Fallout Equestria: Sola Gratia
Chapter 5: Ashes
“Ha! Now that’s what this wasteland needs! More women with spunk, and explosives!”

We watched, the mercenary and I, as three figures appeared through the pool of mist. Guns strapped to their sides and ammunition ready, hanging out of their saddlebags. They were dressed in tanned leather and thick coats, but their clothing didn’t create the sense of danger that followed them, it was the chains. The raiders, more menacing in appearance, watched their approach silently. As the three stepped onto the highway, having to walk around the toll’s bordering fence to reach it, the raiders began to react. They looked like dogs, growling and pacing, knives and spears clenched in their mouths or strapped at their sides. The Slavers weren’t afraid, jeers and threats were thrown at them but they stood firm. They had stopped, at the neck of the toll; they weren’t going to let themselves be trapped within the fence.

Caliber lowered herself onto the ground, her head poking over the edge of the ridge where we had waited for this very moment to arrive. I followed suit and crouched beside her, watching the interaction between the two evils below. We hadn’t been able to see what had happened behind and within the actual toll booths all night and paid close attention as one swung open. A huge raider stepped out; I could feel the daunting effect of his presence despite how far away he was, just as I could almost taste the gore around him. The buck was built like a tank, and armored like one too, his size was doubled by the spikes and scrap strapped to his body, all stained in filth and blood.

My eyes were quickly drawn away from the chief raider however, to the small stream of ponies that followed him out of the booths. They were at odds with the monster they followed; their bodies were withered and naked, stained with the same blood that reddened the chief’s armor, most likely their own. From the booths adjacent emerged two frail bucks and a colt, but even they could not hold my attention. From behind the monstrous raider, crawling and struggling out of his booth, came a mare. As the mare emerged I begged for her to be the last, but it only got worse. A filly followed her mother, crying softly, silently, her small, weak body shook and retched.

The bucks looked relatively healthy; they were kept that way to maintain their quality, to keep their selling price high, spared as I had been. The mare and filly, however, had evidently been used, again and again, despite how it affected their value. That could have happened to me, and it was going to keep happening to them, that filly would lead a life of rape and suffering, she would grow up a slave, as would the colt who was now walking alongside her. All five of those innocent ponies would be sold, while we watched.
No way was that happening.

“Caliber, we can’t ignore this.” I looked at the mare. Her face was beautiful, if tarnished by aged wounds and steeled nerves, and showed no emotion. “Caliber!” I whispered sharply.

“We… we have to.” She didn’t meet my gaze. “We can’t help them.”

“Forget the plan! Who cares what you were ordered to do?!” I struggled to keep quiet, now that the toll was alive with activity I felt a sense of urgency and caution I hadn’t during the midnight hours. “We have to help them!”

“If we help them then we put everyone in danger. The Slavers at Hell will know that something’s wrong if those messengers don’t come back… With all those slaves.” Despair showed in her glimmering brown eyes. “I’m sorry.”

The raider chief had reached the slavers, he listened as they spoke, backs to us, they made whatever deal they had come to make. The ponies were trapped, fence on either side, raiders behind them and slavers ahead. All seemed to paying special attention to the little filly.

“We kill them all, nopony will know it was us, the Slavers on the train will think that something went wrong with the deal. They’ll blame the raiders” I said, desperately trying to convince the mare beside me.

“We couldn’t win that fight, we would only succeed in getting ourselves, the slaves, and Damascus killed.” She looked me straight in the eyes. “I truly hate this, I will regret this, but it’s what has to be done.”

My mind struggled to find a solution, to generate a semblance of a plan. Rational thought gave way to emotional impulse but I was still able to formulate an idea.
“No it’s not. I have a grenade,” The essential starting point of all plans. “If we use it without being seen, then we could start a fight.” I speculated desperately “Get the raiders to be the ones responsible for the Slavers deaths, then interrogate the survivors and get out of here, with the Slaves.” It was not a good plan, but in my mind it was the only option.

“The slaves would get caught in the crossfire. As soon as the raiders started firing...” Caliber retorted.

“No, they can’t. You’ve been watching the raiders, how many of them have anything more than a knife?”

“The big one and maybe one more back at the toll…” She answered slowly, as if she was thinking furiously too. It was possible, we could save them, if the raider chief distracted the Slavers for just long enough for the others to set upon them with their close quarters weaponry, the prisoners might survive. We just needed timing on our side.

“We have to try. Caliber that filly was raped, she watched her mother…” I fought my quivering voice. “We have to”

“Fuck… fuck fuck fuck, you’re right.” She held her face in her hooves. “This could screw everything up… I…”

“They all deserve to die,” I reminded her. “And nopony deserves whatever is waiting for those five prisoners. It’s simple.” I had to get her to help me; we were running out of time. I needed her.

“Dammit,” she gave in. “Get down behind those rocks over there,” She pointed to a small outcropping to the left of the highway. “I’ll throw the grenade as far as I can, if it falters, boost it with your telekinesis.” She waited for me to confirm that my arcane ability would be adequate.

“From down there I’ll be close enough to get it to the toll, my magic won’t be very strong at that kind of range but if the grenade has enough force, I can do it.” I was incredibly relieved that she had yielded to my pleading as well as her own morals. What we were planning was damn near suicidal, but it had to be done.

“Good, after it goes off wait for the raiders to charge out from the toll, forcing the Slavers to back up into cover, the raiders will follow, and then get those prisoners out around the fence. Take them North a ways then head back to those rocks.” She pointed to the same outcropping she had before. “At least one of the raiders will likely follow you…”

“I’ll handle it.” I interrupted confidently. “What about you?” I was more concerned for Caliber, the Slavers would most likely retreat west along the highway, with the raiders in close pursuit, if Caliber didn’t get down from this ridge fast enough she could get pinned down on it. Stuck on a piece of earth that was tilted as if to display and expose anything on it to the expansive west.

“I’ll meet up with you, if I can, then we’ll mop up the survivors. You’re going to have to convince those prisoners to wait for us, they’ll be in just as much danger as they are now if they’re stuck wandering the wastes, weak and unarmed. I would ask you to stay with them where it’s safe, but I already have a feeling of what your answer would be.”

“I’m not leaving you alone to fight them; I’ll be back as soon as I can get those ponies to safety.” I put my hoof on her shoulder. “Thank you for doing this.”

“I wouldn’t have, and that’s what scares me… if you hadn’t been here, I would have seen no alternative to following orders, I would have just waited and watched.” She paused and touched my hoof with her own. “Thank you.”
We stayed in place for a moment, grateful to each other. I took another look down at the toll, the bargaining for the Slaves had begun, the Chief raider kept motioning angrily back at them as the Slavers presumably depreciated the mare and filly for their worn, pathetic appearance. We had to do this now.

I turned tail and ran down the ridge, pouncing to and from areas of soft earth to avoid the rocks and grass, now visible in the morning cloud-light. The mist still hung in the air, but it was not obstructing my vision in the slightest, it seemed as if we were in a bubble of clear atmosphere, the toll, Caliber and I. I had no trouble on my way down the ridge, but had to come to sudden stop as I circled it, as soon as I exited from behind the cover of the jutting earth and rock, I would be exposed.

I didn’t look to my sides, I kept the pile of debris that Caliber had pointed out as my only focal point, I blocked out everything else, imagining blinders for myself. The highway was now to my right, as were the Slavers, only a few dozen feet away. My EFS was lighting up, bands of red filled the South-East while only five white non-hostiles shared the Southern face of the radar with the four pivotal hostiles. I was progressing quickly and silently, my goal was just ahead, my peril just beside me. I sheltered myself behind the low rocks, crouching, peeking at the precipice of the ridge I had just descended. The ridge had been an ideal lookout point; even now, I couldn’t see Caliber, she, on the other hoof, had watched my progress and prepared to throw the grenade, to light the fuse of this rescue.

Right as I settled into place the explosive took flight. The grenade glinted in the still flickering white of the streetlights as it sailed through the air. The pitch was good, and for a moment it looked as if Caliber’s trigger might even land without any magical intervention, but then the small bomb started to quiver. As it fought against the curving force of gravity I focused my telekinesis on it and swung my head violently towards the toll, releasing my hold; hopefully nopony had noticed the brief golden glow that had encompassed the delivery as it increased in velocity towards the raiders.

The grenade seemed to explode on impact, as if I had called down a fiery meteorite on the toll with my horn. I could see the explosion over the rocks and the slightly escalated highway, despite the wire fence. Shouts of anger drowned out the screams of agony as the persevering raiders charged out from behind the gates. I couldn’t see the events as they transpired but after only a moment’s pause I heard a bellowing roar that could only have come from the raider chieftain. Gunshots followed, but the roar didn’t falter, it rallied the raiders as the chief, fighting either to avenge his men or protect himself, refused to die.

The charge of red on my EFS passed the white bands and I jumped up onto the rocks to survey the situation. The Slavers were retreating, and only one was firing blindly behind them as they ran. Without cover the horde would tear them apart, so they had much bigger concerns than the unchained prisoners who were being left unguarded. I sprinted around the fence, following the slaver’s original path and approached the shivering ponies. They had just recovered from the shock of a charging mass of savages tearing by them and I shouted to get their attention.

“Hey!” they balked at my approach “Don’t worry I’m here to help you, follow me and I’ll get you to safety!” Unsurprisingly they didn’t listen and huddled closer together, the colt and filly sheltered behind the adults.

“You can either wait here for the raiders to come back,” I glanced behind me at the unsettlingly close warzone, if one raider decided to come back for the slaves, he would be upon them in seconds. “Or you can trust me! I am here to help you!” One of the bucks whispered to the children then addressed me.

“I believe you; there’s no reason to think you would risk your life to trick us. Lead and we’ll follow.” He swung the colt onto his back as the mare did the same with the filly. The second buck nodded to show he wouldn’t resist and I began to make my way north off the highway. Time was of the essence.

As we scampered off the road I heard a shot ring out behind me, I maintained my gait but turned my head to check on the convoy. Four followed, the buck unburdened by youthful cargo lay bleeding from a wound to the head, his corpse sliding off the highway and onto the dirt, briefly maintaining the momentum it had had in life. The mare tried to run to the dead pony, bouncing the filly on her back as she swung around, but the surviving buck grabbed her tail in his mouth and restrained her. After a moment of struggle and resistance the crying mare yielded and we continued our escape.

I heard her cries from behind me and wished she had been able to say goodbye to her friend, but thankfully the filly on her back and the danger on the highway had motivated her to keep running away from the copse she had once known, running to safety.

The shouts of the raiders were no longer audible after we had put some distance between us and the toll, but the slaver’s gunshots let me know that the fight was still going on, or they had already won, and found Caliber. The feeling of urgency intensified and I desperately searched for a place to hide the family that followed me. I settled for an alcove behind a hill that looked uncomfortable but secluded. I ushered the group in between the rocks and into the small gap, my heart racing.

“If you wait here for us, we can take you somewhere safe.” I promised the buck. The mare was in no reasonable state as she sobbed softly, filly clinging to her body as she trembled.

“I would wait for you if only to thank you, stranger.” He replied. “If you truly mean to let us go, the debt we owe you is immeasurable. You will find us here, hopefully before they do”

“There won’t be any of ‘them’ left soon enough. I’m sorry for your loss. If he meant anything to you then take solace in knowing that whoever killed him will soon be punished.” I gave the buck Caliber’s 9 millimeter pistol, just in case, then made my way back to the toll.

As I ran, the sound of battle became louder and louder, I was actually surprised that the slavers had survived for so long, I had assumed that grossly outnumbered and taken by surprise they would have quickly succumbed to the knives and jaws of the raiders, but more gunshots indicated that that was not the case.
Suddenly I felt myself being knocked off of my feet and was sent sprawling across the terrain.
I quickly got to my hooves and stood, face to face, with my attacker. A gray raider mare, bloody and seething, circled me, ready to pounce. Her knife lay in the dust between us, dropped after her failed attempt to stab me during our collision. My body ached from the impact with the spiky, metal-clad savage but I kept my eyes locked with hers, ignoring the dull pain.

“Forget the knife… I’m going to tear your heart out with or without it.” She gnashed her teeth at me. If I tried to draw my laser pistol, she would pounce. This was going to get close and gritty, and the best weapon for the situation was the knife between us. I had to get it.

She had noticed me eyeing the tool and lunged, not for it but directly at me, colliding once again and putting herself between me and the weapon. I drew my pistol but she was quick, smashing into me, breaking my concentration and forcing me to release my telekinetic hold.
“Girl on girl, hoof to hoof…” Her eyes were crazed, yellow and wide. “This is gonna be fun!” She shrieked. The knife was no longer in her interest; the crazy mare was intent on a brutal, bloody fight to the death.

I threw myself at her with all the force I could muster. She didn’t even try to dodge; she bore the brunt and retaliated with a hoof against my face. We were in close now, hooves flying and eyes locked. She snapped and spat at me like a wild animal, biting at my exposed face. She chewed into the collar of my coat and held strong, tilting her entire body to yank me off balance. I fell to the ground; a cloud of gray dirt was released into the air upon my impact.

She climbed on top of me, pinning my front legs to the ground with her own. She intended to tear the skin from my face, to chew it off, rip the flesh from my bones. I kicked out with my hind leg, guiding it into the mare’s stomach. She retched in my face, her breath smelt of rotted meat and curdled dairy. I kicked again, weakening her enough to roll out from under her. I regained my balance and ended up standing right next to the wheezing raider, body in the perpendicular direction, face to the side of her flank. Her cutie-mark was a heart, biological and vivid, with a rusty fork sticking out of it.

I reared up onto my hind legs and swung my front leg down, onto the raiders head, the metal casing of my Pip-buck collided with her skull making an unpleasant cracking sound. The leather cap she wore did little to stifle the blow and the mare collapsed beneath me. I rolled her onto her back, pinning her down the same way she had done to me.

Her black mane lay sprawled about her head, blood trickling through the strands. She was still wheezing and her warm, fetid breathe made me shudder, with every gasp she bathed me in a wave of the foul air.
It was time to put her down. I looked at my Pip-buck, the gray device was splattered in blood but the casing remained intact, the cracking noise had come from the mare’s skull. Despite how effective the method had proved, I wasn’t going to beat her to death. I was going to give her a little mercy.

Reaching out with my magic I found the laser pistol, it had skittered through the dirt a ways but I could still reach it. Floating it over I looked the raider straight into her yellow, horrible eyes. She began to giggle, then to cackle maniacally before the face of death, before my face. I pressed the angular barrel of the gun against her forehead but her gaze stayed on me, her eyes didn’t cross to look at the weapon between them, they maintained the intense stare that I would always remember. And she wouldn’t stop laughing.

I pulled the trigger.

It happened quickly, almost instantly, the beam left the gun directly into the raider’s head. There was no gap between firing and impact, between cause and effect. She died at the moment I pulled the trigger.
From the point where the beam touched her forehead, a ring of red energy spread across her face, disintegrating everything it crossed over. Her eyes boiled and her skin turned to ash as the artificial decay emanated outwards from within her head. For a moment I saw her skull, behind her melting face, but that was consumed just as rapidly. Her laugh seemed to continue long after she was dead; her bones were frozen in an insane smile before they were destroyed.

It happened in a second, a long, drawn out, horrible second. All that was left of her head was ash; even her mane had burned up into nothingness. The burning stopped short at her neck and the rest of her body remained intact. It looked almost as if she had been decapitated, the round wound on her neck was cauterized by the energy, there was no blood, no explosion of gore or brain matter, just ash.

I stepped off of the corpse, trying to shake the sight from my mind, and holstered my pistol. The raider’s knife still lay discarded on the ground; I picked it up and strapped it into my father’s coat. A weapon like this would have been useful in that fight.

I thought I might be in shock, but I continued south towards the highway. I had to finish this.

A bullet embedded itself into my vest, which was thankfully thick enough to absorb the impact, but nonetheless I felt incredible pressure in a concentrated area against my chest. The bullet pulled me out of my detached state and the sounds of the world flooded my ears once again. I was in another fight.

I dove behind a rock for cover, as another bullet dug into the ground that I had been standing on. This was the raider gunman who had killed the buck, it had to be. My laser pistol at the ready, hovering by my side, I swung around the rock and aimed down my sights. The red raider buck stared back at me, his own rifle clutched skillfully in his mouth. I fired at the weapon.

The gun glowed orange as the energy of my beam spread around it, the buck yelped and dropped the shining steel, desperately trying to cool down his scorched tongue. The metal of the rifle had conducted the heat and subsequently scalded the raider’s mouth. I replicated my first kill’s ‘strategy’ by throwing the rifle behind me telekinetically, putting myself in between the buck and his weapon.

After recovering from the pain he let out a muffled battle cry and charged at me. I leveled my gun again and fired two shots, the first glanced off the meal armor but by the time I had fired the second, the raider was upon me, Point blank range. His body went limp in the air, his muscles relaxed as the life left him, his momentum, however, was still going strong.

The corpse crashed into me, impossibly heavy and moving fast. I collapsed before the force of the dead body; it lay on top of me as I fell to the ground. I wiggled myself free from beneath the breathless mass and went to investigate the super-heated rifle. The metal that constituted it was soft, it had melted to a malleable state, and the gun was already cooling, welding itself to the rocky ground. I left it.

The rock pile beside the toll’s fence was bare, no sign of Caliber. The corpse of the slave buck still lay just off the asphalt; I wanted to ask the other prisoners for permission before burying it. I had assumed that the sound of the fighting had gotten softer as I had been farther away from it but as I stepped onto the highway I could tell that it was simply much quieter. The roar of the horde had died along with it; raider corpses littered the road, at least a dozen, including the chieftain who was still bleeding from an ungodly amount of bullet wounds. I counted two Slaver corpses amidst the medley, their quality armor gave them away, however their guns were missing. The highway was bloody and cluttered.
The Slavers had been well armed, enough casings lay on the ground to indicate some kind of assault rifle, which would have been necessary to dispatch this many raiders so quickly. After completing my inspection, which had taken me far down the highway as the fight had stretched out over a considerable distance, I headed back to the toll.

I followed the only sound I could hear, a soft whimpering, to the former raider encampment.
As the winces and moans grew louder I narrowed the source down to the right side of the series of gateways. I jogged up to the final toll booth and cautiously peeked around the side. A raider was in the process of hammering nails into the hooves of another pony, nailing them to the toll bar, both were scarred and bleeding but the victim was obviously in a worse state. It was the last Slaver, he was naked but his cutie-mark was a pair of manacles, and I doubted that a raider would resort to such extremes with one of their kin... I wasn’t actually sure about that.

Before I could take action against the sadist or the slaver I spotted a familiar pony straight ahead, approaching from the East along the highway. Caliber was running at full tilt and her hooves pounded against the cracked asphalt below her, her subtle musculature flexed and strained as she sprinted towards us. She clutched the 45 automatic in her mouth. The torturous mare turned to face the charging earth pony but was greeted by two rapidly fired bullets to the face, the first tore through her skin and exited out of the other side of her head while the other embedded itself in something solid and applied enough force to slam her against the toll bar, bending her spine unnaturally. The way her body slumped on the end of the bar applied enough pressure to enact the lever affect it was designed for, hoisting the pinned slaver into the air. He screamed in agony as gravity pulled against the metal through his hooves.

I acted quickly to stop the screaming, emerging from my cover, to push the mare’s corpse to the ground. I leaned where her body had been and applied decreasing pressure to lower the bar slowly, bringing the slaver to rest on the road. His screams subsided into soft yelps and whimpers. The battle was over, both sides had been whittled down to their last members, the raiders losing more than a dozen while the slavers only lost a pair, and even then the two survivors fought. The victor had celebrated by torturing her submissive opponent; she had taken more pleasure from all the death and pain than she had solace for her lost allies. These ponies were completely incorrigible. This fight had been disgusting.

“That bitch,” panted the slaver. “I had her… I won, and then she did something with her legs, knocked me off of her, I was stunned long enough for her to start hammering…”

“Now is not the time to try and save your pride. We don’t care who you think ‘won’.” Caliber berated.
She turned to me, examining me for any sign of injury. I did the same to her, she had a few scratches on her flank and bruises on her forelegs but she didn’t look like she was in pain. “You alright?”
She wasn’t even out of breath, after sprinting like that I would have been done, ready to retire.

“I’m fine, nothing but a few bruises, what happened to you?”

“I tallied the raiders last night, counted exactly seventeen, the slavers got twelve during their fight down the road but two just turned and ran, I went after them. With this mare dead,” she prodded the bloody corpse of the raider with her hoof. “There’s only two left, I think ones got a rifle though…”

“I got them.” I confessed, not proudly but out of necessity.

“I was worried they had gone after you once I saw that dead slave. I had to make sure no one escaped though, so I went after the runners. Glad to see you made it okay.”
“Don’t feel bad, neither of us thought anypony would abandon the fight to go after the prisoners. I guess you really can’t bank on what these psychopaths will do.” I said as I looked at the nails and hammer.

“You must be able to handle yourself,” she paused “Let me know if you want to talk about it later. For now we have to deal with Manacles over here.” Caliber stood aggressively over the blubbering pony.

“How do we get the nails out?” I couldn’t think of a method that wouldn’t be excruciatingly painful. “Maybe I could anaesthetize him a little bit, make the process a little less agonizing.”

“He’s staying right there.” She met the black eyes of the naked, tan buck. “He won’t tell us anything.”

“Wait, no…I can…” He was obviously suffering through the words. “If you let me go I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

“I thought raiders were disloyal.” She spat. The exchange between them seemed to be independent of me, the process of interrogation and the barter of mercy for information was something that both of them realized I was too naïve to be involved with. “But you’re still not going to tell us anything.”

“W-wh-what do you mean?”

“I can’t let you go. I could have led you along, I would have, but my friend here still has to learn how little your kind deserves. She wouldn’t have accepted it. So unless you’re still willing to tell us anything, knowing you are going to die here, we can’t help each other.” I felt like a burden, it seemed Caliber regretted what we had done and was now beginning to let it show. We would not get the information we had come for.

“I’m sorry.” I cut in.

“Don’t be… We had to do it,” she reassured “It’s just that sometimes I feel like I’ve done worse by going against orders than against morals.” She sighed. “I just want to get out of here.”

“Hey! Hey, listen to me; I don’t want to die here… I have a family, this is just a job!” pleaded the slaver.

“Where are your clothes?” asked Caliber coolly.

“What does it matter!?” He twisted his head to look at me. “You’re reasonable right? Tell her to let me go!”

“Three slavers against a thirteen raiders, two casualties for twelve. Then you lose against one.” She brought herself in close. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Like I said, I didn’t lose to that raider bitch! She took me by surprise!” He claimed.

“While you were fighting? I don’t think so.” She hissed, “You know what I think? I think you were upset about your friends over there.” She gestured down the road; west in the direction the slaver could not turn to see. “I think you wanted to make the raiders pay, by punishing the last one. Proving that you had won, letting yourself know that you still had the power.”

“What the hell are you talking about? You’re crazy!”

“You wanted to. Plant. Your. Stake.” She prodded his chest with each word. “And instead of finishing this fight, instead of killing her and getting away” she pointed to the dead mare. “You raped her, because you were the big winner, and she was the face of those who killed your friends.”

“So what if I did? She deserved it.” Justified the buck.

“I’m sure you love your family very much, I’m sure that mare and filly would have been completely safe in your professional care, but you don’t deserve our mercy.” She looked at me and I nodded. The slavers pleas had been getting to me, I had wanted to get him help for his injuries. But now I was ready to just get it over with, my pity for him was gone, replaced by cold understanding.

“Alright you little bitch, you got me. But you already know I’m not telling you Jack Shit!” He yelled. “So why don’t you just kill me and run, before my associated find out what happened here, because when they find you, they’re going to treat you like the whore you are.”

“I can’t kill you either. You need to die, just like this. No fight ends with the last two combatants simultaneously killing each other to end it in a perfectly even tie. That’s just not believable. So I need to wait for you to die from the injuries you’ve already sustained. Then you’ll look like just another corpse used for raider decoration.” Her words were harsh, but logical.

“Will they believe that?” I asked “What if they figure it out?”

“It looks like the raiders won here, and then celebrated by mutilating one of their enemies. This is pretty much what happened.” She looked at the buck. “You lost. And the other slavers are going to see it that way, an abandoned battle field where their men were killed by the raiders they had come to negotiate with. If they interpret it the way that anybody would, then we just killed two birds with one stone.” I felt better about guilting her into doing this. “Hopefully they’ll give up on working with the raiders, seeing them as a potential enemy rather that a possible recruiting pool.”

The slaver laughed a moist, bloody chuckle. “That’s what this is about? You were scared that we could get the raiders on our side?” His pre-mortem amusement was less insane than the raiders had been, but somehow equally disturbing. “You idiots. You shouldn’t be worried about who we can get to work for us… You should be more afraid of who we’re working for.”

“Grace, please go and get the ponies you rescued. I assume you don’t want to sit here with me and watch him die.” She requested levelly, gaze locked on the dying buck.

“Are you going to…” I began to ask.

“I can’t leave any more marks on him… But I might want to re-apply some of those nails; they’re starting to look a little loose.” I wasn’t going to argue, though I reluctantly pushed the thought from my mind.

“Alright, I’ll take them to the ridge.” I agreed as I hurried away from the impending interrogation.

“Grace…” she called after me. I turned.
“The slave’s corpse has to stay where it is. You can’t bury it. The Slavers who investigate need to see it.”

“I have to let that family say goodbye. But I understand. Meet us when he’s done.” I ran away from the toll, the horrible, violent, battle torn toll. Seeing the free family again would make me feel better, hopefully
it would have the same effect on Caliber later. It would remind us of why we had done this.
The mist still hadn’t cleared and the scarred landscape eventually seemed to drop off to the East, the flat land ending in a shifting pale wall, a dome. I couldn’t see the tips of the mountains to the North; they became level in how they were obscured, and looked like a plateau rather than a range. I used them as my reference nonetheless, Mountains North, Mountains South, Flat Eat, Rocky West. The huge mountain that differentiated between mountains north and mountains south was completely undetectable but I already knew the direction I was supposed to be heading, recognizing the path previously taken.

Follow the fence along the highway, corpses dotting it across its length; find the body of the prisoner, slumped between road and dirt. Pass the rock pile then walk until you find the red but dead buck quickly followed by a rifle welded to the ground. Further ahead, if you look to your right, you can see the corpse of your first kill, a raider mare decapitated by disintegration. Keep an eye out for a rock formation to your left, within it you will find the alcove where you stashed your vindication.

“Is everypony alright?” I called out, keeping my distance. “It’s me, the mare from the toll.”
The ashy brown head of the ‘father’ peeked out at me. I had no idea how these ponies were related but I hoped, for the children’s sake, that this buck was their father, and not the one lying dead off the highway. He coerced the rest of the group out, comforting them along the way; they all looked dirty enough that their coats and manes were a bastardization of their original colors, smeared in filth and blood. The mare’s eyes were still dead, the filly’s still downcast. I had never seen a rape victim before, but their visible trauma made me wish the raider chieftain had survived long enough for a personal vengeance.

“We’re surviving, thanks to you.” My assurance would have to wait; pity and concern were all that was on my mind now. I did feel good knowing that they were alright.

“Anypony would have done what we did after seeing how much trouble you were in.” I said dismissively.

“If you believe that then you must not have been paying attention your whole life. Heck, I don’t even know if I would have done it, to be honest. Unless you’ve got the guns or the luck to be a hero then you need to look out for your own first to survive. That’s just how it is.” He corrected sadly.

“I don’t want to believe that there aren’t ponies who are willing to help anymore. Caliber is enough proof for me. That’s my… partner who helped save you.” I added as a forethought.

“Nowadays anypony who can resist the temptation of an easy life, a life of raiding and stealing and killing, can consider themselves a good pony. Very few exceed that standard, so whether you did it for the thrill, out of naivety or blind kind-heatedness, Thank you again.” I felt oddly content with all the attention and positive emotions; I wasn’t used to these levels of gratitude. I supposed I had never done anything this important to anypony before. Under the unsettling schmaltz, it felt good.

“Daddy, will the monsters come back for us?” Asked the colt sweetly, while I was thinking to myself.

“No they’re gone, this nice lady killed them.” I was surprised at his blunt choice of verb.

“Did the pretty lady find Uncle?” whispered the child.

“Uncle is dead, baby. The monsters got him.” He held the colt close. The mare let out a sob, indicating that Uncle had been from the mother’s side, and then brought herself and the filly in close to share the remorseful embrace. She whispered to the colt but even her voice was weak and pained.

“Would you like to go say goodbye?” I asked after giving them some time.

“We already have.” Answered the mare, wiping the need to visit the body and regret not being able to bury it off my list of priorities.

“Alright, there are a lot of… casualties,” I used the word hoping to stop the children from understanding. “Along the road from the toll so if you’d like we can try and head further west and connect with it where it’s… more appropriate.”

“We’ll go wherever you want to go, but seeing some more dead bodies isn’t going to matter now. I think it might actually be a good thing for the children to see what happens to monsters that try and hurt them.” The father speculated, talking half to me and half to the foals. I had forgotten that they might not want to go with us back to Hell, their debt made them willing but I wanted to know what they actually wanted.

“I’m sorry, I forgot to ask, where are you from? I mean, where were you… taken from?”

“We were travelling from one of the northern settlements just outside of this valley,” he gestured East. “On our way to New Calvary, we had to cross the railway to continue south, we heard the Slavers didn’t head in that direction so we thought we would be clear once we crossed. Though you’re never clear in the wasteland, Raiders are everywhere, and they don’t have predictable patterns.” He explained.

“What’s a Calvary?”

“Calvary is a city,” He chuckled; even the mare smiled a little, though the children seemed just as confused as I was. “You still have faith in ponykind and you haven’t heard about the City of Rats, you must have been living under a rock your whole life.”

“A mountain actually…” I remembered having read a few logs from ponies who grew up in a New Calvary; it was never really talked about except in fleeting reference so I knew nothing about it.

“Well…” now they were confused. “That explains it.”

“We heard it was safe there, safer at least, so we packed up everything we had and left the shanty town we were living in.” The stained, cream mare said, she was evidently getting more comfortable with me due to my unthreatening obliviousness.

“So it’s to the South-East, huh? I’m not about to send you to the same fate that you just got out of, but if you come with us we might be able to help you get there safely somehow.” I offered, hoping they wouldn’t want to head out alone again.

“You’re too kind, but we can’t ask you to go out of your way and do that.” said the Father.

“At least let me talk to my partner and see if there’s any way that we can help. We have to head west first so if you insist on going alone the least we can do is organize some weapons for you. I’m sure there are some scattered around the toll that you can take.” I concluded decidedly, it was true it would be difficult to help them as much as I wanted to, but I was going to try.

“Are you a shepard?” Whispered the filly, she had stopped crying but had been very quiet all this time.

“Shepard?” I asked as we started walking.

“Somepony who watches over or guards a flock, we learnt about it from Uncle.” I knew what a shepherd was but I was happy to get the filly talking and feeling secure. Goddesses knew she deserved some peace.

“Doesn’t that make you a sheep?” I teased, making her giggle a little.

“Uncle said it meant more than that…”

“He read about it in some book about the Princesses,” interjected the colt, explaining for his sister. “Uncle was funny; he was always saying things about them that didn’t make any sense. He called them fancy names and thought they were always watching him and stuff.” That sounded familiar. “I think that the Princesses would have better things to do, or would want to watch somepony more interesting than Uncle.” I smiled at the colt’s interpretation. “Like you!”

“Now why would the Princesses want to watch somepony like me?”

“You save ponies.” Answered the filly, “Uncle…” both their faces dropped, eyes dimming, as they remembered that he was one pony that I hadn’t saved. I hoped they didn’t feel guilty about his death. The mother and father comforted their children and picked them back onto their respective backs to give them a break as we walked, I wondered if they were twins, the colt seemed older but they were about the same size, both just a little bigger than a saddlebag. Those raiders deserved worse than they got…

Despite the parents insistence that the children didn’t need my worldly censorship I took a slightly wider route to the ridge. Mostly to avoid the body of their religious uncle. I set them up at the base of the ridge, the corpses on the road were spread far enough back that they were visible from there but the children seemed even more at ease around death than I did.

“I want to see him…” said the mare.

“Honey, it’s better if you remember him for who he was in life. Seeing his body again isn’t going to make you feel better.” Pleaded her children’s father referring to who, I had gathered, was her lost sibling.

“No, I mean, I want to see… him.” She choked out. “I want to see that bastard dead.”

“I’m so sorry about all this.” He nuzzled against her tenderly. “If you’re sure, I’ll wait with the children.”

“It wasn’t your fault… It wasn’t.” they were embracing and crying together, I turned away to give them a moment of privacy. “We’ll get through this together… I just want to see him dead.”

“Who, Mommy?” asked the Colt. From the way the filly was bunched up under her father, I could tell that she already knew. The raider chieftain had done the same things to her. But she never wanted to see the face that she could never escape again. Her mother wanted closure; she just wanted it to go away. The mare whispered to her two children, the filly scrunched up closer to her father.

“Can you show me?” She asked, turning to me. “Please.” I nodded and led her away from her family.

“He can’t hurt you anymore, baby.” Whispered the father to his daughter as the cream mare and I stepped out onto the highway.

The chieftain wasn’t hard to find, the other bodies looked like mole-hills when compared to the metallic, bloody mountain of a corpse. As I walked through the surfaced graveyard I looked for weapons that might be useful to the family, however I couldn’t see anything that looked like it still functioned. After a ways we reached the opening to the toll fence, the giant raider hadn’t made it very far before he was taken down by the bullets of his three well armed opponents.

His body was riddled with wounds and stains; however his face remained mostly imperforated beneath a helmet. I slid the metal head casing off and stared at his diseased red eyes. The dark brown buck was almost the color of old blood and I imagined that his bleeding had been more severe than it appeared, camouflaged in his coat. His muscular face was stuck in a roar and his teeth were yellow and fetid. He had bitten off his own tongue in the agony he had endured, bleeding out after he had finally collapsed, and the front half of it lay adjacent to his mouth. It looked like he had suffered.

The mare just stared at him; her dark wavy mane obscured wet eyes as stood over the felled monster, her dead tormentor. We didn’t say anything to one another; she just stared as my hatred for the buck grew exponentially at her reaction. She was weeping heavily, gasping for air and struggling to stay up on her hooves. I held her close to me and supported her as she let go. I should have volunteered to stay with the kids allowing their parents to go together, she needed more than my simple physical support, she needed love.

I led her back to her medicine and helped her to lie on the ground with them, the family snuggled up together as they comforted the Mother and each other.

“I’m going to get Caliber.” I said, just to explain my absence. They needed some time alone anyway.

I ran down the road to the toll, callously pouncing over bodies and cracking dry gore, I was starting to feel a little nervous. It had been a long time since the Slavers had arrived. We couldn’t have much time until more came looking for them. I wanted to speak to Damascus, tell him what little we had learned, and find out how we could help fix what we may have ruined.

Caliber was packing her saddlebags when I arrived, I realized that she had picked up a few weapons that I could ask her to impart on the family. The Slaver lay limp, still attached to the toll bar, it looked like he had bled a lot more since the last time I had seen him. Caliber had been right, the scene looked exactly as she had described it, only a raider could have left somepony to die like that. Or two mares trying to pass a kill off as a raider’s doing. I didn’t feel remorse for the idiotic rapist though.

“Caliber!” I exclaimed happily, every time I saw her I was relieved that she was okay, this whole tense situation had put me in a state of constant worry. “You’re alright!”

“Yeah,” she replied calmly. “I’d have to be as stupid as he was to lose this kind of advantage.” She strapped her satchel onto her back, assault rifle dangling at its side. “How’d it go with the prisoners?”

“They’re a little torn up about their Uncle, and about what’s been happening to them all this time. But they’ll get through it together, their actually the closest family I’ve ever seen.” I admitted.

“A difficult situation can do that to people,” she dismissed, then sighed. “I’m sorry Grace, I’m just unsettled by all this, I’m glad we did what we did. It was undoubtedly the right thing to do, just not the best. I… I want to get back to Damascus; he’ll tell us how much damage we might have caused.”

“What do you know that I don’t?” The exchange was becoming tense.

“Nothing, I just understand things… differently.” She began walking back West along the road. “I understand how much shit we could have started, if the Slavers find out…”

“How would they? It makes perfect sense that the raiders did this, they're unpredictable psychopaths! I’ve gathered that in a day! The slavers knew this was a risk, they brought those guns,” As we walked I motioned to the strapped guns. “To defend themselves if this happened, and they almost succeeded. They were ready for this, Heck they might even have been expecting this. The raiders will get the blame!”

“They will probably blame the Raiders, probably! I do not like open-ended situations like this. The fact is we could’ve gotten a lot of people killed, just to save four.” She calculated.

“That isn’t how it works; don’t think of it that way! It doesn’t matter how many we saved! We aren’t exchanging ponies’ lives for other ponies’ freedom. We did what was right, not what was the best bargain!” We reached the ridge.

“I…” Caliber began to retort, she was interrupted by the sight of the family before us.

Caliber dealt in absolutes, doing a job for a reason, living a life with monitored cause and effect. The family huddled together at the base of the ridge, gave her the validation she needed. Hypothetically they had been four ponies; numerically they hadn’t been worth the risk. That’s not what would make Caliber proud of what she had helped accomplish. Seeing the medley of love, innocence and unity that survived because of her actions, is what made her proud, what vindicated her sacrifices.

Her vivid brown eyes softened and the mercenary was replaced with a mare. She looked back at me and finally smiled, she hadn’t seemed able to justify our spontaneous rescue until this moment, and now that she could, she felt the same certainty that I did.

“Hello Shepard, mommy told me that you killed the monster.” Said the filly, softly yet joyously. It really wasn’t fair to what was left of Caliber’s rationality argument. She looked like she wanted to hug the little girl and was smiling more genuinely than I had ever seen anypony smile.

“Who’re you, lady?” asked the colt with the friendly brashness that only a child could get away with.
Caliber was quiet, she stammered a little under the scrutiny of the filly and colt.

“This is my friend Caliber!” I stepped in to introduce her for her heroics. “Do you kids remember the big explosion than scared some of the monsters away and made the rest go all crazy so I could sneak you away from them?” They nodded together, their parents smiling down at their intrigue. “Well if I’m the Shepard then she must be the…” I hadn’t thought that one out. “She made the explosion!”

“Woooooooowwww.” They exclaimed in unison.
“Did you do that with your earth-pony magic?” asked the unicorn filly.

“What? Earth ponies can’t make explosions with their minds! If they could then I would’ve done one!” retorted the colt.
“Well I heard that some super-special earth ponies have magic of their own, they don’t even need a horn!”

“That’s the magic of being in-dus-trious and hard-working,” the way the colt sounded out his words reminded me of Caliber. “Not the magic of explosions!”

“Alright kids, that’s enough, I’m sure Ms. Caliber wants to keep her magic a secret so she can surprise the next bunch of monsters she fights!” the children’s father excused. Caliber stood awkwardly by and gave the buck a thankful look.

“Yes… erm… kids, me and the… Sheep herd? Over here need to figure out how we’re going to make sure you get home safely! So if your Mommy and Daddy could tell us where you’re headed we can get started.” She hinted.

“Excuse the children, were all just a little excited that we’re safe. Thank you both so much for what you’ve done.” The mare gave both myself and Caliber a ghostly embrace and stepped back to the buck’s side.“We were heading to New Calvary when that troupe of raiders got us…we’ve been with them for a couple of days…I… it was hard to keep track.”

“That’s alright, it doesn’t matter. Are you still intent on heading there?” Caliber seemed to enjoy asking questions, she might as well have whipped a pad and pen like the detectives in the True Police Stories. Thankfully her tone was vastly different from the one she used on the nailed Slaver.

“We could take them back to Hell with us.” I interrupted, trying to give the family options.

“Hell?” inquired the buck. “That’s an odd name.”

“There’s this blown apart sign that probably used to read ‘Hello and welcome to Such-and-such’ but it’s so torn up now that the only distinguishable thing is the ‘Hell-‘ part of ‘Hello’. Damascus has been around forever, he probably knows what it was actually called.” She explained.

“So how about it?” I asked her, pushing to bring the family there.

“Can’t do it, too dangerous. After the stunt we just pulled I don’t even think I’m going to be able to stay there anymore. The Slavers will lock it down as soon as they realize their messengers aren’t coming back, anyone who isn’t a registered citizen might as well be caught in a death-trap. Including you, Grace...”
Before I could even begin to apologize she pressed on.
“And don’t say you’re sorry because I’m alright, if Charon can just get my gun out and bring it to me then they’ll be no hard feelings. Damascus is probably going to send us somewhere obscure anyway.”

“Why don’t we ask Charon or one of the other mercenaries to escort them to the city?” I stifled my apology and inferred that if Damascus was planning something for us then we couldn’t escort them.

“Hell needs to be at full strength in case the Slavers catch on, besides I wouldn’t trust a mercenary as far as I could throw one.”
She continued before I could point out the hypocrisy.
“And don’t tell me that I am a mercenary because I know that already, just like I know that I must therefore be up to something devious.” She quipped.

“You’ve done enough!” interrupted the buck with a cheery exclamation. “You’ve given us a second chance at the life we were about to lose forever, we cannot possibly ask anything more of you.”

“It sounds like your town is in trouble; we can’t let you to stay with us and struggle over this anymore. We can handle the journey, we’ll be more careful this time, stay away from the roads and rails, stay safe.” Promised the mare.

“Looks like that’s our only option, Grace.” Caliber sighed.

“You aren’t too attached to those guns are you?”

----------------------------------------------.

“Bye Shepard! Bye Cali-Belle!” Yelled the children inaccurately, neatly perched on their mother’s back.

“Thanks again you two, I hope something out there rewards you for what we can’t. If my brother-in-law was around he’d promise you eternal salvation with the Princesses or some nonsense… though that’s still more than I can offer.” The father of the family spoke to us as his mare and children waited for him just up the road. We were standing in the toll, grisly as it was, and had already bade farewell to the fillies and their mother. “If you’re ever in Calvary, look for us, if we’ve managed to make something of ourselves then you can be sure that you’ll be welcome to take a part in our worth.”

“Just get there safely, and It’s a promise.” I shook his hoof merrily.

“Give that filly a good life,” added Caliber grimly “She deserves nothing but happiness after all this.”

“I would die for my family, the fact that you would’ve done the same… that’s something I won’t forget.” Finished the father and, giving us one last grateful look each, he turned to lead his family, guns and supplies strapped to his body on holsters and saddlebags. They bade shouts of farewells and thanks as they all began off the road to the South-East, angling for the obscured end of the mountain range.

“Feeling better?” I asked Caliber as we watched them go.

“Feeling damn good.” She replied with a relieved laugh.

Footnote: Level Up!
Perk Added: Child at Heart: Who says that growing up is a good thing? You can call yourself charismatic but the fact that you are most charming to children implies that you’re just immature. So either Grow up or enjoy unique dialogue with the other mentally under-developed children… Oh wow you just got burned...Third degree baby… Why wasn’t anyone around to hear that?

(Since this is getting a surprising amount of views (That’s Plural Baby!) especially considering this is the first thing I’ve posted- or even written - I figured that the least I could do is add this little footnote to thank everyone who has read this far and, above all, Kkat: the FRIENDS to my Joey.)

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