as a deeply held breath was exhaled. “Well... I’ve had worse odds before...”

He drew his revolver and flipped the safety off on his battle saddle’s rifle, the subtle clicks like the drums of war in Sparks’ mind. The sound tore her attention away from her all consuming anger and she threw her tear sodden face to Eagle’s dull eyes. “Wait, ca-can’t we just s-sneak out with them?”

Eagle spoke harshly and accusingly to her as he dropped into a battle haze. His scarred beak snarled and his eyes turned into beds of coals. “I can barely sneak us both past all these fucks, I can’t get a talonful hungry and damaged ponies past all these guys along with us. So choose; leave them here, or kill the raiders.”

The question hung in her mind for a few moments time, and as her trembles slowly ebbed away leaving leaden weakness. She shook her head slowly in the indecision, as tears continued to streak their way down her face. Eagle, pressed for an answer, all but shouted at her in whispers. “Choose!”

Sparks, startled out of her conflictions broke her silence with a low shout as her voice cracked. “We... We can’t l-leave them h-here!”

With that Eagle heard the sudden startles and shuffling hooves around the camp, and he stretched out in his armor and growled with a low and grim authority. “Draw your weapon girl, time to play.”

Sparks did as commanded, albeit with great reluctance despite her still burning anger. ‘It’s really happening,’ she thought ‘I’m fighting...’ and the thought tore a hole in herself that became tunnel vision, choking her as she stared at the cage. A sudden pain shocked her in the face, and when her lucidity returned to her she found herself on the ground with Eagle standing over her, her pistol lay beside her.

“Stay focused, or stay down!” As Sparks’ mind ran through thought after thought with no drop of desire to fight she quivered there on the ground with wide eyes and her confliction grew into gargantuan proportions. Losing all control of herself she curled up like a foal on the ground as Eagle stood over her, and he scoffed with a dark accusation. “Fine then. All morality and no fangs.”

Eagle pounced away from her curled up form, as steady sobs streamed from her eyes like a child. Then the sounds of battle ripped apart what little composure remained in her mind.

Hell itself unveiled itself before her, and all she could do was cry.

Footnote: Red Eagle level 21

Sparks level 2

Next Chapter: Chapter 9: ...to the Rhythm of the War Drums. Estimated time remaining: 7 Hours, 25 Minutes