Fallout Equestria: Sola Gratia

Chapter 21: For What It’s Worth

“Jumpin’ Jesus on a pogo stick! You’re the first one to make it through alive.”

Good evening Miss Knockout.

My eyes fluttered open with the disjointed sentiency that came when your entire body was numb, but still intact enough to reflex. If it weren’t for the cinders, flickers of glimmering gold and crimson, dancing through the air, I would have been looking up at emptiness.

But there was always something, if you paid enough attention. ‘Emptiness’ was a lazy summation, a way to bypass the impossible task of truly describing such a void.

Night clouds, black but brilliantly moonlit at their seams, made up this particular infinity. And this time it was truly endless. No horizons, no landmarks, no clear sky or Cabanne… only embers.

The throb was there too, another familiar symptom of waking unconsciousness, a pulsing of denied pain. It was a deprived feeling induced by anesthetic or simple detachment of the mind, but there were no memory orbs at work here, and no medicine effective enough to truly blunt the surrounding pain.

Beyond the throb was every message that it had failed to intercept. They screamed at me, claiming that I was in a worse state than I could possibly imagine, promising death were it not for whatever was causing the numb. It said broken bones and torn sinew, bruised skin and a scarred hide.

A cloud was swallowed by another, darkness consuming darkness, like the overlay of shadows, or fish.

Fish eating each other, that is, like a big fish eating a little fish, you know?

Would I be able to feel it if I had brain damage, or was nonsense like that evidence enough?

I wasn’t cold, so either I was too numb to feel it or I was being cared for, not simply repaired.

Like a car being fixed by its loving owner rather than some blasé mechanic.

That was better, right? Than the fish?

I’ll not start this again; Dash went the way of the river serpent, so let’s leave it be.

I tried to cry out, not for assistance but rather attention, as I was beginning to worry about where I might be. But my voice wouldn’t obey, nor would my magic, so I couldn’t yet get to work on healing myself.

“Looks like our lil’ starlet’s wakin’ up again!” cried an impossibly familiar voice, though it was augmented by guttural wetness, like it was coming from a mouth filled with blood as well as molasses. “Mac… Mac!?”

Dream away Old-world Glory, you’ve gotten yourself into another existential mess.

“Your hero has awoken!” The prairie dog continued, though her hollers were broken by wincing gasps. “Shepard rises, so look out evil, look out ya‘dang miscreants… look out Cody, Ah suppose.”

“You seem to have recovered, Poacher.” The thunder came, strong compared to the howling gasps that bade it. “Would you like to be released now?”

“Aww-well about that, Mac.” I could almost hear her saccharine grin. “Ah’m thinkin’ we forget this whole deal, Ah mean: can you honestly say that ah was in a stable state of mind when ah made it?”

“You didn’t have any say in this deal.” He growled. Both were still invisible to my lucid mind, so I tried thinking about what they looked like, to coerce them into the dream’s sight. “You simply refused to die.”

“I might want to retract that refusal.” She laughed. “On second thought, maybe I’ll wait until after I see my Stable-baby’s beautiful golden eyes one more time.” I was apparently not lucid enough to refrain from stroking my own ego. “Would’ya cut me down, Mac?”

“You’ll stay there until you die or recover. And I’m not helping you do either… not yet.” The Chief trundled over to me, and I could hear his steps quake the dusty earth. “You’re awake for good this time, Shepard?”

I looked into his eyes, and could see inherited crimson buried deep beneath the black, feel the heat of his steaming breath breaching against the cold. This was too real. “I’m awake.”

The mountain chuckled, shaking my only bearing against the sky, making my world rupture. “That was quite a fall; I’m beginning to believe that you ponies are a great deal stronger than you look.”

“Y’know that’s a fact, Mac!” Cody contributed, in an almost sing-song cheer.

“Thank you.” I worked out, forcing myself to speak, grateful to whatever influence had kept me alive.

“We gave you some of the Poacher’s medicine, left the rest up to you.” He said with uncaring humility.

“Yer wel-come!”

“Why is she alive?” I groaned, starting to get a feel for my body, regaining control. The mare sounded too high up to be so obviously injured, and I wanted to investigate.

“I can only give you the obvious answer: She didn’t die.” He said, in a tone that implied a shrug, thought it was a gesture which he could not perform. “And my kind have… not respect but… regard, for such an accomplishment. She won’t die until she is well enough to fight us again.”

“Why not give her the medicine?” I pressed.

“Our bodies are capable of great things: All of us. We let them tend us to health, so she will do the same.” The looming Buffalo explained, as he disappeared from my line of sight. “Or she will die on her own.”

“If ah could, ah would!” I craned my aching neck, and realized where Cody’s voice was descending from. The mare was strapped down to a smooth post, held just about her own height above the campground.

A fire danced between us, tall in adherence with its enkindlers, licking up at the night sky.

“How you doing, sweetheart!?” she cried, wriggling as she tried to wave an imprisoned hoof.

“That’s… strange, Chief.” I compromised, trying not to judge too hastily.

“There is no pride in beating a dead horse, and if you’d seen her when she got here, you’d understand.” Her body was incredibly bruised, barely the same prairie-pale, but instead a richer mottle of reds and blacks, bruises and cuts taking dominance over her naked coat. She still had her hat on.

“And I’m not about to promise her release. Even if her heart proves strong, it cannot hide its blackness.”

“How far are we from the mine?” I realized that her smile, once slovenly and almost charming, was now permanent, horrifying. One side of her face had all but disappeared, leaving a skeleton’s grin.

“Count the wounds.” Cody slurred. “I’d say about a yard for each… more or less.”

“Cabanne is directly to the north, fortunately for you.” The Chief explained. “Unfortunately for her.”

That was a long way. Even in the Chrysalis, in comfort and ease, it would have felt like quite a commute.

“Is this your home?” I asked, peering over myself. There were a few tents, wide and circular, ordained with the pelt’s of their constituents. Feathers and beads, like on the Fixit stick - and the Viper’s Priestess - seemed to have become the staple of the Northern Plain. Hulking forms loomed in the outlying shadows, just removed from the bonfires light. The camp went on for a while, but not far enough to keep a full clan.

“Temporarily, yes. Only the female’s camp stays in the same place for very long.” He huffed, somewhere near Cody. “That may change, once we’re rid of you.”

“Why do they stay in a different camp?”

“Good Goddesses girl.” I watched her writhe as she desperately tried to make the gestures that she would have become so familiar with. “Y’sure do ask a lot of questions.”

“This may not apply to your kind,” The Chief ignored her. “But our females are not warriors; their roles in child rearing and crafting keep them in need of a more stable environment.”

“Hey! Mac! That’s not fair, we have rights… well, ah know ah don’t, but other women do!” Cody chastised. “Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambiti-“

Something shut her up.

“How long has it been since you last saw them?” It seemed wasteful to postpone their victorious homecoming just because one Poacher refused to die.

“We usually only converge to mate.” He shrugged, again in voice and not in body. “Or to collect supplies, such as these tents or a longer hunt’s rations.” The Chief helped me up, propping me against one of the surprisingly turgid structures, my limbs bent uncomfortably in front of me.

“If a male calf has reached maturity then we may take him with us, but otherwise the clan halves stay separate. The females and their young are kept safe this way.”

“You may take him with you?” I levitated my own superficial medical supplies, no potions left, but enough dressing to cover my whole body, if need be. Thankfully, my horn started to respond with mild interest.

“It’s no good having an incompetent slowing us down; we are not only hunters, but warriors. The strongest come with us, any who are too weak are on their own.” A weak buffalo was still a whole lot better off than most wastelanders. Not all of us have hides like steel and the resilience to treat bullet wounds like insect bites. Some of us had to rely on good old Equestian cheating, I thought, as my healing spell began to take effect. No anesthetic: I wanted to stay as conscious as I could be for a change.

“So, if there not… big enough, you just turn them away?” I speculated.

“Size doesn’t matter.” Cody had gotten rid of whatever had been gagging her, and now rejoined the conversation with no consent. “Isn’t that right, Mac?” she laughed. “Ah’m a lot smaller than ya’ll, but ah’ve got at least three of your kind’s skins in my jacket alone… which Ah’d really like back by the way.”

“We burned it.” He grinned, unfazed by her cruel estimate. “We expect an initiation of sorts, in which strength of character and mind is judged alongside strength of body.” He skillfully lassoed a rope around Cody’s neck, keeping her quite with this silent threat. “One young bull brought us two of the Poacher’s corpses and a host of wounds on his own body, hoping to join our hunt.”

“It didn’t seem that hard for you to deal with them.” Cody’s silence was testimony to the veritable massacre that we had both watched. “Did this bull get in?”

“Yes, as it is harder to track and outmaneuver a Poacher than it is to actually best them in combat. If he had killed just one it could have been luck, but two shows genuine skill, it means he managed to find and run down the second coward after it ran from its comrade’s side.” He pulled gently at the rope, letting it brush Cody’s neck as he circled her post. “Perhaps we’ll have to track this coward down too.”

“Ah know you ‘aint gonna pull on that rope, Mac.” She smiled, both sides of her torn mouth rising to show that it was intentional. “Y’all haven’t done a mite of harm to me since ah got here.”

“Facing an opponent while they are bound doesn’t make for much of a fight, but silencing one who is tempting us to harm her, may prove necessary.” It was good to see someone who would probably look down on torture. “Would you really rather die on that post, than in a true battle?”

“After seeing what ya’ll did to my associates at the mine? Boy I’ll tell ya: I’d rather eat this post than fight.” That made me giggle before I could stop myself. Cody looked at me with what could almost be described as a warm smile… half of it, anyway. “Feeling lonely, sweetheart? I could use some company up here.”

“What happened with Ascella and the earth pony?” Caliber would probably be hurt, as our shared complex’s fixation didn’t seem to remember her name. The Chief still warmed me with his vaguely paternal presence, as he had a protective nature about him, despite the Buffalo battle lust. One that made me feel blissfully irresponsible for my own wellbeing.

“Her name was Caliber,” I corrected, without indignation. “And they’re both earth ponies, sir.”

“I never said that they weren’t.” He chuckled... Uh oh. “I only asked what happened between you.”

“Well, they needed to take care of something… we needed to take care of something.” I amended. “But I had to be alone for a while, to think, and I’d wanted to explore Cabanne anyway.” I grasped for reasons. “There was a car they had to get rid of, and… and their not in any danger… they’re fine… we’re fine.”

“You’ll be seeing them again, I should hope.” The Chief nodded. “Clan is all that matters anymore.”

"It’s impressive that you’ve held onto your traditions for so long.” To be fair: So had the Zebras, but there’s were less appealing. A clan spirit and cooperation were surely more valuable here than bigotry, militancy and territorial fervor. “They must make the wasteland an easier place to survive.”

His eyes brightened. “In truth, the war was the best thing that happened to my kind.” Even Cody, now quietly wary of the rope around her neck, looked skeptical. “Our values have only become stronger; we have become stronger, for it. It is a test, and having to prove yourself worthy of survival, constantly, is a welcome challenge. There is no longer any place for weakness, for corruption, not if you want to survive.” He gave Cody a referential look, making her an example of the failures born in immorality.

“So you’re uninterested in an easy life.” I guessed. “You want to struggle?”

The other buffalo had begun to congregate, proudly listening as their ‘leader’ explained. “In a way: Yes. At some point we must all suffer, or have the shadow of pain and loss waiting for our first falter so that it can swallow us. In this way we remain resolved, we use our pain, and we exploit the instinct to be safe, to make it so. But the perfect thing about this new wasteland, is that you are never truly safe.”

“So you’ll never stop fighting to be.” I nodded, finding the logic in his strangely optimistic and accepting outlook. It was similar to the Zebra’s hatred for cowardice, their pathology to take the road less easily travelled, and their contempt for those who didn’t. “What do you think of the Stables?”

“Careful, Mac…” Cody cooed. “My little Stable-baby can collapse mountains with her mind.” She would have ruined my chance to get an honest answer, if the Chief wasn’t so good at not giving a damn.

“Those inside are weak, ultimately, but not everyone can handle fear.” He confirmed, unapologetically. “Many succumb to it, and that is likely why the world has come to this.” Peering off into the darkness, he continued. “It was intelligent to build them, to use them to escape the fallout, but an intellect does little good now, and most of the Stable-born would die very quickly out here, were it not for their advantages.”

“Advantages?” Cody was improvising a soft little song about me, which was sweet, but really quite terrible. It consisted of a lot of references to Stable-babies, golden eyes, and not much else.

“The reason we hold initiation, is because one who grows up in a safe environment – such as your Stable or within our female’s camp - has not yet been challenged, and has already survived the part of their life wherein they are most vulnerable. In our case, the calves are rarely much stronger than any other Buffalo, but the Stable keeps you fed and healthy, lets you grow as one in the old world would.”

“And that kind of strength… is a weakness?” I blamed my confusion on the Poacher’s distracting ode.

“Privilege can be a weakness, as it may well prove fatal were it to be taken away.” He corrected. “The same things that kept you fat and healthy have made it harder for you to face starvation and disease.”

The word: you in a general sense, of course, he certainly wasn’t saying that I was fat… definitely not.

“The Buffalo were similarly spoiled, but the war came to test us, forcing us to become strong once again.”

I began wrapping gauze around my head, just above my eyes, to patch up some shallow, wet wounds.

Honestly, I was hoping to subtly show the Chief that I could take care of myself, though he didn’t seem to hold much regard for the medical field either. To him, doctors were probably just another undeserved luxury. “It’s not like your kind used to live in cities, is it? How much better off could you have been?”

“Corruption was our weakness, greed and selfishness grew as our lives became easier. There were no hunts - no Poachers or Vipers - only Equestrian reparations, income that we never truly earned.”

“We paid you off?” I asked, instinctively throwing myself in with the country, as if I had been involved.

“For what?” I’d never read anything about Buffalo oppression, though maybe the compensation had come on the condition that it was all to be forgiven, or at least forgotten.

“Our land. Not to say that it was all ours, but many stampeding routes and cultural sites were claimed by your Equestria, especially in the deserts to the south.” If we had taken any of the Plains land, we certainly hadn’t done much with it. Even without the void of darkness we’d only be able to see another empty expanse, apart from wherever Cabanne rose. “For this, our entire race received atonement, luxuries.”

“Claimed… by which you mean stolen?” I sighed; we wouldn’t have had to pay out an apology if we’d been polite about claiming their claims.

“According to your laws: No. But by the definition of the word: Yes.” He smiled; glad to see that I wasn’t completely naïve. “Though we did little more than complain, and were soon silenced by promises of an easy life… a pathetic life.” The familiar harrumph came again. “Which we, surely enough, received.”

“So that’s when the corruption began.” Strange that it might have been our fault, in part. For a nation that built our history off the magic of it, the Chief didn’t seem to think that we had been very good at friendship.

Cody had finished her little ditty, and almost seemed interested in our conversation.

“This is when the idea of Chiefs and superficial names like Running Water or Falling Leaf came about.” He scowled at the ashamedly ridiculous names. “Tourism was another way we paved our way to greed, as we quickly became subservient to your government… Equestria’s pets.” No more laughter.

“You mentioned that you had lost a part of your culture.” I nodded, easily seeing how much more I respected this new lifestyle. It almost felt as if I had no right to respect them, that they were so reserved that my feeble opinions – even my consideration of them - were more of an insult than anything else.

“The Clan Chiefs grew fat and lazy, obeying every order passed down, changing our ways to adhere to Equestria’s desires. Wealth was gained and lost, as culturally we were dying, but the money kept us complacent, the ease made us lethargic.” He scoffed. “They called it Tribal law, as if our beliefs were primitive, as if our kind were the misguided. We were often seen as savages… though that term may even have been a compliment, as to say it truly: we were domesticated.”

“At least mah Poachers understood that we were hunting more than game.” Cody pointed out. “Sounds like you wouldn’t’ve been given even that much before the war.”

“Yes, even then we were bordering on extinction.” The two finally exchanged something other than smoldering disdain. “Purely by age-old pony influence. And after some peace had settled between us, surviving didn’t take any strength, just the consent to be demeaned.”

“You know ah love you hulking bastards.” Cody slurred, pretty much ruining the mutual understanding. “But, like yer sayin’, money is the root of all evil.” She shrugged, in voice, not in restrained body.

“Greed.” The Chief corrected. “Something that we have since freed ourselves from.”

“Don’t get high and mighty on me, pal.” It wouldn’t be long before she was reminded of the noose around her neck. “Ah’ll have you know that ah’ve seen Buffalo mercs and merchants alike!”

“All males, undoubtedly, rejected from the Clan for that very quality, that old-world nature harbored within them.” I’d only just begun to consider that, just maybe, pre-war ideals weren’t what every race or faction tried to live up to. Not all of it, anyway “This exorcism lets me say that, with no doubt: the Clan is pure.”

“Why help us with the Slavers?” I wondered aloud. If they valued the wasteland so much, for all its flaws, why would they want to make it any safer? “Aren’t they a part of the test?”

“Survival is only a meager victory. Battle, the drawing and yielding of lifeblood, is our truest proving ground.” The rest of the buffalo huffed in proud agreement. “The Slavers have little interest in us, but we are always eager to fight, even if it is without a personal cause.” That almost sounded dangerous.

“Raiders and Libertines alike are wary of us, so it has been too long since we’ve faced anything more dangerous than these cowardly Poachers.”

“What do you know about the Libertines?” I hurriedly asked.

“They share a thirst for battle and pride, but they have no standards.” He spat. “Their own initiations are no more challenging than settlements or caravan guards, their greatest victories are over savage raiders.”

“Not true, Mac.” I began to set my legs, drowning them in as much arcane healing as I could muster. My neck and forehead were already bandaged, all bruises and cuts addressed, leaving only crippled limbs.

“They’ve been movin’ up the food chain, as it were, ever since the Vipers went into decline.”

So we hadn’t exactly wiped out the most formidable faction, in fact, we’d pretty much killed a bunch of initiates and only a dozen real Vipers. If surviving a venomous coma even meant anything, it certainly hadn’t translated to better combat skills. Caliber and Ash had wiped out the group at the pit in only a few minutes, and the Priestess had been almost amiable… she’d even died by her own terms, her own will.

We’d fallen into a silence, the Chief and Cody having nothing to say to each other as I retreated into my own thoughts. I wanted to see my friends, I realized, I needed to know that they were really alright.

Being alone had been… a revelation. And in a way, had proven that I shouldn’t often let myself be without companionship. I had stayed with the Priestess, not only to fulfill my promise, but just to have somepony at my side within the great golden ocean. In Cabanne… well, I hadn’t exactly been lonely.

The difference was: I didn’t pine for the Priestess, I didn’t miss Applepot or Flutterpan (Thankfully, as this was my only redeemable proof of sanity) the Tape, or even the Rat, who had at least been fairly sentient.

I missed Caliber and Ash. It was an odd feeling, not like grieving, more like a desired vulnerability.

I wanted what the Chief inadvertently gave me, this implied peace of mind that persisted despite my broken body and proximity to a mockingly amorous Poacher, who seemed incapable of death.

But I wanted to give it too, to know that I was being appreciated as well as appreciating.

Friendship, I think, was what I wanted. Something that I had too hastily deprived myself of.

Just because Ash had been passionate about something, just because she had finally submitted to the emotions surrounding her Pilgrimage… her family’s mass suicide. Celestia, what had I expected?

The mare had scarcely cried, and the audio tapes had been the only direct grieving I had seen. Of course she’d wanted closure, of course some fetal raider wasn’t worth a damn shred of mercy, not from her.

It was my morality, if I’d known I would have stopped her. But now my scrutiny didn’t mean anything, now it only served to deprive her of that closure, made her wonder if she still had to atone for another failure.

What mattered more? Whining over some potential sadist’s extermination, or being there for my friend?

That should’ve been obvious.

The silence, so far only broken by the crackling bonfire and milling Buffalo, was stolen away in a cutting whip crack, as a wound cut through the air in the now familiar report of a rifle’s discharge.

The Buffalo began to rear and disperse, not in panic but in seeking, as the sound echoed on distant stone and deceptively near city walls. Urdmat Machk, Chief to me and Mac to Cody, disappeared in a bellowing charge for the darkness, following instincts that outdid even my E.F.S, which was still purely ivory.

Even the Poacher, who seemed more worried than sadistically pleased, was marked non-hostile.

Neither of us could move, both crippled and equally immobile save for the added restraints keeping her body still. We could only crane our aching necks in a pathetic search, fruitless as we could now only see each other, not even the hulking shadows once waiting around us.

More shots rang out, though few enough to indicate a single rifle, if it were just faster than the Fixit Stick (Since Cody was alive I’d ask her if the gun actually had a name… After things settled down, of course.)

Shouts followed, most heavy and powerful: The battle cries of charging buffalo.

I imagined that whoever had been stupid enough to attack them was now realizing how much they regretted the life decisions that had led them to this point.

Finally, with a distinctive roar, the impossible force of a Buffalo warrior’s shotgun kicked back, likely inducing more of a flinch from us than it had its owner.

“Why can’t ah get that kind of treatment.” Cody laughed. “I sure as anything deserve it.”

I couldn’t help but giggle with her, violence trivialized by the Buffalo’s incredible mastery of it.

“Ah know it seems like ah’ve fallen head over hooves in love with you, Shepard.” She slurred. “But I treat everypony a little lustily when ah’m drunk.” So always. “If ah was sober, though, ah figure ah’d genuinely think yer alright… certainly would’ve hired you …were it not for the whole selling-you-into-Slavery option”

“Well... thanks, Cody.” I was just glad to know that she wasn’t actually enamored with me.

“But surely you can’t still be drunk.”

“Think about it this way,” she grinned. “Every time ah lose blood, mah level of alcohol concentration gets a little higher. So ah imagine its getting nearer to one hundred percent by the second.”

“Soon enough I’ll have nothing but ethanol pumping through mah veins.”

I felt a little pang of sympathy, as if I didn’t really want her to die.

Cody had never even fired a shot at me, and it was sometimes hard to remember what she had done to deserve this. Not for the Buffalo, certainly, but I couldn’t help but to lose perspective.

“We’re going to have our fight!” I head the Chief’s voice calling as he approached, and my irrational sympathy actually made me worry that he meant to kill Cody. “Pack up the camp, brothers!”

He slid me away from the tent as it collapsed behind me, propping me up neatly near the fire.

“Let us finish this hunt by beginning a new one!”

Sounded like yet another rag-tag band of idiots had made the mistake of pissing them off.

“Ah’d be happy to put out that fire for you,” Cody offered. “Just tip this post in there and I’ll start rolling.”

“I might as well throw a case of whiskey over it.” The Chief laughed, getting a smile from even the drunken prairie-dog. “But, I will be giving you a chance to die.” He began to stomp – with a ferocity that made him look like he was stampeding in place – and cast dust and dirt over the dying pyre.

“The Libertines just killed one of my warriors, and you know where they are.”

The smile on his face provoked the false assumption that nothing bad had happened. But nearby, a mountainous, collapsed silhouette was being dragged away. They had managed to kill a monolith.

“Let’s git those bastards, Mac!” Cody cheered, wriggling in her bonds.

“Teach ‘em not to mess with the Uzmat Clan!”

The Chief chuckled as he casually uprooted the entire post, propping it against his solid body.

He maneuvered the lasso against a knot near the log’s peak, freeing Cody’s neck but not her strapped body, and set the post down pony-side-up. “Climb on, Shepard, you’ll be jolted into pieces if you ride on my back.” Even this proved to be an arduous task, due to my crippling injuries as well as insecurities.

I warily avoided getting to close to the enthusiastic Poacher, whose silver eyes glistened in anticipation of a promised death. “Get this post onto my rig!” he ordered, implying that he planned to carry us himself.

We were lifted like speared hogs at a luau, and set onto the Chief’s gargantuan shotgun, nestled into the metal frame of his battle saddle. The Buffalo barely faltered as the weight pulled down on his left side.

I worried about the jolts, but it was better than being dragged behind or carried atop his charging body.

Cody was still bound; face up, just beside the Chief’s ear, ideally placed to be a navigator or a nuisance.

I huddled into his warm side, though it was as unyielding as a reinforced wall, and tried to set my limbs into the safest orientation possible, all the while just beside Cody atop the huge armament.

If he fired the gun before we were clear, I had no doubt that we’d be torn to pieces along with the post.

“Untie her when we get there, Shepard.” I had redressed myself, and my combat knife was now holstered within my father’s coat. I hadn’t once tied a knot, but I could certainly cut stuff.

“What happens then, Chief?” Cody piped up, eager to know how she could finally get herself killed.

“You fight. Whether you’re with us or not is up to you. If you’re lucky you’ll perish before it’s over.” He surmised. The mare simply nodded, as if they, both disturbingly calm, weren’t discussing how she would die. “I recommend you side against us… ponies seem to lose quite consistently when they do that.”

“You’re not goin’ to be so lucky, Mac.” She dissuaded. “I’m with you til’ the be all and end all.”

I almost though to offer her her rifle back. “What happens when we win, and I’m still alive?”

“Let’s hope we won’t have to find out.” He grunted, beginning to pace around the rapidly disappearing camp. The post rocked, gently, merciful against our aching bodies. The trip might hurt, but it beat walking.

“And I’m sure you can guess what’ll happen if you run.”

“Assuming y’all can track a cripple leaving a clear path of blood and flesh and the scent of whiskey behind her… I have theories.” She assured, ending the morbid conversation. If nothing else, I was glad that she would be on our side. “So, you think ah know where they are?”

“Unless you didn’t really make your fortune selling my kin’s carcasses to them.” The campfire had been reduced to the embers I had first known it as. “In which case, this has all been a huge misunderstanding.”

“Fair enough, ah always said that it would take a dang’ Buffalo drag race to turn me into an honest mare.” From my angle the skeleton’s grin seemed to dominate most of her face. “There’s a road, not the big highway, which runs from the lake down to Littlerock… y’all know it?”

“Yes, on the Eastern edge of the Plain.” I could no longer see the Chief’s face, but his voice was expressive in its own right. “There isn’t much on it.”

“Except…” she hinted.

“The old country club.” Immediately knowing, the Chief cried out the location to the rest of the warriors, and was already beginning to charge. “We break through the walls; hit them from within. No hesitation warriors! Let us only leave when the Libertine’s bastion is in ruin, and their corpses lie buried within!”

Let us hope that I have time to get off this ride before it goes crashing through any walls.

“We finish this hunt tonight! Shepard has given us another battle to fight, with the black train known as the Coltilde, and so we are free to end all we once knew here. Poachers, Vipers and Libertines alike will have known us in battle, known us as the greatest power in the Plain! The greatest warriors in the North!”

Despite the title having nothing at all to do with us, Cody and I cheered, and the stampede began.

Two cripples would be lucky to survive an ambitious attack like this – at least, one would be lucky.

As the Chief had predicted, my seat on the post was blissfully benign, and did little to hinder my body any farther. I could only hope that I’d be able to walk better by the time we got there, hope and heal.

“Cody!” I cried, as the night air raced by us, left in the dust of the Buffalo’s charge. “Can I heal you?”

There was little doubt in my mind that the Chief would have forgotten his concern’s for Cody’s health, perhaps he’d already started to put her out of his mind, replacing the end of the hunt with the Libertines.

“Ah don’t know, can you?” There were well upwards of a dozen Buffalo around us, I realized, much more than there had been at the mine, but still fewer than there were across the entire Northern Plain.

It irked me that the females were kept so separate, but culture was culture, and they seemed to have it easier anyway. At least none of them were banished to a life of lonely, clanless mercenary work.

I began to wrap Cody in a golden glow, lighting up her silver eyes, and casting horrific shadows across her mangled face. Wearing the rawhide hat, she looked like the epitome of death in the desert.

The visage that came to dying travelers, teasing them with canteens or oases, watching them burn.

We were far from such a place, though, and the cold almost stung as our carrier cut through it.

I could see Cabanne, so I wriggled myself into a sitting position on the post, keeping one leg locked between it and the Chief’s shotgun just in case – the city reminded me to take this kind of precaution. Lights, dim and hazy, shone out from the stone, golden windows reflecting the newly installed street lamps. The Church had had work done on the inside, and glowed in its own spectrum, stained apertures implying richer colors against the black. Knowing its shape, how it all fit together, made me care for it.

Cody whistled, long and slow. “That’s a long way down.” The Observatory was very dark, but as we passed its silhouette defined itself against the city lights. She was looking up at the church, a whole level above the place I actually fell from, but I didn’t worry enough to correct her. “We sure are tough, ‘aint we?” Her words made me swell with a misguided sense of pride, as if Equestria was somehow especially good at birthing hardy citizens. Or, looking at Cabanne was simply making me feel patriotic.

“Gravel and gravity.” I smiled, indulging in some camaraderie with my fleetingly temporary ally.

I didn’t know if the Chief could hear us, but he probably wouldn’t mind. The Buffalo had already afforded her a great mercy, compared to the alternatives.

“Yeah,” she chuckled. “Bring ‘em on.”

“What’re you going to do for a weapon?” My inexplicable concern for the mare would not go so far as to make me give her her rifle back, but I still had to ask.

“I’ll be fine!” she cried, over the rumbling stampede. Though I knew she truly didn’t want to be.

It had to be liberating to know, going into a fight, that death was the preferable outcome.

At least she could have some fun before she left.

“What’s its name?” I asked, nodding to the rifle (Name about to be determined) at my side.

She glanced at the weapon, then at me, with a quick kind of fondness. “I always used to call it Louisa!” And to this, I could only smile.

As quickly as it had appeared, Cabanne was fading, its ancient lights hidden by even older stone and the timeless night. It had been cheap, almost superficial in some aspects, but it was the only place I had felt safe in a long time. Somehow, it had been even more comforting than the Stable was in my final years there, perhaps because I had had nopony to worry about but myself, nopony to impress or live up to.

Live up and away from, as the case had been for my father.

I’d never seen Hell, never known it as anything as dark silhouette shrinking away from an approaching monster, a dangerous place, an uncertain place… certainly not a comforting place. Even Acheron seemed preferable to it, if only for the light I had been lucky enough to have there. Though it too was lonely and unkind, riddled with traps and surrounded by threats, bleak and deceptively barren. Everything between the Middle Passage and Zion – which was very easy to rule out as a warming place - had been far from welcoming. Even MASEBS, the place we had used for both bed and breakfast, had been consistently perilous. The tower was just one example of how rare a truly safe place was.

“We’re passing the radio tower, aren’t we?” I realized, now suspecting that my true goal in the Plain was likely disappearing away, just beyond a charging wall of Buffalo.

“Ah suppose so, yeah.” Of course, it meant little to her. “If not then we will be soon enough.”

I couldn’t exactly ask a stampede to make a detour. Besides, Ash was the only one who could repair it, and I had promised the DJ a chance to make up with Caliber.

Honestly, I didn’t want to take any steps forward unless we took them together.

Maybe, after he was done with the Libertines, the Chief would help me find them.

Though I was afraid that he wouldn’t, and with Cody dead, I’d be alone.

Then I’d realize how important – how merciful – having Cabanne had been, how much I had needed it.

Then I’d miss Applepot and Flutterpan.

“Cody,” I didn’t know how long it would be know, but I was already frightened.

“Yeah, sweetheart?” she arched a scarred brow, pulling at the morbid mask that her face had become.

“If you survive… find me.” The Chief would want to hurt her, he needed to hurt her. “I’ll kill you.”

“Thank you, darlin’.”

She was a deplorable mare, a greedy, inconsiderate, violent drunk.

But, whether through desperation – a need for a surrogate- or naive ignorance, I was starting to think that she was my friend. Because nopony was perfect, and even those who clearly deserved to die, were not definitively damnable. It might not mean that they shouldn’t be shot, but simply showed that things weren’t always black and white, in fact it was possible – perhaps likely – that they never were.

I desperately needed to tell Ash, not that I had forgiven her, but that I had no right to.

In the distance I could make out the familiar, and somehow comforting, glow of fluorescents.

Streetlights, dotting the implied horizon like fireflies, calm and unconcerned despite the surging stampede that was approaching. This was the same road that ringed the lake, the very road that the first Libertine’s had used to crawl to their deaths, to invade my dream.

What if they hadn’t killed that buck? We were so near, I could just see the lake glimmering as another horizon, meaning it was completely possible that he had made it back home, to warn or waylay.

Maybe he had killed them. After a moment, wherein I tried to visualize the heart-clenching Minotaur pony somehow getting the advantage over Caliber and Ash, this idea seemed ridiculous, almost funny.

The Stampeded roared, hoofbeats and heartbeats rhythmically sounding the charge to battle. I could feel the Chief’s fervor, his passionate war cry rousing from deep within, his heart and soul complete enamored with the coming fight. He had jumped at the opportunity, automatically converting the grief into anger.

Libertine’s would undoubtedly be poking their armor-clad heads out of the resort’s windows, searching for the source of the roar, and seeing the wave cutting through the black ocean, roaring mountains crossing their warning border of fluorescent light against striped tarmac.

“I’d get us off this thing.” Cody warned, though she was almost laughing.

A smaller, simpler road was disappearing beneath us, receding as the stampeded bore down on its victim. We flew by a tall gate, already collapsed by the Buffalo at the crest of the wave, those zealous frontrunners that cared not for any other strategy but force and might.

I carefully drew the knife from its holster, jimmying my way up the doomed post as I did.

Cody wasn’t stupid, even though she was immortally drunk, and didn’t second guess my intention.

She sucked in her gut as I set to work on her bonds, cutting from below so as not to risk plunging the knife down into the imprisoned mare.

As I finished, I swung my anchoring leg out from between the Chief and his blissfully unfired weapon, and we toppled off of our carriage together, holding onto each other in a cripple’s embrace.

I bit down hard on the knife, not wanting to let it go sailing to find unknown, inadvertent victims.

The Chief, though caught up in a cultural bloodlust, was not without consideration or forethought.

He had slowed back to the rear of the stampede, so that we wouldn’t fall beneath its pummeling charge.

Instead we were bruised by the earth, though it was carpeted by short, dark grass and long tended soil. The dismount wouldn’t score any points, but it didn’t do any more serious damage.

A gentle hill tapered up to the resort, once used for garden parties or galas, it now only served as deposit for partially healed invaders – who were certainly not the ones that the Libertines needed to worry about -

and would not even be used as a battleground.

I holstered the knife and stumbled to my hooves, dancing on quivering limbs as they struggled to reestablish themselves, as pliant and unpredictable as stilts.

“Y’alright, Shepard?” Cody actually asked, as she rubbed a small bump on her mottled forehead.

I nodded, dumbly, as my insides warmed for the mare’s concern. “Let’s get in there then.” She smiled.

The Buffalo, with a cascade of wood and glass following each resounding crash, had beaten us to it, and were already tearing into the walls of the double storied resort.

If the house on the lake had been humble, and Cabanne had been superficial, this place was making a very expensive attempt to look cheap. Wood, likely to be of a costly variety, made up most of the building’s face, though there were many decals and armaments of concrete and steel.

It may have been white, once, but was now an ashen dark hue, as if it had been burned.

The Libertines had made attempts to toughen up the building with patched reinforcements of rusted metal crudely nailed over gaps or even areas that simply looked too unthreatening. Operable turrets lined a balcony on the second floor, but the Buffalo had been too quick, especially considering the time.

Raging mountains tore the barricades away with ease, as if they were shoddy hay bales rather than solid raw materials. I could see slivers of the interior, glass chandeliers glowing with an unfittingly warm light, illuminating the indiscernible rampage below, curving cases of carpeted stairs, and what once would have been considered works of art, now hanging defamed by cursive, cursing graffiti and mysterious stains.

Cody really didn’t seem to mind being unarmed and had already began to help me up when we heard the all too near shouts. The clan was providing one of the best accidental distractions that we had ever seen, but it was almost too effective, and a few Libertines had taken it upon themselves to flee the house.

They clearly hadn’t been sleeping; this was made evident by both their almost preemptive escape and the considerable armor encasing them. Three, a triangle of panic, were now pelting down the hill, not yelling at us but rather in yelping disarray, at each other and to their respective divines.

Clearly, having a death wish made you a formidable opponent, as Cody proved. It turned you into something even hardier than a Buffalo, something impossibly brave and disastrously fool-hardy.

The Prairie-dog truly earned the name as she pounced onto a startled mare, growling, with no regard for spikes of steel or even the blades holstered across the Libertine. Although, I was absolutely sure that those weapons would prove to be that pony’s demise, rather than her salvation.

I levitated the 45, having taken a liking to its domineering power, and joined the charge, bounding forward on very reluctant legs. The two bucks turned away from their wrestling compatriot as I fired wild.

Most of the shots only dented their formidable plating, and even one satisfyingly perfect headshot was denied its rightful place, prevented from embedding itself into bone and brain matter.

The first clip expended, and neither had fallen, but their cowardly appraisal was giving me time to reload.

Cody slashed at the mare’s neck, with a stolen blade surely enough, shouting muffled curses and taunts all the while. The bucks were slow, peering dumbly from her to me in an almost innocent disbelief.

They looked like suits of armor, with the heads improperly attached, and almost seemed to creak with each twist of the neck. One had the presence of mind to hurry to the dying mare’s aid, leaving only a single cow-eyed opponent for me to deal with.

The lights of the increasingly open-plan house glinted against the polished segments of his crudely sectioned protection. The steel was strapped on, sometimes by strong leather but most often with cheap rope or gauze, his shoddy helmet was set low on his head, covering the top half of his dull eyes.

His cutie-mark was painfully vulgar, making me wince as I rounded on the exposed flesh.

The first shot to the flank got him moving, and in a sudden, fluid motion he had me off of my hooves and crumpling away into the soft grass. The strike had admittedly surprised me, as I had begun to assume that this buck must have been lobotomized. It seemed that he was simply shocked by the attacking pair of crippled mares, arriving only seconds after he had just barely escaped buffalo trampling.

I pistol-whipped his jaw out of place. Each movement sent rivets of pain through my own damaged limbs, tendons pulsing with a resounding protest to their forced involvement. Spittle flew from his filthy mouth.

His helmet didn’t cover the base of his head, that ever vulnerable hollow where neither skull nor tough musculature stood guard. After beating my pistol against the metal, denting it just enough to intrude over his eye, I got back to my hooves, thankful that my telekinesis was so effective compared to my limping body. Also reminded that Cody would likely want… No: need my help.

The automatic found purchase in Caliber’s old recommendation, and only left after unleashing a world ending round through the buck’s mind. It was surprisingly clean, an anticlimax, as the bullet could not pass through the now futile helmet, and so it and all its gore was contained beneath it.

Cody held the last buck, staying close to avoid the lethal spray of his assault rifle fire, which he released with little regard for aiming or conserving ammunition.

Once his clip was dispensed, I helped the Poacher topple him to the grass, and loosed the rest of my own clip into whatever gaps I could find. Cody had stolen a pistol from the bleeding, but not dead, mare and aided in my dishonorable discharge.

The buck writhed as he was perforated, soon kicking and twitching in a shallow pool of blood. This was how the gangsters in True Police Stories killed ponies, I thought, feeling strangely cool rather than guilty. His cutie-mark, while less vulgar than his companion’s, made me sure that I was doing something right.

It was a mare on a pike… yes, that way, and yes… less vulgar.

They were not above such sexual conquests, I realized, shuddering.

The surviving mare gasped over her slit throat, each breath manifesting in a disturbing spurt of crimson warmth from their wounds. Her cutie-mark was obscured by the armor across her flank, though she’d have to be pretty depraved to keep the company of her two fellow escapists. Cody finished her with the stolen 223. Pistol, and then spat it out, leaving it with its departed owner.

“I’m thinking there might me prisoners in the house.” I said, drawing from the newly proved sexual sadism.

“We should check it out before the Buffalo’s collapse the whole thing.”

“Nu-uh,” she shook her head. “You saved mah life.” Usually something that makes a pony want to stick around. “Ah’ve got a better chance alone.” It was odd, getting used to her polar opposite goals.

“Come on, it’ll be dangerous.” I was getting into the spirit of this, disgust for the buck’s horrible cutie-marks manifesting into my own personal bloodlust. The opportunity for heroic rescue had also gotten me riled up. “You really want to die alone?” I… teased?

“Swear you’ll keep to yer promise.” She insisted, as if it were a strict business deal.

I nodded grimly, actually feeling a flicker of hope for the mare’s death by somepony else’s hooves.

“I’ll bet there’s a basement.” The buffalo were going to bury it soon enough, so we’d have to hurry.

We limped up the hill, in a meek sprint that made it look like we were trying to touch the ground as little as possible. While my limbs were the only persisting injuries, Cody’s entire body still looked flayed and raw.

Another attempt was made for escape, this time by a pair of mares, though they were clearly not the Libertines’ prisoners, but rather the sadists’ themselves. A buffalo came barreling out of the wall, completely ignoring a gaping hole already made just nearby, from which the mares had left.

He flung one of the runners, using only his horns around a loose strap of leather, and quietly proceeded to pummel the fallen mare. I drew… Louisa, and capped the second in the knee, sending her collapsing into the upturned soil, persisting in my vaguely Mafioso theme of combat for tonight.

The buffalo bellowed in what I took as thanks, appreciating the added time for crushing that I had given him. We left the mare to her undoubtedly messy fate and hurried into the house, Cody by way of the Libertine’s portal as I took the Buffalo’s, avoiding shards of steel and splinters of quality wood.

As conflicts went, the resort’s entrance hall was a veritable warzone, several walls already collapsed, frames and facilities torn from their hinges or holds, callously added to the piles of ruin and rubble amassing with sporadic order. Battle cries, both from buffalo and the remaining, brave Libertines, rang out across the expansive room, and in several cases, were cut short just as audibly.

The only advantage the ponies’ had was the second floor, and fire rained down from above, rounds from the best weaponry I had seen in some time cutting into hide and armor alike. But the staircase was wide, and suddenly resurging from a distant room, the Chief went charging up it, intent on saving his warrior’s from the barrage, and avenging those who had already fallen.

Some of the Libertines retreated into the narrower hallways, but for the most part they were sent flying as the definitive bear broke through their ranks, crushing bodies and banisters as he went.

I fired a few relatively inconsequential rounds into the fray, not allowing myself to move on until I knew that the Chief was safe, and tried to suppress a possible return from the Buffalo-inaccessible halls.

He wasn’t so infuriated to attempt the impossible, and came tearing down the stairs just as quickly as he had ascended them, crushing them into collapse in his wake. It seemed we would have to deal with our distant kin, or they would be simply stay blockaded until the house collapsed.

Many of the Buffalo had gone charging off into the night, chasing after the fleeing, cowardly Libertines, ensuring that none would even live to tell of their obliteration. It would be terrifying, I empathized, to know that at any moment, something impossibly fast and utterly inescapable would come to claim you.

Deciding that the Buffalo would soon cause the resort to implode, I urged Cody to follow me in search of a basement. I had to find her first, as the mare had no concern for the Chief, and had eagerly dived into the chaos of the entrance hall, putting herself at greatly enjoyed risk.

She was sad to go, but didn’t protest for long, like a child who wanted to stay up despite their actual exhaustion. I could see the fear in her eyes, not of death, but of the Chief, which kept her at my side. Once the battle was over, she was fair game, and would rather be closer to her killer than her captor.

I felt a shiver of suspicion, which I was not blind enough to ignore. It was very much in her interests to kill the Chief, to pick off what buffalo she could before turning tail. No matter how fatalistic the Poacher became, she would undoubtedly take any opportunity that she could find.

“Any idea where we can find a way down?” I asked, hoping that she’d come this far in her trading.

“Probably somewhere out of the way, seeing as it’s a resort. Maybe in the more sectioned-off areas.” I nodded in approval. That was some sound Caliberesque logic. “A kitchen or storage room, y’know?”

I bemoaned my lack of intelligence – it was temporary, mind you - as I realized that my Pip-buck could tell us exactly where to go. The local map displayed several exits (though it was unaware of the newly formed, Buffalo-friendly portals) but only one didn’t seem to lead outside.

“Down this way,” I said, arbitrarily gesturing down a long hallway. “Last door on the right.”

A whining drone flew past my ear, the sound itself inciting a nearly painful feeling, though its source had ultimately failed. All along the passage, doors were opening. We had stumbled onto living quarters.

The Libertines were cautious, more strategic than… possibly any enemy I had ever fought, and did not charge out into the hall as I half expected. Instead they poked out of the frames, sometimes lunging to take a shot with their battle-saddles, but most often poking out their pistol-clutching muzzles.

Cody and I dove for opposing corners, though she quickly made a shooting gesture with her hooves and scampered off. I could only hope that that message didn’t live up to its ambiguously translated threat.

I used what little advantage I had, my magic, and floated Louisa around the wall, periodically glancing out to take aim. Every time I heard a shot; I returned fire, hoping to catch a retreating flank or head, then quickly took a look to see where I could aim next.

One pained howl let me know that my strategy wasn’t utterly futile, but a mist of plaster and dust loosed into my surveying eyes by a near-fatal shot, encouraged me to adapt.

I had already expended two clips of 45-70 govt’s so, drawing the automatic pistol, I sprinted for the opposite wall, releasing a short, six rounded hail down the hall, aiming everywhere that I could.

For every opponent I killed, another was waiting to take their place. These quarters had housed more Libertines than it had guns, and so the ponies beyond had to essentially wait in line for their turn to fight.

One foolhardy mare – perhaps an optimist – came charging down the hall, combat knife gripped tight in her jowls, murmuring muffled, bloody murder. As strategies went, it was not very long-term.

Even as she rounded the corner, she had become a corpse, moving by life’s dispersing energy, a neat wound in her exposed forehead.

For some reason this failed assault had encouraged some of the others to do the same, and in some illogical mirroring, another pair came pelting at me, almost as if they were racing.

It was pride; I realized as the first fell to my 45. They were still trying to best each other, to prove themselves superior, if only by risking death.

If you could even call it a risk, and not a guarantee. In either case, I would let them have their competition:

The second made it closer, but she slid more.

Cody returned, with a suspiciously Buffalo-looking shotgun. “Relax; he was dead when I got there.”

I bristled, drawing myself back into the corner as she stole my focus. “The Chief?!”

I’d kill her right now, I would.

But she laughed, and despite the vivid image of tensing tendons and gnashing teeth, it reassured me. “No, but It’s good to know that you swing that way.” I just smiled in relief. “Some gals are too intimidated.”

Let’s keep fighting and not analyze this too much, alright?

A grand total of six Libertines had come charging down the hall, blocking their comrade’s fire as they practically sacrificed themselves. Cody let me take them out with the rifle before they got too close.

My E.F.S could now clearly discern how many were left.

“Four!” I announced, once for each doorway, one for each weapon.

As a buck leapt out of the nearest frame, battle-saddle ready, he and the door behind disintegrated into a flurry of fragments and splinters, a cloud of spontaneous sawdust and sanguine fluid.

Cody went flying, her entire torn body wrenched from the space where she had been standing, as if plucked from existence by some divine hand. Her body crashed through a wall, actually breaking through the plaster and wood and sprawling out on the other side.

That kind of kickback would have killed Ash; it would’ve torn my very torso from its limbs.

But this was the mare who couldn’t die, no matter how much she wanted too.

“Damn it!” she confirmed.

At this angle I could make out a Libertine peeking at her dissolved comrade, a pistol hanging loose in her gaping mouth. My rifle’s round missed its mark, but cracked through the target’s weapon, shattering some of the teeth that grasped at it. The mare ducked back, mewling in muffled anguish.

Cody soon returned with a much more manageable 223. Pistol, perhaps the same one that she had first given up on. “Tu mo?” I nodded, after using my newfound expertise in translating earth pony mumbles.

The penultimate Libertine was decapitated by Cody’s shot, his entire head detached in a neat evacuation by the heavy pistol’s round. Luckily, these ponies were barely dressed compared to some of the others.

We charged the last, immediately reacting to the note of a stumbling reload, both attuned to the sound’s meaning. A Buffalo came crashing through the walls ahead of us, on a course set for demolition rather than combat, intent on bringing the Libertines upstairs down in a collapse of expensive rubble.

He crushed the toothless mare, who I had all but forgotten until her mangled body came tumbling out from beneath the destroyer’s hooves. Unfortunately, this massive distraction ended up worked against us.

Reload complete, the final Libertine, a sickly yellow mare messily dressed in a loose collection of armor, delivered a perfectly imperfect rifle round into the meat below Cody’s shoulder, causing the mare to cry out in disappointed anguish and charge, stumbling towards the mare in a pained inebriation.

She casually knocked the rifle off and aside as it fired off another attempt, then delivered a curt slap to its owner’s face, knocking her to the ground just as she had done to me. “Y’all couldn’t hit the side of a barn.”

I hurried over before she could deliver her final punishment. “Wait!” Her tongue froze on the trigger. “Libertine, are there any prisoner’s down in the basement? Are they guarded?” I realized that this was the first time that I had truly spoken to one, without misidentification and intent to steal a car, at least.

“I’ll tell you, if you let me fight a Buff-“Cody blew her ear off, the shot tearing cartilage away from its base.

“Nobody hurts the Buffalo!” …Don’t say it. “Except me!” The mare whimpered and nodded, already reduced to a spluttering coward. The Libertines were bullies. Ponies with quality guns, armor and lodging, who played the wasteland like a competitive sport, but were frightened juveniles in the end. Cody killed the mare, tilting her pistol at the slightest fraction to hit brain… It hadn’t been much of interrogation.

“We couldn’t have believed her anyway.” I reassured myself, gesturing to the basement door beyond.

What would I do if Caliber wanted to torture somepony again? I’d thought that I’d had some kind of moral epiphany, but I was still unable to answer that question with anything but: Stop her.

I suppose giving a mare permission to excruciate out information was vastly different to the Ash issue.

I pushed open the basement door, my eyes always fleeting back to Cody. Blood trickled across her breast and over fresh bruises that took the shape of a gargantuan shotgun rig. She wasn’t armed back then; I reminded myself, how would she have gotten that, if not from a corpse? She couldn’t have. Leave it be.

“My E.F.S is picking something up.” I whispered, as we tried to quietly descend the creaking, rotted stairs. “Three Hostiles, five friendl-” One of the white bars disappeared. “They’re killing them!”

Silence forgotten, I tumbled down the narrow passage, tripping over my own disobedient limbs.

The walls were made of a mossy, more likely stained, gray brick, rounded rectangles set together in a deceptively loose hold. Everything seemed to shake, an earthquake cause by the rampaging Buffalos above. We had neither time nor caution, and toppled over each other to get into the room below as fast as possible. I was rushing to save lives; Cody was rushing to lose hers.

The floor stretched out before us, messed in unpleasant hues, rusted steel instruments and splintered carvings lay scattered about it, giving us even more to trip over. There were mannequins, oddly enough, and everything from breadknives to corkscrews stuck out of their decorated hides.

The three libertines were ready for us, and immediately started firing – in one’s case- or charging.

We hadn’t heard gunshots until now as the murdered prisoners, of which there were three; lay with their necks neatly slit. These new wounds were almost forgivable compared to the canvas across the rest of their bodies. It wasn’t mercy, but it had served the same freeing purpose.

I scurried beneath a nearby table, which did little to dissuade my nipping attacker, an unarmed buck who had loosed whatever weapon he had once held in favor of biting at my scrambling hooves.

Cody ran in circles around the pistol buck, her own frantically persevering legs just visible below the table’s lip. I didn’t know if all the reports were form one weapon, or even if all the sounds of impact were parts of an exchange, rather than a one-way barrage.

Beating my own barking assailant back with the Poacher’s rifle, I found myself under attack by the third Libertine as well. Her blade whirred with an unnatural vibration, its edges running in a circuit like a treadmill… Like a chainsaw.

I hooked a hoof under the table’s lip, ignoring my aching body’s pleas to stop and let myself die already, and flipped the small surface away from the wall, putting it in between the Libertines and I.

The living knife came digging into the wood, sending sawdust and splinters out in a rising slit.

The buck pushed against the table as he attempted to climb over it, pushing the thick legs back into the wall, and moving the increasingly dissected tabletop against my own bruised limbs.

It was almost a strategy, to their credit, as if they were actually working together to keep me pinned and in peril, but as the sickly purple buck clambered onto my side, he yelped, and his eyes began to scream.

Too much pride to show pain, and too much determination to avoid it, the Libertine continued his approach, despite the miniature chainsaw digging into his belly, slicing it with infallible ease.

With a lurching, disgustingly moist, sound, his guts evacuated, quite literally. The organs themselves, already appearing devoid of life in their gray shrivel; fell away onto the grimy floor, joining us in my tiny makeshift cubicle. Although his digestive system lay desiccating below, the buck pressed on.

His hooves pressed against my bruised chest as he climbed onto me, closing the gap and becoming immune to my wide rifle swings. Breath like a corpse, a cadaver being dissected, he began to crush my ribs. Disturbingly enough, I was actually surprised to find that he wasn’t trying to chew on my face.

The Libertines were foolhardy, almost idiotically proud, and sadistic, but they weren’t savages.

I reoriented the rifle, rounding it to the back of his skull, and then floated it to the side so as not to drench myself in gore… and to avoid accidentally shooting myself in the face, of course.

It seemed that my biggest advantage was that, in the North, nopony expected a unicorn.

As the barrel pressed against his head, the buck turned, expecting to find some saddled opponent, not a glowing, seemingly animate, inanimate object. He died, facing his bane, but not its wielder.

The chainsaw had cut off, as had the pistol reports, and cautiously dancing around gore and guts, I hopped over the table into an unexpectedly peaceful room. Two corpses, four prisoners, no Cody.

Both Libertines had sustained 223 rounds to the head, but I didn’t need any more forensic evidence, I had a pretty good fit for a suspect. It seemed foolish for her to run now, when the battle was so audibly nearing completion. Maybe she thought she’d try to get trampled, or crushed as the upper level collapsed.

This thought got me moving, and I hurriedly picked over the bodies, searching for a key.

The prisoners were eerily quiet, some propped up in manacles, and other’s simply shackled, bent over with their faces to the floor. Three mares, all scarred and severely malnourished, stared at me with almost loving eyes. Looking at where their bruises were focused… a crawling chokehold wrapped around my neck, like some invisible creature were groping and clawing at me, fueled by disgust and empathy.

One buck sat, curled into a ball, in the corner of the room. The lack of… bruising, implied that he had been a plaything for the Libertine mares, a tool to use in depraved competitions and games of ultimate humiliation. ‘What a lucky buck.’ Some would say. ‘Sounds like fun’… but they’d never seen his eyes:

Dead, while even the mares waited - hope flickering across their faces as I searched for the key ,one going so far as to identify the Libertine who had worn it - this buck was detached, uninterested in me or my rescue. Hopefully he wasn’t alone, for as soon as these prisoners were free, I would have to leave them. Or, more accurately, I would have to get them to leave as quickly as possible.

I left the chainsaw knife, for fear of what it may have been used for, but found some ammunition and healing supplies. I couldn’t help but think that this medicine was used to keep the torture victims on the brink of life, to ensure that no matter what pain they endured, they’d survive to suffer another day.

I found the key, and the mare’s gasped in excitement, even though I had made no promise to help them. “You need to get out of here as fast as you can.” I explained, unlocking the first bonds. “Together.”

The buck watched, still sallow and empty, as the first mare silently hugged me, flinching at the contact.

I chocked over my next words, actually harboring tears. “The Buffalo… might not realize that you’re not hostile, they’re the ones making all that noise. They’re about to collapse the house, so you need to hurry.”

After I freed the third mare, I spun around on the spot, in reaction to a whirring sound, a revving that implied more spinning blades. For a moment I regarded the freed mares, as if they would’ve attacked me, but the automatic knife lay undisturbed on the mottled floor.

The sound passed as quickly as it had come, and I realized that it echoed from above.

“What is that?” I asked, thinking out loud.

“Sounds like Minotaur is back with his car.” A painfully young mare whispered. “Please… hurry!”

“Yes!” I laughed, making the mare’s eyes widen and pale in fear and a dying hope. “Yes!”

Freeing the last buck, who was thankfully uninterested in my inappropriate reaction, I began to giggle.

They stared on, likely thinking that everything they thought they had been given was a lie, that they had once again been teased with a freedom – a fleeting happiness – that would never come.

“It’s my friends!” I cheered, which did little to comfort them. “Caliber and Ash?”

Y’know the Caliber and Ash, of Grace, Caliber and Ash, of Zion and MASEBS? Damascus’ super team?

Have you not been paying attention this whole time?

Instead of bordering on narcissism by actually expecting them to know us, I regained my composure, trying to reaffirm a kind, merciful warmth in my excitedly glimmering eyes.

There was no way these ponies were accepting a ride from me, or even an extended offer for a Buffalo transit. They needed to know that they were free, they needed to be free, but most importantly: we all needed to get out of here. “I’m not even going to ask you to trust me, but I’m truly sorry for scaring you.”

Pangs of guilt shot through me as I watched the young mare quiver, nearing a breakdown at the death of hope. “You can go; I came here to rescue you.” They hesitated. “You really should go, actually.” I smiled weakly. “Grab some supplies from the kitchen across the hall if your homes are far away… only if you have to. This building is bound to collapse soon.” Maybe giving orders wasn’t sending the right message. “The Buffalo only came here to kill the Libertines, so you’re free to go!” I announced.

“The… car?” One of them mumbled, fearful at the very mention.

Of course! They had likely been hunted down in that Chrysalis; why wouldn’t they be terrified of it?

“My friends… are like me, they aren’t Libertines. In fact, we actually stole the car from them.”

The mares began to smile, one brushing up against the buck, trying to incite some relieved reaction.

“Really?” she whispered. Her eyes were bright with the newborn hope. “We can really go?”

I nodded, and they erupted into a – still eerily quite – exchange of smiles and excited hops, even the buck’s eyes sparked in recognition. Watching them made the tears ebb once again, but this time I was overcome with an odd mixture of joy and pride and gratitude. It could’ve been the greatest gift of feeling that the Equestrian wasteland had given me, rivaling even the broken, liberated family at the toll booth.

The DJ had thanked us with acceptance; the Zebras with cold debt, the Buffalo had celebrated with an act of formidable violence, as none of them had felt saved, only assisted. They were all powerful figures in their own right, even Ash had helped herself more than I had, but these prisoners… had been broken.

I almost didn’t want to speak. “Now,” I choked. “Quickly.” They met my now serious gaze and obliged, scampering together for the stairs, buck in tow, waves and smiles of thanks left in their wake.

Imagine a whole Railway’s worth of slaves, in that same pained loss, that same dead eyed emptiness.

Freeing them would be like an overdose… and it’d probably be good for them too.

It became surreal in the basement, cold and lonely, my E.F.S clear save for an impossibly fleeting bar of white that passed by with ever rumbling charge from above. There were reasons to leave, very good reasons, but I felt myself lingering, clutching onto the high of happiness.

Caliber and Ash were back. I didn’t want to find out that this might not be true, that the car might’ve been stolen right back, and that my friends might be laying face down in the pale dirt or golden grass somewhere. I didn’t want to watch the prisoners being crushed beneath the collapsing house as they followed my scavenging advice, and preferred the idea of waiting in the darkness, only to crawl from the ruin once it was all over. Like a coward, like a rat, like a Stable-pony.

Another displaced whir rushing by from above pulled me to a much more logical attention.

Sprinting up the stairs, I realized that the bricks were coming out of place, that the very walls of the resort’s underbelly were being displaced, that the house was truly shaking to its foundations.

It wouldn't be long now.

I ducked and dived over corpses and around stampeding demolitionists, bounding through a hallway giving way to splintered walls and quivering instability. My E.F.S foretold the Libertine’s final stand, their last front of cowardice in the rooms and passages above, from where they would collapse, to be buried along with their desecrated home. I heard the shotgun’s sounding out, sending one red bar after another into oblivion, quelling the Libertine’s final attempts at prideful proving as they charged downstairs.

The survivors were likely the most intelligent – or the least committed – and could see the folly in the fading fight below, submitting instead to the threat of unsteady walls and dusted plaster.

Some attempted evacuation through the windows, and I could hear panes of glass shattering in passionate cries, screams of a farewell to the world.

I heard the revving as I reached the entrance hall, a vague humming which sounded out from my left, just between the staircase and the front door. Headlights, fractional behind the shattered walls, made me squint under their harsh, white influence. The growl grew as the blinding became absolute, and an overload of sound and light peaked as the Chrysalis came crashing through the leftover wall, sending plumes of smoke and sawdust, cut apart by shrapnel and splinters.

“You’re crazy! You’re crazy! You’re crazy!” Ash cried. Hooves over her eyes as shards of wood and metal deflected against the windshield. She was riding shotgun, quivering beside the slyly grinning driver.

Caliber was wearing a police hat.

“Yes!” It was perfect, they were perfect, and the hat was perfect. “YES!” I cheered, drawing their attention to me, gaping shock replacing their looks of wild indulgence and rational fear respectively.

Grace? Caliber mouthed, eyes on me, as the jalopy went crashing through the opposite wall, breaching through an already fractured plane of luxury wood. I hopped in place, skipping on my hooves, an almost sickly joy filling me, a swooning light-headed excitement. It was all beautiful, absolutely everything.

The Chrysalis returned, screeching to a halt against the rich carpeting, leaving black skid marks on infinitely polished wood and fraying material alike. Their ride had barely stopped when the mares pounced over each other, throwing themselves from the jalopy to embrace me mid-stationary-skip.

We rolled together, bouncing against soft coat and hardwood, giggling as if there wasn’t a single reason not to. Falling apart, we lay face up, staring at the empty space where chandeliers and artwork had once distracted, and now only ruinous destruction remained. Set out as we had been beside the river of Zion.

“We thought you were dead!” Ash laughed, actually pulling herself closer to me and initiating a hug.

“Ash!” I cried, not caring about anything else apart from putting her mind at ease. “I was wrong!” My tone was not apologetic, but light and relieved, a cheer, as if I was just realizing that this was exactly right, that this was all that needed to be said, and things were far simpler than I could have imagined. “I’m sorry.”

“How’re you here?” Caliber crawled onto me, her warm body pressing against mine, locking her impossibly perfect eyes to my own overrated Stable-babies. “Where have you been?”

“What does it matter?” I laughed, though her smile was giving way to a searching confusion. “I was…”

“Buffalo!” I screamed, not as an answer but a warning, as a mountain charged into my peripherals.

Luckily she say the panic in my eyes, and together we pulled the giggling Ash into a wild scamper away from the solo stampede, running in its swallowed path as if it were a great, rolling boulder.

He intended to charge through the wall ahead, perhaps breaking the last bond that held the house from gravity’s greed, and we were forced to dive, barreling out of a gap in the barely-there.

We landed at the brink of destruction, where the warmed glow of wooden floorboards met the short, soft grass of the gardens beyond, the place where outside and inside were proven to be meaningless.

“It’s coming down!” A thunderously triumphant voice cried from the house’s rear.

Creaks sounded out, marking the reach of scars that appeared in the ceiling, desperate tendril grasping to save the upper levels of the house. The entrance hall took up both levels, and remained solid, braced and solitary as the back of the resort began to fall away, slowly pulling the ceiling down with it.

As I directed Caliber’s attention back to the Chrysalis, which would soon be buried along with the remaining Libertines, we were blinded in the vehicle’s reawakening. Its headlights burned us away, frayed our world at the edges and reduced everything to pulsing pain, turning us into silhouettes, ash shadows.

Once again we dove away from an incoming mass, this time of steel and roaring machinery rather than flesh and boiling blood. The jalopy flew by; almost pouncing out over the sloping hills of the resort, and, sounding its passage, were the driver’s victorious cheers.

“Is that…?” Ash steadied herself, rubbing her eyes like a waking filly.

The resort was crumbling behind us, collapsing in a hail of fractured wood and cutting steel, but all I could focus on was the escapists’ hijacked vehicle. She must have heard it in the basement, realizing the roar’s true source as soon as she killed the chainsaw mare, waited for an opportunity, then found one… so pristine, so perfect, as if it were planned.

“For fuck’s sake… Cody?” Caliber squinted, a smile touching her voice as she watched what must have seemed like an entirely random resurrection to her, a fun little impossibility from the wild, wild wasteland.

But it wouldn’t last, not this time… I made her a promise.

I hastily leveled the Buffalo Killer, for this weapon had yet to outlive its past, had yet to achieve more than it had in the possession of that Poacher, it was still haunted by the spirits of its deliverance.

The gun would live on; it would have a chance to redeem itself, to atone, starting now…

If she hits the car’s reactor it’ll explode.

The gifted weapon called after its master, screaming in a series of reports, announcing its vengeance… or its cries of apology.

At first I thought that I had missed, there was no grandiose explosion, no satisfying conclusions, only a stall. Then I saw the shards of plating, digging into the soft soil as they fell away from the car, and the lapping flames that rose in their absence. Ash gently pushed my rifle down out of the air, with a nod.

The Chief roared at my side, appearing with an impossible subtlety, only to break his stealth with the furious battle cry. He knew who had to be driving that car; he knew that the hunt had begun again.

“Machk!” I cried, stopping him mid-charge, the callous use of his name and the severity in my tone stalling him on his course to revenge. “Just watch.” I had made them both a promise.

A long dead Libertine’s Chrysalis crashed through the resort’s perimeter, barely stalling as Cody riskily broke away from the enclosure, leaving a waste of brick and fencing in its wake.

As if the wall was the final trigger, the night lit up in a sudden pyre of rising fury, in parts blacker than the darkness, but almost blinding around a screaming heart of gold and carmine, the lights of nuclear death.

Smoke and shrapnel broke through the calm winter air, polluting it, dissecting it, and the Chrysalis, as well as the billowing torrent of its destruction, had soon disappeared into nothing but heat and tire tracks.

One shadow fell slowly, wafting and weaving down into the ruinous nothing: A lonely hat, dancing away.

Though we all stared into the void for what felt like an immeasurable amount of time – as three reunited friends and a Buffalo Chief - the dying house behind only served to disturb the surreal peace.

It screeched and sobbed, metal snapping and wood creaking, as its upper level gave way, dragging the rest of it into collapse along the way, leaving a hollow skeleton, and barely that.

“Comb the ruin!” The Chief called, though there was laughter in his voice. “No Libertine leaves alive!”

He charged off towards the journey’s end of a longtime enemy, as it was hard to believe that, after all this, the mare who could not die was finally gone. But there were only three living pones left, almost as if we were the last survivors of the Plain, were it not for those few prisoners.

No Vipers, no Libertines, no Cabanites or Poachers, only a single Pilgrim, a Mercenary and a Stablebaby.

Caliber tilted the perfectly blue hat back, setting it almost vertical on the back of her head, like some sort of modern cowgirl, a new-world sheriff. And, Instead of gnawing on a strand of straw or chewing a lump of sour tobacco, she lit a cigarette and delicately wrapped her lips around it, making it glow with each inhale. She was beautiful, they were beautiful… absolutely everything was absolutely beautiful.

“This is perfect.” I whispered, as I had to say it. The word was racing through my mind, dominating it in an endless conflict with ‘beautiful’, never letting me think – or feel – anything else.

All that could distract me from the perfection were the aspects that solidified it, my friends.

No plastic masks or diseased curiosities, no discreetly amoral allies or timeless tapes: real, flawed, imperfect perfection. There were scars, wounds, new to me, as I had come to know those made before.

Caliber’s black eye looked to have faded, unlike the seemingly permanent bandage on her forehead.

Ash’s swatches covered her body, burns above and beyond the bandages, beyond the cauterized stubs.

But there were also unfamiliar scars, some aged and dry, others fresh and raw, bruises both fading and forming, injuries that were older than they could possibly be, wounds telling stories that couldn’t be true.

Red hair, a ruffled mane blazing from beneath the newfound hat, too long, just slightly, curling at the tips. Where were the scars from Ash’s defenestration? Where was the myriad of little cuts, the incisions and invasions across her body? These anomalies were more than a distraction from perfection; they were the destroyers of i: Flaws that mattered, changes that couldn’t have happened… inexplicable.

“How could you think that I was dead?” I laughed, though it was entirely fake, a superficial cheer that I was attempting to drown myself in, using to seek that same infallible contentment. “It’s been like, a day.”

“Grace,” she looked at me, dark eyes sparkled in a lost knowing, in pity, in every emotion but happiness.

“It’s been a week.”

Happy Holidays Miss Knockout

Footnote: Level Up!

Perk Added: Thought you Died: Your Pipbuck logged your death at a mass absence of vital signs.

The Status and General Sections have reset. This has dropped Karma to 0.

+10 health per 100 Karma. +10% damage, +50% resistance to criticals.

You have been all but forgotten, though it’s not like you ever made much of an impression anyway.

So it’s not that bad.

Except you missed out on some really cool shit going down… seriously, it was awesome.

Next Chapter: Chapter Christmas: In the Meantime Estimated time remaining: 27 Minutes