Inhale. Exhale. Breathe. Keep breathing, no matter how much it hurts.

The fans pushed the bitter chill into her lungs for what felt like hours. It sifted through her mane, traced her shoulders and sank into her chest like a living thing. Her body shook, a little at first and then uncontrollably. It didn’t take long for her ears to lose sensation. The soft soles of her hooves followed. Then her wings, bound down to her body by a strap of leather. At first she thought Ironshod meant to spook her. Make her squirm a little before coming back with some more tangible form of coercion. But as time ticked by and the tears froze on her eyelashes, a different reality set in. He wasn’t coming back. He was going to let her die here, alone, in the freezing dark.

Her thoughts grew sluggish. Foggy. She needed to escape. Needed to break out of the zip strips that kept her bound to the steel chair’s frosted frame and get through that door. Just like she did back home. She spent what felt like hours struggling against her bindings only to realize through the throbbing in her joints that she’d just managed to tighten them. The chair held solid beneath her. This wasn’t something she could fix. Slowly, the thought occurred to her that this may not be something she could survive.

Maybe it was better this way. The longer she sat, the less discomfort she felt. One by one the nerves in her skin succumbed to the freeze. Maybe dying hurt less this way. Something about that comforted her. She could wait. No rush. If an opening presented itself she’d figure it out. If not, well… right now, she wanted to close her eyes. Nap.

Her head dipped against her chest.

The door uttered a heavy clunk and light flooded the freezer like an exploding star. Slumped forward, Aurora squeezed her eyes tighter and made her discomfort known with a feeble croak. The overhead bulb clicked on and she watched through slitted eyes as two sets of hooves rounded her chair. The knot of her gag loosened and the fetid cloth peeled out of her jaw, tearing flakes of ice from her lips and sprinkling frost into her lap. Something heavy dropped onto her shoulders that stank like drainpipe scum. A blanket, she realized. Then she frowned at the vague sensation of her tail being hiked up beneath it, and she practically jumped out of her bindings at the unwelcome sensation of something narrow being pressed inside of her.

“The f-f-fuck?!”

Something kept her head from turning back to look. As her vision adjusted she distantly recognized the haze of Ironshod’s silver magic. His grey hooves stood at the threshold while his Rangers worked.

“Eighty-four point eight,” a voice behind her stated, and the intruding presence was abruptly removed. Thermometer, she told herself.

“Turn them off.” Ironshod’s tone was carefully neutral. A switch clicked. Behind her, the fans began spinning down. “Here, let me get that.”

The blanket shifted and wrapped around her hind legs, tucking them together with an almost paternal care. She glowered at the floor as he swaddled her in the stinking fabric. With no choice but to endure his attention, she pointedly avoided his gaze as he lifted her chin and secured the blanket around her neck. From outside, a second chair was brought in. Wooden. Less prone to absorb the ambient cold he’d chosen to inflict upon her. He sat down across from her, his hooves nearly touching hers. It didn’t matter where she looked, now. He’d made it impossible not to see him.

“I think we’re ready to begin.” He adjusted his posture, watching her with hawkish gold eyes for many long seconds until he seemed satisfied. Then, “Did you ever meet a young stallion by the name of Gallow?”

She blinked at his fetlocks and looked up. “W-what?”

He watched her as if her reaction surprised him. “We found his corpse on old route eleven. Somebody shot him up not far from his home. Made a real mess of it. I’m curious to know whether you had anything to do with that.”

Sensation was slowly returning to her limbs, but her mind was struggling to keep up. “Gallow... w-was a can-cannibal.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Before she could respond, he spoke again. “I don’t suppose you have any idea what might have happened back in Kiln?”

What was this, a trial? “Y-you had a slaver... ngh. Pr-problem.”

Ironshod hummed. “Debatable. You’ve been a busy mare, Aurora. The Enclave must count themselves lucky to have you.”

She squeezed her eyes shut to solidify her concentration. “I’m not with anyone.”

Ironshod’s chair creaked. His breath wafted over her, warm and unwanted. “Please don’t lie to me. You told us yourself that you asked for their help, and something tells me that the little green pegasus you were with wasn’t a stray dustwing you picked up along the way here. Now they’re spilling Ranger blood outside of your Stable. Part of me would like to believe that you’re the innocent, wide-eyed mare you say you are but I think we both know how played out that fiction is. Trouble is, you tell a convincing lie. You even have the gryphon convinced. That makes you very dangerous, Aurora. Very, very dangerous.”

Her skin started to sting as blood returned to rouse her dormant nerves. She trembled, her muscles stuttering with a deep ache that only grew worse the more she moved. She leaned down, foregoing Ironshod’s stare to better insulate herself in the growing warmth of her blanket. Sitting as he was, she’d only need to free one leg to punch him in the balls. Juvenile, maybe, and probably not helpful in the long run. But it made her smile a little despite being nowhere near a position to escape.

“S-so I’m da-angerous,” she chattered. “Yippee for m-me.”

“You know who they are. What they represent. Tell me why you’re helping them.”

She sneered as her body shook harder the more she thawed. “M-maybe they’re n-not c-cunts on the cob like yuh-you.”

His lip twitched. “That other pegasus was quick to abandon you. Doesn’t inspire much confidence in their loyalty, don’t you think?”

She said nothing.

He waited.

After a solid minute of unbearable silence, she took a slow breath and met his gaze. “You didn’t have to kill her.”

He offered a dispassionate shrug in response. “You didn’t have to kill Gallow.”

“That isn’t the-”

“We do what we do to survive, Aurora. Gallow was as much a killer as your so-called friend. At least I showed her the decency of a quick death.”

Her jaw went slack at the insinuation but when she tried to answer him in her own defense she realized she couldn’t. Not without lying to him and to herself. She stared at him, hating him for plucking that kernel of truth out of her, fixing her jaw to keep the flood of guilt from reaching her eyes. She could still hear him, making noises no living creature should ever make.

Her vision swam as Ironshod took that neatly packed box in the back of her head and upturned it until it was empty.

He watched her struggling to stay composed with the satisfaction of a starving predator spotting wounded prey, as if it was all he ever wanted to see. Then, just as she was managing to pack away all the ugly facts of the last week and a half, he lit his horn to seemingly adjust the corners of the blanket beneath her chin.

“Are you warming up?”

Humiliated, she only nodded a little. She didn’t trust herself to speak.

“Alright then.” He stood, pushing the chair back until it was pulled out by a Ranger posted at the door. “Let’s take a break. I’ll check back in an hour or so.”

A firm tug of his magic wrenched the blanket off her shoulders and splayed pale strands of mane across her face. She gasped at the abrupt resurgence of cold. Wide-eyed, she stared after him as he bundled the cloth and took it with him through the door.

“W-wait what?”

The door pivoted shut with a crackle of brittle gaskets and the light overhead winked out like a fragile ember. Her heart began to pound as the electric drone of the fans above her began turning. Once again, the temperature plunged. “No! Ironshod, wait!”

She bent against her restraints until they bit into her skin.

“IRONSHOD!”

Rainbow Dash followed Sledge out of the I.T. wing, pausing only to thank Opal for her help and wish her some well-earned sleep. The old mare returned the sentiment. They’d all been drowning their exhaustion with caffeine in that little office for far longer than anyone expected to, but the end result had been uncovering a large shard of the very truth Delta Vee had sought to preserve.

Vhanna hadn’t dropped the bombs. They hadn’t even acquired the technology to try. Equestria had turned its most destructive armaments upon both Vhanna and itself. What none of them understood was why.

Neither she or Sledge spoke as he brought her back to Aurora’s compartment. Seeing what had happened through Apogee’s own eyes, watching Equestria commit the most expansive murder-suicide in recorded history… it was too much for her to wrap her head around. What had the princesses been thinking? They had the bomb. What more leverage did they need for Vhanna’s surrender? What was the benefit if everyone including the princesses died?

As they stepped into the lift, she could still hear the Vhannan ambassador pleading over the radio for mercy. Abyssian was an exceedingly intelligent stallion. He’d known what the world would think when they heard news of the bombs falling in Equestria. Who they would blame. The thought of seeing those missiles appearing on the horizon must have been paralyzing. Only, the missiles never did come. Equestria had a different solution for the zebras. A weapon that was capable of piercing their iron dome of air defenses with no warning whatsoever.

She wasn’t sure whether to seethe, scream, curse, or cry. Maybe all four. Maybe none. Had she really been so stupid as to let herself be duped again? It was Jet Stream who initially approached her ministry for funding. He’d been the one to design SOLUS. But he wouldn’t have had launch authorization. Nobody did except for the princesses, and even then the missiles required both of them to launch. Maybe Jet had found some way to trick them too? No, she thought. Jet loved his kid too much to make her watch something like that play out. He might have made some questionable choices with the way he raised Apogee, but he wasn’t a monster. If he’d had an inkling of what was to come he would have spent every bit he owned to get her into a Stable.

The lift jerked to a stop on Mechanical’s residential floor. Being the middle of the day, the corridors were busier than they had been when she left. She was keenly aware of the attention she drew just by walking alongside Sledge, say nothing for the bewildered stares that followed her as residents saw the faded stripes of her mane. Despite her missing wing, her noon-blue coat having shed itself bare in several places and the ghostly features of her once youthful figure, she still heard more than a few pegasi whispering. She felt a pang of sympathy for Sledge, who was likely to be the one stuck explaining how an Element of Harmony had been allowed to wither on their doorstep.

Who was she kidding? Sledge would be lucky to get a word in edgewise. Rainbow just hoped that when the time came, her shoddy public speaking skills wouldn’t end up digging her the grave she’d spent the last couple hundred years dodging.

The compartment door chirped at the swipe of Sledge’s badge and slid open. Rainbow stepped inside with the stallion in tow, slowing as she noticed the changes that had been made since she left.

Her bed, technically still Aurora’s bed, had been tidied up with a new comforter and fresh pillows. A fabricated end table now stood beside it, complete with a small reading lamp and alarm clock. In the empty corner between the desk and the foot of the bed, once relegated to dust bunnies and a suspicious quantity of grey horse hair stood a banged up yet sturdy wooden wardrobe. One of the doors had been propped open for her benefit so she could see the fresh towels and linens folded inside.

There wasn’t exactly a running theme for decor in Aurora’s compartment - the mystery mare liked to keep things spartan, by all accounts - but whoever brought in the additions had gone through some effort to make the space feel a little less like a hollow cube and more like a proper bedroom. That said, an embarrassed smirk touched her cheek when she spotted the battered black tool cart parked on the right side of the desk. Across the lip of the dented lid, a scuffed black sticker read A. PINFEATHERS in stamped white letters. A coffee pot sat on top, the carafe irreparably caked with brown stains but otherwise empty. One of the tool drawers had been pulled open to house a squat can of grounds and a dozen or so wrinkled sugar packets. A chipped red mug sat beside them.

She stood there at the center of her room, smiling at the generous offering.

“Some of the guys wanted the coffee pot turned on for when you came back down, but I figured you might want to try getting some sleep before we risked finding out what Blue might get up to with caffeine in her system.”

She snorted. “When did you find time for this?”

“I might have made a few calls when you took your nap. I did say I was going to get coffee.”

She sighed and hooked her wing around Sledge’s neck, hugging him. “Thank you.”

“Likewise.”

He squeezed back, practically popping her like a balloon with the strength of his own wings. What did they feed the pegasi down here? She swore she heard some of her bones realign when he let go.

A quick gesture from his hoof pointed her attention to the bathroom. “Carbide brought a few folks up to give everything a good scrub. There’s new soap and, ah, mare… stuff, for you.”

She lifted a brow at him.

For a stallion with a red coat, he blushed easily. “Anyway, your belongings are in your nightstand drawer. Carbide’s a steel trap when it comes to privacy, but I can’t speak for everyone that helped out. I’m sure some of them recognized your necklace.”

“Yeah,” She shrugged and pulled the drawer open. The empty socket of her necklace stared back up at her. “It doesn’t really leave much room for wrong guesses, does it? Something tells me living down here as a regular pony wasn’t in the cards for me anyway. I should probably assume word’s gonna travel fast, huh?”

He shrugged. “On the bright side, it’ll be the best news they’ll hear since all this started. We can figure it out tomorrow. Get some sleep in the meantime, okay?”

Her freshly made bed did look inviting. The trick was going to be getting her mind to stop spinning. “I’ll try. Thanks again, Sledge.”

“Goodnight, Dash.”

She watched him swipe out and sighed to herself when the door slid shut behind him. Equestria could’ve used a stallion like him. She snorted, flopping onto her bed with a satisfied groan. Who was she trying to kid? Her own ministry could have used a stallion like Sledge. With someone like him around, she doubted she would have made the mistakes she did. He sure as heck would’ve put Spitfire in her place before she got it in her head to hijack her life.

What was left of her chromatic mane rasped against the plush pillows cradling her head. So much had gone on in the last twenty-four hours that she didn’t know where to start. Extending her wing, she reached past her new nightstand and hit the lightswitch. The dark was a relief to her strained eyes and she rolled onto her side in hopes of finding sleep.

She listened to the quiet crackle of her pillow as it compressed beneath her cheek. Her slow, steady breathing as she grew more comfortable. The hum of the generator reverberated through the bedframe. The sound of Apogee sobbing as the satellite she helped assemble poured death over a defenseless Vhanna.

She pressed her face into her pillow and muttered a muffled, “Fuck.”

Sleep wasn’t coming anywhere near her if she couldn’t reckon with the circling vultures of today’s discoveries. Rolling over to face the darkened room, she fumbled for the wall switch with her hoof until she managed to smack it back on. She needed to think, not stew. Sitting up, she slipped off her bed and poked her head into the compartment’s partitioned bathroom. True to his word, Sledge’s people had scrubbed every inch right down to the grouted tile. Even the toilet and sink had gotten a deep clean. Stepping out of the baggy Stable-Tec jumpsuit he’d had her wear, she kicked it to the foot of her bed and stepped into the shower.

Hot water sputtered from the showerhead. With an indulgent groan she turned her face into the stream, her tired joints finally loosening after so many hours of sitting in Opal’s office. Turning to let the water soak into her shoulders and tail, she glanced at the collection of shampoos, conditioners and what appeared to be homemade soap resting on the shower shelf. There was even a tiny glass vial of some kind of amber perfume. The dreaded mare stuff. She laughed, picked up a bar of soap that looked suspiciously like one of Granny Smith’s fruitcakes and gave it a sniff. It smelled a little like pine needles and vanilla. Weird combination. That, or ghoulification really had killed off her sense of smell. Regardless, it was a gift, and one of Applejack’s personal rules was never to snub a well meaning gift. She tipped the bar into the stream and managed to work up a lather between her feathers. Her mind went to work as she showered.

“Okay, Dash. Think like Twilight and make a list of what you know.”

She knew Equestria had dropped the balefire bombs on itself. She knew SOLUS hadn’t been the solar powered technology of tomorrow that Jet Stream had promised the world it would be. She remembered how the Ministry of Image had begun pumping out disinformation claiming Vhanna had stolen plans for the bomb, but wasn’t convinced Rarity would actually publish something so blatantly false if she’d known what would lead to. Had she been involved somehow?

She didn’t think so. The war had changed all of them in ways they couldn’t have predicted, Rarity more than most, but she wasn’t evil. Rainbow couldn’t picture her knowingly setting up Vhanna as a scapegoat as a cover for global genocide. None of the breadcrumbs left behind by Delta Vee pointed close to that direction.

Water trickled off her chin and toward the concave cavity of what remained of her belly. The soap skidded along the lines of her protruding ribs, reminding her of the Nightmare Night cartoons her mom would put on with the dancing pony skeletons that played each other like xylophones. Centuries of isolation - Luna’s sake that was going to take time to get used to - had not been kind to her athletic figure. She made a mental note. When this generator crisis was over, she was getting back to the gym. Or whatever this place had that was closest to one. She’d been okay with looking her age in her forties but she had not agreed to looking like a haunted house decoration in her two-hundred-and-sixties.

A self-deprecating chuckle drew a smile across her tired face. She wondered what Spitfire would say if she saw her as she was now. Would she feel guilty? She rolled her eyes, knowing it was long past time when it would matter how that scheming bitch felt. Any bridges the two of them had were burned well before the bombs set the world on fire, and anyway Spitfire would probably be too pissed off that she’d finally gotten inside her precious Stable to do anything other than sputter. If Spitfire had her way, she’d still be outside in that dusty tunnel lost in her own head.

Old anger bloomed afresh as she lathered one hind leg, realizing as she did that she didn’t have the wing to do the other. She sufficed to rub her unwashed leg against the other, happy no one was here to watch.

She paused, frowning. “Huh.”

Spitfire.

Her frown deepened. The only reason Delta wound up having to leave a trail of clues for them was because Spitfire had ordered her to erase the first decade of Stable 10’s history. And then there was the footage from her office. The phone call that reduced her to a puddle of tears just hours before the generator first teetered over the edge of failure, only for the lights to eventually come back on in time for a furious Delta to barge in and nearly come to blows with her overseer. She’d been filthy and out of breath, as if she’d just gotten back from Mechanical herself. That part still wasn’t clicking for her. What would the Head of I.T. been doing down in Mechanical? There were still pieces missing. She wrinkled her nose at the tiles and decided to set that aside.

Spitfire had to have known something was about to happen. Her expression when the emergency lights kicked in had been devoid of any surprise. There had only been resignation there, as if the heated call she’d taken just prior had been some sort of warning she hadn’t wanted to hear or believe. There was also the issue of her sealing the Stable early, but then again Spitfire kept few secrets about her interest in leading a population composed exclusively of pegasi.

The soap slowed in her wing, coming to a stop against her breastbone. Water rinsed the suds through her feathers until it ran clean.

“But…” She stared at the tile, thoughts racing. She recalled the video of the afterparty following Spitfire’s Remembrance Day speech, right before the phone call. She’d been chatting with Thunderlane. But Thunderlane lived in Cloudsdale. Most of the Wonderbolts did… but the first public evacuation warnings were broadcast after the first bomb destroyed Cloudsdale, so how did so many Wonderbolts survive the explosion unless…

“They knew it was coming.”

She tightened her grip around the bar with a trembling wing. It hadn’t just been Thunderlane. There had been an entire contingent of pegasi guarding the Stable door until the moment it rolled shut. Spitfire had been there too, watching as they drew rifles on a growing crowd of scared and confused non-pegasi. Each one of them wore crisp, clean flight suits without so much as a flake of ash on them. They’d known.

Spitfire, Thunderlane, the Wonderbolts.

Every single one of them had known.

“Hold her still!”

“I’m trying! She won't stop thrashing!”

Julip tried to tell them she wasn’t moving on purpose but every time she tried the words only muddled into a wheezing squeak of agony. Every breath felt like a jagged knife scraping the inside of her ribs but her body refused to let her stop. She writhed in Ginger’s magic, the sensation of suffocating ripping her out of unconsciousness in time to feel the worst pain her screaming nerves could bear to deliver.

She was losing the fight to stay calm and Ginger’s efforts to keep her stationary were only making things worse. She wanted to say she was sorry. She didn’t mean to make this so hard on them. She should have listened to Aurora the first time and left them alone. Not force herself into their lives just to have them drop everything to save hers.

“Woah, lady, is she okay?”

The nameless stallion’s voice came and went faster than she could process. Through bloodshot eyes Julip could make out the fuzzy lines of a straight road and tall buildings. They were back in Fillydelphia proper. The metro area. She could feel the wind tugging her open wing and groaned in weak protest. Everybody could see her. They’d know she was from the Enclave. They would assume Roach and Ginger were involved. Everything was falling apart thanks to her.

She clenched the muscles in her stomach to distract her from the agony in her chest just long enough to gurgle the word, “Wing.”

“You don’t have time, Julip.”

She groaned. It wasn’t about her.

“Roach and I will cover for you. Don’t worry. Stay still.”

Her abdominal muscles gave out and wilting sob trickled from her throat. Why did she try to run? Why hadn’t she done the right thing and stayed by Aurora like she was supposed to do?

“Roach, where is this doctor of yours?”

“We should be close! I saw it after we… there! On the right!”

Julip squeezed her eyes shut as she lurched up onto the curb in Ginger’s magic. Voices she didn’t recognize reacted with a mixture of shock and confusion as they pushed through a clutch of pedestrians and down a cracked and roughly patched sidewalk. Pain flared again as she jerked to a stop, the momentum abruptly bleeding off as Roach and Ginger pushed through a door that clapped shut behind them like a gunshot because nobody in Fillydelphia apparently knew what a fucking doorstop was.

She clung to her own anger like a raft. It gave her something to focus on while her body did its best to shut down. Voices erupted as soon as they were inside. Julip managed to force her eyes open enough to see a unicorn stallion in a tacky corduroy suit standing rigid behind a long display case bisecting the front room of a store. Dozens of iconic bottles, boxes and tins stood behind the glass: Mentats, Daytripper, Big Buck… she crushed her eyes shut in frustration. A fucking chem salespony. His attention immediately darted to her dangling feathers.

“Excuse me! She cannot be in here! You need to...”

Roach shouted him down. “She’s a dustwing and she’s dying! Help her.”

“Roach, lower your voice.”

“No.”

“I-I sell medicinal a-and herbal remedies. I don’t…”

A hoof slammed against wood, causing Julip to tense and double against herself as fresh agony burned her chest.

“I was a doctor but I-I-I haven’t performed a surgery in years due to the difficulty acquiring supplies and… is… that's a chest wound. How is she still…?” A brief pause. His eyes widened at the curious faces gathering outside his window. Julip instinctively tried to curl up her loose wing but couldn’t muster the strength to hide what the lookiloos had already seen. “Oh for goddess’s sake ponies are staring. Just take her in the back before the Rangers come sniffing around.”

The maybe-doctor hadn’t finished his sentence before Julip felt herself lurched behind the counter on Ginger’s magic. She squeezed her eyes shut against the bright, fresh pain brought by the sudden motion and endured it with only the smallest whimper. Hinges squealed and hooves scuffed across dry floorboards, dampened by the muffling effect of clutter. She opened her eyes enough to see hundreds of dusty bottles in a dimly lit storeroom, many easily as old as Roach, lined in orderly rows above tiny labels held to bowing wooden shelves with brass tacks. An incandescent bulb burned with yellow light from a fixture overhead, evidently selected for utility rather than aesthetics.

For a moment she just hovered there, held still by Ginger while glassware clattered and boxes thumped to the floor. Furniture scraped beneath her and she hissed through gritted teeth as she was laid onto a table cobbled together with bent nails and scrap wood. Her cheek briefly settled against a plank embossed with the logo of a prewar shipping company, but no sooner had she begun to settle than Roach hurried into view, one of his saddlebags (where did he get saddlebags?) flung open and a bundle of folded leather held in the crook of his foreleg. Gently as he could manage, he eased her head off the uneven table and slid the bundle beneath it. At first she worried he’d found Aurora’s dumpster disguise and braced herself for the odor, but when he set her head down and the plush - albeit a little musty - leather conformed against her cheek. Hoping to reassure him, she managed a pained and unconvincing smile.

The storeroom door clattered open and from its direction came the harried muttering of the maybe-doctor. He gave Julip an unconcealed look of suspicion as he passed behind Roach, his eyes darting into the changeling’s open saddlebag and spotting the first aid kit inside. A cloud of lavender magic yanked the kit free, flipping open the latch to briefly examine the contents. The unicorn grunted with something approaching a grudging satisfaction before plucking two corked brown bottles from his shelves.

Bottles of dubious liquid plunked down in a neat row in front of Julip’s nose. A short stack of cotton rags followed suit, as well as a stimpack and a yellowed length of plastic tubing. She frowned at the word scrawled across the first bottle. Growing up in the less affluent corners of New Canterlot, a mare got to know her chems pretty quick. The street names varied but the basic chemistry was usually the same. The only ponies who avoided the sexy terminology of chem dealers were the rare few ponies who still studied medicine professionally.

Squinting at the bottle, it took her several tries to pronounce iodopovidone in her head. Reading it allowed her to calm down slightly, even as the stallion pushed past Roach to better inspect her wounds. She stiffened as he used his rougher magic to lift her feathers away from her ribs while settling the cup of a rust-speckled stethoscope beneath the wing’s joint.

“Breathe in, deep as you can,” he said.

She obeyed, but the sensation of knives sinking into every inch of her chest stopped her short of anything approaching deep. The stethoscope moved down to her ribs, practically pinned beneath her skin and the table. “One more.”

She felt her heart drop as his brow furrowed at her second, meager breath. Behind him, Ginger and Roach stood together, watching. She swallowed and looked away, wishing they would too.

Maybe-Doctor poked, prodded and appeared to walk himself down a mental checklist as he confirmed what she already knew. Her left lung had completely collapsed. It wouldn't be long until the other went too.

“You've got a collapsed lung and the other has fluid building inside,” he said, staring down at her ribs as if he were looking through her. “I can’t say whether the bullet ricocheted while it passed through but my guess would be it did. Managed to miss any vital arteries, somehow, or we wouldn't be talking. I’m assuming by the amount of new tissue around the entry and exit wounds that one of you administered a stimpack.”

“Around thirty minutes ago,” Roach murmured.

Maybe-Doctor regarded her like an unwanted chore. “If the round punctured her lung she'll have pushed air into the chest cavity. She'll need a chest tube put in. I can’t do that while she’s awake.”

Her eyes went to the folded rags and the brown bottle beside them, connecting the dots. Shaking her head, her hooves scraped against the table as she tried to push herself away but amber light stopped her short of falling off the other side. Maybe-Doctor was quick to grab his supplies before her weakened flailing could knock anything over. Her ineffective effort to get away was rewarded with pain, dizziness and a smothering fatigue like she’d never felt before. Ginger didn’t have to push her back down. She collapsed on her own, dropping her head back to the makeshift pillow despite her mind still railing against the prospect of being put under by some stranger while the enemy patrolled the streets outside.

She might not be loyal to the Enclave, but that didn’t mean the Rangers wouldn’t put another bullet in her just to be sure. Her eyes clawed at the unicorn stallion to eliminate any question of who she was addressing. The taste of scabs filled her mouth as she coughed out the word, “No.”

Behind the stallion, Ginger spoke up. “Julip, let him help you.”

Undeterred, she continued glaring at Maybe-Doctor, determined to give him a fight if he tried anything.

“Julip.”

The sound of Roach’s voice pulled her gaze away until she reluctantly turned toward the changeling. He nudged past the other stallion and linked a hoof around one of hers, squeezing for emphasis. Whether it was reflex or something else, she did her best to squeeze back as he brought his muzzle to her ear.

In a whispered voice, he asked, “What are you afraid of?”

She swallowed, grateful that he was blocking the other two ponies in the room from seeing her face. Her lip twitched with the same uncertainty she’d shown when he first started chatting with her during their first patrol together back on the rails. Weird how four days could feel like such a long time ago. In that time, Roach had done little else but show her kindness where Ginger and Aurora - especially Aurora - openly wore their suspicion toward her. As the events of the past few days softened those edges, Julip expected Roach’s attention to gradually wane as normalcy within their group reestablished itself. But he didn’t. He still found quiet moments to pull her aside so they could talk, swap stories and afford Julip the perspective that the Enclave denied her.

“Hurting me,” she breathed.

Roach gave her hoof a gentle shake. “He won’t hurt you. I’ll be here the whole time to make sure of it.”

Part of her needed to hear that. Another dreaded it, pouring more guilt onto her already festering wounds. “I’m sorry.”

A pause betrayed the pain in his voice. “Nothing to be sorry about.”

She tried to shake her head, but the muscles in her neck only twitched. “Aurora.”

He pulled away from her ear until their eyes met. She didn’t think she’d ever get used to the expressiveness his opaque, pupil-less eyes were capable of. “Who took her?”

“Rangers,” she breathed. Roach’s expression went slack for only a split second, but it was more than enough time for her to see the suspicion bloom in his eyes.

Her thoughts pulled her back to when she’d been frozen mid stride by the armored unicorns. The leader of that stealthy fireteam had taken his time. A smug fucker, probably some high-ranking desk jockey who spent all day practicing his monologues. The crack of his gun had sent a visceral spasm through her body and she’d been convinced she would die. Only she hadn’t yet. It only made sense. Her whole family tree budded with angry, stubborn assholes. Even as her brain tried to reckon with the pure wrongness blooming inside her chest, she’d heard that stallion speak clear as crystal, his voice smooth and low.

Hello, Aurora.

Her eyes dipped as she made the connection. “He knew her,” she said, grimacing at the ache that came with speaking. “The leader. Grey stallion. Silver magic with a crucible mark. Knew Aurora’s name.”

Ginger hissed. “Ironshod.”

Roach’s ear twitched toward her, nodding grimly.

Seconds passed and Julip could feel the room darken a little. She wanted to ask who this Ironshod was and what he meant to them, but all she could muster was another tired, “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault, green bean.”

She blinked, her preloaded answer of yes it was overridden by the unexpected nickname. Her lips moved soundlessly, struggling to process the obnoxiously out of place moniker. The forced grin on his face told her he knew exactly what he’d done and that she wasn’t invited to backpedal toward the topic of Rangers or Aurora. That was for them to worry about, not her.

“You can chew my hide as much as you like once you’re better,” he rumbled, his voice rising to normal volume. “Deal?”

Just like that, the time for talking was over. Things needed to start happening that Julip didn’t want to happen, but the fear that lingered wasn’t the uncontrollable animal that it had been. She could keep a lid on what remained. Still, she struggled to pack away the discomfort that came with knowing she was pulling them both away from finding Aurora.

“Deal.”

Stifling a reflexive cough, she flicked her eyes toward the other stallion in the room. Her gaze lingered on the curiously specific mark on his flank, unsure whether the object depicted boded well or poorly for what came next. The stallion’s ear was turned toward them even as he soaked one of the folded rags with clear liquid.

Noticing her attention, he glanced at her and then Roach. “Are we ready to proceed?”

She nodded.

He gave the bottle of chloroform another tip into the rag before pressing the cork into the neck and levitating the saturated cloth for Roach to take. “Hold this under her nose and try not to breathe the vapor yourself. If you want to stay, then you help.”

Julip tried not to think as Roach took the cloth into the flat of his hoof, eyed it for a moment, then brought it toward her muzzle. She flinched, expecting the first whiff to knock her out like ponies did in the old movies. Instead, she found herself treated to a not unpleasant scent of citrus and acetone. It reminded her of the perfume stores that speckled New Canterlot’s commercial district, not that she’d even been the type of mare to wear it. Still, it smelled kind of nice.

Minutes passed and, slowly, her body began to feel heavy. Swimming in a bouquet of fumes, she occasionally gave Roach’s hoof a squeeze to let him know she was still awake. Gradually, those squeezes grew weaker. She watched the doctor through half-lidded eyes as he dabbed her entry wound with a cold, yellow-brown liquid. The iodopinkadinkadone. She snorted with a loopy giggle. Iodoopidoo.

Eyes drifting to the stupid mark on his hip. Thoughts bouncing off the nickname Roach had dubbed her with.

Green bean.

Drunk on fumes, the pain fading away, she giggled again. Another winged Bean. Could be worse. Maybe Meridian would like her if she was a bean?

As she drifted out of consciousness a final, semi coherent thought passed through her mind like fog. What kind of doctor had a pepper shaker for a cutie mark?

“You should know that I charge extra for fugitives.” The stallion smiled for a millisecond before realizing his audience wasn’t in the mood for his bedside manner. “Just a joke.”

Ginger sat with her back against the shelves, eyes on the dusty floorboards. The ill-wanted humor floated out of the doctor’s mouth as easily as if he were commenting on the weather, but they were enough to jar her from the paralysis induced by Julip’s last waking words.

Ironshod. He was here. He’d followed them all the way out here, across hundreds of miles of wasteland and mountains and Luna knew what else just to find Aurora and… do what, exactly? Bring her back to the Bluff? Punish her? Kill her? Elder Coldbrook wasn’t particularly happy with the way Aurora burned down her own Pip-Buck account just to keep him from getting into Stable 10, but he hadn’t written them off. Not yet, anyway, or else he wouldn’t have pulled the strings to convince the local chapter of Rangers to loan out one of their coveted suits of power armor. What sense was there in armoring the very pegasus he intended to abduct?

There wasn’t. Pushing herself off the floor, she went to the edge of the table next to Roach and touched his shoulder. “I need to find her.”

He didn’t meet her gaze. “She could be anywhere, Ginger. She msy not even be in Fillydelphia anymore.”

“I don’t care. I owe it to her.”

She looked at Julip, the mare sleeping away the precious seconds on a bed of sickly sweet chloroform fumes, and knew there was nothing she could say that would move Roach from this spot. Whether Julip knew it or not, he’d taken her on as his newest charge. She was his to teach and protect, much in the same way Ginger had been years ago. He would sooner peel off his own chitin than leave Julip alone. It was hard not to be angry with him, even though Ginger knew the position he was in had to be awful.

Roach pressed his lips together, thinking. His pale eyes flicked to the doctor who was making no attempt to hide he was listening. They'd barged into his world, she supposed. Let him eavesdrop.

"Well," he said, eyes returning to Julip, "what's your plan?"

She sighed relief, half expecting him to argue against splitting up. The last time one of them disappeared on him, he'd been held at the pleasure of the Rangers at the Bluff. At least this time he wasn't alone.

"We need help," she said, as if that weren't obvious enough. "I'm going to talk to whoever is in charge of the Fillydelphia chapter and see if we can't… undo this mess."

Roach looked dubious. "She said Rangers took Aurora. The ones here could be involved."

"I'll let myself out if they are."

The doctor hummed as he prepared his tools. "Magnus Plaza isn't a revolving door, miss. If Elder Coronado has a reason to detain you, he will."

She frowned at him, watching as he positioned a disturbingly thick needle between Julip's ribs. With a look of concentration he sank it into her until a sputter of bloody bubbles rose into the syringe. Satisfied, he disconnected the glass cylinder with a practiced twist and gas hissed through the unobstructed needle like a deflating tire.

"If anything feels wrong," Roach warned, "get out. Get back here as quickly as you can. No haggling, no bargaining, none of it. Promise me you’ll come straight back if anything goes wrong.”

She struggled for words, nodding silently at his hooves.

“Ginger,” he repeated, “promise me.”

“I promise. I’ll come back.”

When she looked up, he was staring at her. His face was a dam that held back the emotion welling up inside him. He was struggling. They both were. Every instinct they had screamed at them to stay together. That splitting up now, when it already felt like things were coming apart at the seams, would have ramifications that would doom themselves and an entire Stable waiting for them back home. And yet they both knew their other choice was unthinkable. To stay here and protect Julip while Aurora vanished into the wasteland, another victim of its unforgiving cruelty.

“I will.” Her assurance felt hollow. Like she was making promises that the Rangers could slap away should they see fit.

Roach nodded, hooked her around the neck with his leg and dragged her into a crushing hug. He smelled of dust and damp and stress. She grimaced to keep the tears at bay, squeezing him back as her gaze dipped toward Julip. Were it not for that small, profanity-spouting mare hanging on for this long, Aurora would have been beyond finding. Now there was a chance.

She let him go. “Tell her I said thank you.”

“Tell her yourself once you’re back.”

She forgave the cliche and allowed a flimsy smile to crack through her gloom. A touch of intention lit her horn, lifting her saddlebags off her hips and setting them at his hooves with the unspoken expectation that he protect the precious talisman inside. He slipped a hoof through the straps and pulled the bags beneath his chest.

After a pause, Ginger took a steadying breath and turned to the doctor. "Is there another way out of here?"

He glanced up from his preparations, looked to the door leading to his salesfloor, then to the opposite side of the storeroom where the shelves bent around a corner. "Rear door's around back. Lock it behind you."

Shaking his head, he added, "Goddesses know I need more of you barging in."

The storeroom emptied out into an alley strewn with rubble, discarded refuse and the rusted front half of an old transport carriage. Ginger hurried over the first few yards of debris before slowing down just enough to remember her horn. Impatience drew the spell into a shallow wall of light that bulldozed the obstructions out of her way, slopping mounds of broken concrete and garbage up against the neighboring buildings hard enough to elicit startled shouts from windows overhead. She didn’t care.

Breaking into a sprint, she left the alley behind for the city’s wider boulevards. A quick turn and a short run brought her back to the streetfront the now unretired doctor’s pharmacy looked out on. A small group of ponies still loitered on the sidewalk Ginger and Roach come in from, their irritation at being locked away from good gossip shown clearly on their faces. Turning left would take her toward them. Beyond that, the city’s bomb-blasted northern half, the crater and its camouflage of irradiated seawater. She felt herself being pulled in that direction, back toward the submerged Stable and its wealth of resources within. Maybe Applebloom would have something that could detect Pip-Bucks? Maybe, but probably not.

She turned right and leaned into a hard gallop down the center of the road, weaving between carriages and pedestrians while the towers of Magnus Plaza loomed large. The city’s center rose up to engulf her. Someone shouted a passing where’s the fire at her as she streaked by, but they were lost to the city’s anemic street traffic by the time the words registered.

The fortified walls of stacked steel and wire-reinforced cubes of rubble rose up to greet her, along with the Rangers tasked with guarding it. A short line of ponies waited at the main gate, some in Ranger uniform while others were evidently civilians like her. A silver suit of power armor quietly observed the line while a tired-looking mare in uniform stood at the gate with a clipboard strapped to her foreleg. A length of pencil hung from her lip like a cigarette as she spoke with a collared stallion at the front of the line, idly scratching notes as he answered her questions.

Ginger didn’t have time to wait. Aurora even less so. She pushed to the front of the line, earning an arched brow from the mare with the clipboard and the steady gaze of her armored counterpart.

Clipboard Mare stepped in front of her. “Back of the line, ma’am.”

She stopped. “I need to speak with your Elder.”

“Back of the line.”

The momentum she had was quickly piling up behind her, tempting her to shove past and damn the consequences. She could do it, too. Only by the thinnest margin was she able to wrestle that temptation under control and summon the polite, businesslike demeanor she’d learned to wear behind the counter at Gussets & Garments. “Darling, Elder Coronado is expecting me. I was just here yesterday and…”

“I don’t care.” The mare stared her down, unimpressed and out of patience. “This is an active military installation, not whatever red light nightclub you think it is. Now turn around and take the highborn nobility act of yours to the back before I have you arrested.”

The armored Ranger turned to face her more fully as if to emphasize the threat.

She didn’t have time to wait in lines, fill out paperwork or take a number and wait. She certainly wasn’t going to waste precious minutes spilling her guts to every Ranger with a clipboard, either. Her gaze flicked away from the gatekeepers to a clear spot just beyond the gate. One easy teleport and she’d be within sprinting distance of the orderly gridwork of barracks buildings ringing the plaza walls. If she got lucky, maybe she could…

“For the love of Celestia, Rivers, just let her through.”

Ginger blinked, following Clipboard Mare’s glare as it pivoted to the dull, chocolate colored earth pony she’d cut in front of.

“Knight Rivers,” she corrected, eyeing the ring of iron locked around his neck. “And I don’t recall asking for your input.”

The stallion shrugged, unfazed. If anything he looked annoyed, as if the back and forth between the gatekeepers and Ginger were getting in the way of his own personal schedule of… whatever work slaves did on an active Ranger base. She wondered about that, but only for a moment until the stallion spoke again.

“I’m just saying, she’s obviously in a bigger hurry than the rest of us.”

Knight Rivers narrowed her eyes at him, urging him to shut up. “Your propensity for avoiding work notwithstanding, we have a process…”

“...that’ll let her through eventually.” He paused, holding up a hoof to yawn. Rivers flicked an irritated look to her armored counterpart, but found no help there. When he finished, he tipped a hoof toward Ginger. “I mean, just look at her. You’re actually going to fill out the intake paperwork over some harmless Rarity impersonator because she cut the line? Come on, Rivers. You can’t be that bored.”

Were she not in uniform, Ginger imagined she might have seen the Knight’s hackles go up. Whoever this stallion was, he knew her well enough to push the right buttons. After a tense stretch of silence, Knight Rivers whispered something colorful between her teeth and stepped aside.

“If she starts anything, Ganache, you’ll share the punishment.”

“You should eat something, Rivers.” He smiled at her as he passed by. “You get paranoid when you’re hungry.”

Ginger followed the stallion through the gate while avoiding the mare’s withering glare. When she caught up she expected him to be wearing a conspiratorial grin. Anything other than the cool indifference he showed her once he bothered to look up.

“Thank you,” she said.

He nodded, leading her along a narrow path following the curve of the plaza wall. “Uh huh. You’re that Dressage mare, yeah?”

“Um.” She glanced toward the barracks where more than a few ponies in uniform loitered outside the doors, watching them as they passed. “Yes. How did…?”

“Cutie mark,” he said, tipping his head toward the collar and chain adorning her hips. “That, and the tail. Slaver’s Guild hasn’t allowed the short cuts for a few years now, especially the one you’ve got. From behind you kind of resemble the deer folk from Thorny Thicket, but with less coverage.”

She cleared her throat to cut off any more of his unfiltered observations. “Thank you for your help, Ganache, but I’m in something of a hurry.”

“I can tell. You’re looking for Coronado, yeah?”

She picked up the pace, loping into a trot. Ganache matched her. She tried not to grimace. “Yes,” she said.

“Huh. Your Rarity act sucks, by the by. Do you know where he is?”

She stifled a retort and looked instead toward the glass towers at the plaza’s center, gnawing at her lip with growing consternation. “Up there?”

Ganache hummed. “If you say so.”

Okay. Helpful or not, he was quickly wearing out his welcome. “Is there something you want?”

He trotted faster until they were practically shoulder to shoulder. She veered away, creating some distance. At this rate he was going to follow her all the way up to the towers.

“I thought mares like you were all about random acts of generosity."

She opened her mouth to shoot back, but he beat her to the punch.

"There’s a rumor going around that you and your friends shut down the slaver depot in Kiln,” he murmured, going quiet as they made room for a pair of Rangers in scarred power armor. Ginger tried to appear neutral, but the mention of their massacre at Kiln dried her throat. Once they were out of earshot he continued. “That, on top of your people tearing down F&F Mercantile… well, you’ve made being a Ranger a lot less cushy than it was a week ago.”

She blew out an impatient breath and turned onto a crushed gravel path between the barracks, leading her on a direct path toward the towers. “What do you want?”

Ganache avoided the watchful eyes of the passing Rangers. Apparently she wasn’t the only one sensing he was up to something.

“Unlock my collar and I’ll take you to Coronado. Straight shot, no checkpoints or guards.”

She tilted a brow at him. “I can get through checkpoints on my own.”

He snorted. “Clearly, darling.”

She ignored him, but he was undeterred.

“Listen, I don’t know what you have going on, but nobody here is going to let you waltz in for a quick chat with the Elder unannounced. It doesn’t work that way. He’s protected.”

“Excuse me,” she said, stepping around a mare on the side of the walkway in the middle of oiling a rifle nearly large enough to rival Meridian’s railway gun. The Ranger barely acknowledged them.

“What’s so important that you need to talk to him and not one of the ponies down here?”

She shot him a look.

“Okay, okay. Hear me out. The Rangers bought me from the Guild because I can cook, right? I’m good at it, too. Good enough that they’ve got me assigned to the chief cook’s mess. You follow me?”

“Feels more like you’re still following me.”

The jab glanced off Ganache like he hadn’t heard it at all. “I can get you into the kitchen through the slave quarters. Coronado always takes his lunch late to chat up the non-coms, so he’s liable to be in the mess hall right about now. I can get you to him. All I want in return is for you to…”

Her horn pulsed with a flicker of light and the collar around Ganache’s neck sprang open. The stallion stifled a surprised curse, quickly pinning the open ring between his chin and shoulder before it fell to the gravel. She watched him hurry off the path, suddenly alert, making a bee-line between the barracks buildings and vanishing from sight. She didn’t wait to see where he’d gone. His unconvincing gambit had gotten him what he wanted, for whatever good it did him. Once he was known to be missing, the Slaver’s Guild would be made aware and they’d add him to their list of runaways. Maybe life would be good to him, maybe not. She didn’t have the luxury to think about it.

A brisk pace left the barracks behind and the gravel path opened up into the wider, semi formal spaces surrounding the towers. More Rangers seemed to gather here than anywhere else, crowding around large tents and cobbled-together structures advertising food, entertainment and a wide selection of resale armor and weaponry. There was almost a carnival-like atmosphere to it all, making Ginger wonder about what Ganache had said earlier. That the collapse of Autumn Song’s trade routes and decimation of the Kiln slaver hub were the first real traces of excitement these Rangers were being forced to contend with. Out here, so far from the reach of the Enclave, joining up with the Rangers must have seemed like easy work and easier caps. Enough so that the local constabulary had dedicated a sizable portion of their base to keeping their soldiers occupied and out of trouble.

As she slipped past a clutch of Rangers in a heated debate over weapon modifications, Ganache reappeared beside her, his collar conspicuously absent from his neck. “You’re going the wrong way.”

He surprised her. Were she in his hooves, she would’ve been putting as many miles between her and Fillydelphia as she could while her window for escape was still open. Yet here he was.

“I didn’t think you’d come back.”

He shrugged. “A deal’s a deal. Had to get rid of the ornament. Thanks for warning me, by the way. Now follow me. And if anyone asks, you’re taking me to get a new collar fitted.”

She trotted after him as he pulled ahead. “You seem confident that anyone here would believe me.”

The uncollared slave smirked, eyeing her hip. “You’d be surprised.”

The glass towers engulfed the overcast sky as if leaning over her, tricking Ginger’s brain into feeling a sensation of being pushed backward by some invisible force. She forced her eyes down and followed Ganache down the side of the western tower where a small cluster of collared ponies loitered outside a single service door propped open by half a cinder block. Some smoked, some chatted. All of them looked exhausted. Their eyes tracked Ginger and Ganache’s approach in silence until they were turning toward the open door. An auburn mare with a wicker basket adorning her hip eyed Ganache as he passed by.

“Forget something?”

For his part, Ganache wasn’t half-bad at feigning embarrassment. He tipped his nose toward Ginger as she followed him in as if she were to blame. The mare glanced at Ginger, spotted the chains on her hip and was suddenly very interested with the cracked cement beneath her hooves.

The world around her shrank as she stepped inside as she found herself following Ganache through a series of beige hallways studded with what had once been ground floor offices. A few original doors remained on their hinges, but most of the converted slave quarters were hidden behind old bedsheets and the odd shower curtain. Some of the frames stood empty, their occupants on full display as the two of them walked by. Many of the offices housed four or more slaves to a single space - practically a luxury compared to the sardine cans her father turned his own slaves’ quarters into. He operated on the principle that a slave should dread their time off work rather than look forward to it, believing a slave who enjoyed their rest would seek to do it more often. Any other ordinary guild member would have had a revolt on their hooves, but her father was anything but ordinary.

He took her to an elevator bank that was unsurprisingly out of service, turning instead to an open stairwell with the words LEAVE OPEN painted black across the propped door. The combined odors of stale sweat, old food and damp air assaulted her senses as they climbed through the unventilated air. She shut her eyes against the churn of her stomach, embarrassed that she should even be bothered by something that the slaves hurrying past them on the steps had to live with day in and day out. It was one of the things she’d been awful at when she lived under her father’s roof: pretending not to notice.

If there was one thing she was proud of from her time in New Canterlot, it was that she did notice.

The doors leading to the second and third floor had been bricked shut but the fourth was intact. Ganache pushed through, leading her into a carpeted hallway. A dark arc of worn, green flooring bent away from another bricked wall on their right as if to herd them in the correct direction. With the flattened carpet indicating the only way forward, they turned left down the hall and walked until the stale odor of the stairwell gave way to a far more pleasant scent of something savory. Confused by the sudden change, her stomach flipped again out of sheer protest.

“What’s that smell?”

Ganache lifted a hoof without missing a step, indicating a decorative sign suspended from the ceiling on rusted wires. The cursive letters of Whippletree Taphouse still stood out behind someone’s hasty attempt to whitewash the plastic, now bearing the words Enlisted’s Mess.

“Sauteed mutfruit,” he sighed. “We’ve been using them to make the hedgehogs go down easier.”

“Hedgehogs?”

Ganache shook his head. “Not real hedgehogs, unless the Rangers figured out how to bring them back. It’s hard to explain. They’re not my idea.”

Ginger decided not to ask and followed him to a single door near the end of the hall, beside which stood a single Ranger. The stallion glanced their way, recognition flashing in his eyes when he saw Ganache followed quickly by open irritation.

“You’re late, Ganache.” He met Ginger’s gaze, his eyes narrowing. “Who’s she?”

Ganache said nothing, ears pinned back as he looked away. He was nearly as good an actor as Julip. Possibly better. Taking that to be her cue, she answered, but not before a flash of inspiration struck her.

“Rosemary Dressage, how do you do,” she greeted, using her sister’s name in place of her own. If Ganache had been telling the truth and rumors were already swirling into Fillydelphia, announcing herself here could be a potential landmine she needed to avoid. “I caught this stallion wearing a broken collar in the plaza and thought it would be wise to escort him to his work, personally.”

The Ranger’s frown dropped to Ganache. “I’m sorry to hear that, ma’am. Thank you for bringing him back.”

“You should be thanking me for more than that, and you should count yourself lucky that I came here on business in the first place. One shoddy collar is all that stands between reliable work and a cascade of escapes.”

“Yes ma’am,” the Ranger murmured, suddenly aware that he was the one in the hot seat. “I’ll have him collared before he leaves.”

Ginger shook her head. “Thank you, but I’ve already seen to that. In the meantime I’d like to inspect the state of this kitchen he’s so eager to flee from.”

“Yes ma’am,” he repeated, no doubt wondering if he should bother explaining that he’s just the door guard and not the pony responsible for any of this. “If you have any questions, Elder Coronado should be in the chow hall.”

Translation: Don’t look at me, I’m not the boss.

Ginger thanked him on her way through the door and pushed it shut behind her, cutting off any chance he might feel bold enough to ask probing questions. A large kitchen greeted her on the other side, staffed by collared ponies in varying states of surprise. Whisks slowed and spoons swirled in the contents of their pots as several slaves stared at Ginger with quiet recognition. Word spreads fast among the subjugated.

They squeezed past a pony scooping rice from a metal drum spotted with rust, spreading the kernels across a slab of heated steel coated in crackling fat. Others pressed cubes of marbled meat, likely from the area’s plentiful supply of molerats, into a cast iron grinder. She could smell spices in the air, the hiss of sauteing vegetables. Scents and sounds she recognized from home as her family waited to be served at the dining room table. Her only consolation was that these slaves looked better tended to than the ones back home. These ponies lacked the scars of harsh discipline. They didn’t flinch when she drew close. Yet they were still enslaved. Gilded chains were still chains at the end of the day.

A mare pushed through a set of doors ahead of them, hooves hooked around the handle of a service cart stacked high with metal trays glued together with food scraps. The doors paddled back and forth giving Ginger a glimpse of the mess hall beyond. Dozens of Rangers in varying states of dress gathered in tight clusters around a sprinkling of circular tables like a mealtime archipelago. Some ate in full uniform while many more were either fully undressed or simply wore their drab green bottoms. Ginger stopped short of the doors as they settled shut, then looked to Ganache.

“Which one is Coronado?”

Ganache took a peek. Thankfully the ponies working the kitchen knew to mind their own business. Whatever these two were up to, they wanted no part of it.

“Middle of the room, orange mane, red horn. Hard to miss.”

She leaned in to see. It didn’t take long to spot him.

Elder Coronado sat at a table near the center of the mess hall with several comparably lower ranking Rangers. His sandy brown uniform was only a few shades darker than his coat, the top three buttons undone to accommodate the neatly-kempt gold curls of a mane that wrapped around both sides of his lower neck before joining just above his breastbone. His horn - a crooked, rootlike growth of red striations - glowed with an inner light that kept a metal fork loaded with greens floating a few inches above his tray. He was listening intently to the Ranger seated beside him, another stallion evidently coming to the end of a good joke. When he reached the punchline the table erupted with laughter including the Elder kirin seated among them.

As the laughter subsided, Elder Coronado nipped the greens off his fork and let his eyes wander the room. They eventually settled on the cracked door and his scaled brow twitched, drawing the attention of the soldiers seated with him who quickly followed his gaze. By the time Ganache had pulled the door shut, several Rangers had noticed Ginger and were in the process of getting up from their chairs to investigate the unfamiliar face.

“Whelp,” Ganache said, “that’s my cue to leave. Good luck with whatever your thing is.”

Before she had a chance to reply the collarless stallion had already scrambled back the way they came and was shoving through the rear door into the hallway. The mare guarding the other side of the door let out a startled shout as Ganache bolted away, leaving her to chase after him while shouting for him to stop. Several of the kitchen staff shook their heads at his sudden departure as if it were just another part of their day.

As she stared incredulously after him, the doors to the mess hall swung open and a trio of Rangers greeted her with variations of the same unimpressed expression. Behind them, many of the Rangers had turned to see what all the fuss was about. Elder Coronado watched as well, frowning as he murmured something to a mare in the seat beside him. She stood and hurried out of the mess, likely to raise an alarm or summon base security. Ginger could feel her chance at speaking to Coronado slipping away as the din of conversations grew quiet and more eyes turned toward her.

“Ma’am, you’ll need to…”

First impressions be damned. Drawing on her magic, she focused on an empty patch of floor across from Coronado’s table and dropped the spell on herself. A displacement of air and flicker of magic deposited her into the mess hall barely ten feet from where the Elder sat. Startled shouts drowned in profanity filled the room as Rangers leapt out of their seats sending chairs clattering to the floor as many fumbled for weapons. She’d not so much kicked the hornet’s nest as she had doused it in gasoline and set it alight. Before a shot could be fired she poured her reservoir of magic into a familiar amber dome which dropped over Ginger and Coronado, sealing the two of them inside.

Dizziness threatened her balance as the abrupt expenditure caught up with her, but the dome held. Catching herself on the backrest of a nearby chair, she squeezed her eyes shut and willed the spinning to pass.

“Hello,” the kirin said. His voice was calm and low as if being rushed and subsequently trapped by a stranger was no more concerning than spilled brahmin milk.

Ginger let out a nauseated groan. Apparently her magic was limited by her ability not to puke. Great to find that out now, she thought.

“Take your time.” She cracked an eyelid to see him sitting back in his chair. His eyes were startlingly blue, glued to her as he picked up his fork, unafraid yet very wary of his current circumstances.

She’d thrown him, but he was recovering quickly. A quick glance outside the bubble gave her plenty of reason to worry. Rangers converged on the mess hall with weapons drawn while those without were forced out, exiting through the adjacent hallway and the kitchen where slaves were being ushered to their quarters. She knew the instant her shield came down, maybe even before, those triggers would be squeezed.

“I’m not a threat to you or them,” she said, the spinning subsiding, “They can put away their weapons.”

The Elder’s brow twitched ever so slightly with surprise.

“Tell them. Please.”

He studied her for several silent seconds before turning his attention back to his tray, pecking at what was left of something resembling limp asparagus and pointing the loaded fork loosely toward his Rangers. “Tall order, given the circumstances. Even from me.”

Ginger swallowed, trying to ignore the barrels pointed at her. “I need your help. I didn’t have time to make an appointment.”

Coronado chuckled at that. Popping the greens into his mouth, he chewed for a bit before swallowing. “How many did you hurt on your way here?”

She blinked. “None.”

“Including the indentured staff,” he added.

“Indentured…?” She stopped, knowing now wasn’t the time to spark an argument over semantics. “None. I didn’t hurt anyone.”

A voice piped up from outside the dome. “Elder, the plaza has been placed on lockdown.”

Coronado nodded toward the speaker without answering, his attention fixed on the matter standing across from him. The silence stretched. Ginger’s hind hoof began bouncing nervously against the floor.

“I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you’re being truthful. What kind of help do you want from me?”

She cleared her throat. “A mare very close to me was kidnapped. I need your help to find her.”

He speared more greens with his fork. “That sounds like something you could have reported to any one of the Rangers I have on patrol outside. Why come to me?”

Ginger opened her mouth to answer, then hesitated. She wasn’t sure how to answer him without severing what little patience he had on offer. It didn’t take a shrink for her to know she wasn’t acting rationally. Standing here, trapping an Elder of the Steel Rangers with magic few if any unicorns still possessed - it wasn’t her best moment.

“I came here…” She paused, collecting herself. “I came to you because she was taken by Rangers.”

Coronado frowned. “You’re saying she was arrested.”

She shook her head, distress leaching into her voice. “Not arrested. Taken by Rangers from Blinder’s Bluff under the command of Paladin Ironshod. It’s a long story… one that I can explain, but right now I need you to ask your Rangers to start searching the city before he kills her. Please.”

He set down the fork. “Blinder’s Bluff. That’s Elder… Coldbrook’s chapter if I’m not mistaken?”

“Yes."

“Huh. Funny thing, this morning I found out Elder Coldbrook cleared a payment to one of my quartermasters to put a suit of power armor on reserve to a group of civilians. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t too thrilled about that. You wouldn’t be part of that group by any chance, would you?”

Her eyes dropped to the trays scattered around the table. “Yes.”

He nodded. “So an Elder of the Steel Rangers went out of his way to loan out top-of-the-line tech, and the very next day you’re here saying his people kidnapped one of you.”

“I know what it looks like, sir.” Putting together the words without giving away what they were doing or where they’d been with his armor was like threading a needle with her eyes shut. It didn’t come easy, and there was no doubt between the two of them that she had plenty she didn’t want to say. “I do. I… we’re assuming Paladin Ironshod is acting on his own. He and Aurora have some bad blood. He stole something from us. We took it back before we left the Bluff.”

Coronado watched her as she spoke as if he might detect the kernel of deception hidden at the center of her testimony. It was clear on his face that he wasn’t impressed by her omission of certain details, but at the same time he didn’t stop her in order to pry them out. He listened, ears occasionally twitching toward the subtle movements of his Rangers outside the dome, and considered her words carefully.

“You’re claiming that this Paladin is operating without his Elder’s knowledge?”

She paused, then nodded.

He hummed and pushed his tray away to cross his hooves on the table. “You didn’t think to contact Elder Coldbrook yourself? He seems willing enough to help.”

She shook her head. “That would have taken more time than we have, and… Coldbrook doesn’t have our best interests at heart. He’d use Aurora as leverage if he did find out.”

“Leverage for what?"

She stayed silent, watching his expression shift.

"You’re not giving me a lot to work with.”

“I know.”

He frowned at the table and sighed. “But as far as I can tell, you haven’t lied to me yet.”

Progress. Her jaw clenched to stave away the wave of emotion. “I wish I were.”

His cloven hoof idly tapped at the table as he considered what he’d heard. Ginger’s heart threatened to beat its way out of her chest while she waited. Every second that ticked by was a second Aurora was out there on her own at Ironshod’s mercy. Finally, Coronado straightened in his chair and regarded her with a singularly arched brow.

“You’re not a threat?”

It was a test as much as it was a question. “Not to you, sir.”

He snorted, and a smile broke out across his muzzle. “I’ll have to remember that one. How about you stick a pin in this bubble you’ve made and we take a walk. Can you do that for me?”

Her lip twitched with lingering suspicion. “What about them?”

The two of them looked toward the proverbial wall of armed Rangers standing between them and the door leading to the rest of the compound. They stared back from behind their sights, unphased by anything they may have overheard.

Coronado pushed back his chair, stood and walked to the edge of the dome. With a firmness in his voice, he said, “Good work, all of you. Excellent response time. You may stand down and return to your regular duties.”

Several of the Rangers hesitated, eventually obeying only when many more of their counterparts relaxed enough to lower their weapons. Safeties clicked and metal slid against hardened holsters. Horns dimmed and they watched the soldiers file out of the mess hall, some casting wary glances over their shoulders as they departed. Within a minute the room had emptied. Seconds later, the first off-duty Rangers began to trickle back in partly to finish eating, mostly to eavesdrop.

“Your magic,” Coronado nudged.

She held her breath and doused the spell. The shield came down around them like hot water poured over ice. Fresh air breezed into the stale space they only recently occupied and to her relief none of the Rangers lunged for her, despite several sitting down making no attempt to hide their mistrust. She’d captured their king inside his own proverbial castle. Odds were they were going to be sore about that for some time to come.

Making friends at every turn, she thought.

As for Coronado, the Elder seemed privately amused by the last several minutes. “Follow me,” he said as he weaved between overturned chairs, “I have a senior paladin down in Comms who’ll want to know about this contingent operating in our jurisdiction. Might be he can get Coldbrook on the horn and I can suss out what he knows, minus the leveraging you're worried about.”

He pulled the hallway door open and held it for her.

“On the way you can tell me more about what this Aurora of yours did to get herself chased halfway across Equestria.”

The bolt slammed back and the freezer door cracked open. Once again hooves stamped around her. She tried looking up at the new noises but found her eyelids were frozen shut. Black went red as the light snapped on. The fans slowed. Something touched her neck and a distant voice said she was still alive. Good to hear. She hadn’t been so sure herself. Not since the shivering stopped.

A hoof lifted her chin off her chest. A rattling groan rose from her throat. All but one set of hooves left the freezer, leaving her alone with the only stallion who had any reason to stay at all. Her chin slid off the edge of his hoof and bobbed back down to her frosted coat. Her thoughts moved with tectonic speed, foggy and disorganized.

“Pegasi,” Ironshod murmured. “You’re all so fragile.”

A moan, barely a sigh, winnowed past her frigid lips. Her muscles ached. She couldn’t feel the blanket being wrapped around her shoulders yet again nor smell the freezer’s thick reek of mildew. The cold had stripped her senses away one after the other until all she had left was the low buzz of a hastily repaired condenser.

The sharp clack of a metal chair being folded open made her jump, cracking the frost that held her left eye open. She watched him set the chair in front of her, douse his horn and sit down.

“Aurora Pinfeathers.” His tone was thoughtful, as if trying her name out for the first time. “Now there’s a confusing name. Pinfeathers, I get that part. It’s the Aurora bit that sounds funny to me. Had a scribe look it up for me and she said auroras used to be something that happened up north. Lights in the sky, something to do with Princess Celestia or Cadance or space, I don’t know. I lost track. Sky-stuff, though. Weird thing for Stable ponies to still be thinking about this long after the war.”

She forced her other eye open, wincing at the sound of frost and skin crackling apart. Ironshod waited for her to say something, but she was nowhere near recovered enough to form words. She could only just now begin to feel the deep burn of frostbite spreading across her slowly thawing body.

Undaunted, he continued. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Our scribes went over every byte of the data we pulled off your Pip-Buck and would you know it, there’s a ringing similarity between you and all the other ponies down there in Stable 10. You’re all pegasi.”

Behind him, a younger uniformed stallion slipped into the freezer with a cloth pouch slung under his jaw. He set it onto the vacant shelving just behind Ironshod, its contents settling with a sturdy clank.

“Why would that be, I wonder? Why would Stable-Tec populate this single Stable with pegasi, and pegasi only?” He paused for effect as a narrow smile crossed his lips. “But maybe that’s not the right question. Maybe the right question has nothing to do with Stable-Tec. Maybe it has everything to do with your Enclave.”

The muscles in her face creaked as she mustered up a confused frown. At this, his smile broadened. He leaned forward and thumped one of his wide, black hooves onto her knee. A wave of dull pain rippled from the contact.

“Remember what you told me that night outside the wall? You said you knew things about the Enclave that could end our stalemate and deliver us victory. Do you recall saying that?”

She did. It was the lie that granted them entry into Blinder’s Bluff and access to the medicine that saved their lives.

“Of course, we both know now that wasn’t entirely true. No self-respecting Enclave agent would allow themselves to be carried on the back of a ghoul into our custody, nor would one ever allow us access to a Pip-Buck. So maybe you aren't an Enclave mare, Aurora Pinfeathers.” He gave her knee a pat and sat back. “But you’re no innocent mare, either.”

“Is th-there,” she stammered, licking her lips. “A puh-point?”

He chuckled at her. “She speaks. Yes, there is a point, and I think by now you know what that is. In one hoof I have a mare fresh out of a Stable, seemingly delirious with radiation sickness and willing to say anything to get her feathers on a common medicine she could find anywhere. A mare whose companion just so happens to be snatched up by bounty hunters on the same night and taken to the operational hub of this region’s single most successful trading company. She bumbles after her and against all odds manages to lure a deathclaw into those headquarters, tearing it apart from the inside, and the two of them show up the next morning without a scratch on either of them. Autumn Song is nowhere to be found and suddenly this Stable pony seems to know details about a piece of prewar weaponry that had been lost since the bombs first fell.”

Ironshod pushed back in his chair and stood, his face growing more contemplative as he stepped toward the shelf and the cloth sack. “Your friend, the bug, told Elder Coldbrook that SOLUS was a spy satellite. I think we both know that was a lie.”

Silver magic hooked the bottom of the bag and he upended it. Two U-shaped pieces of spiked iron clattered out of the bag and onto the shelf.

“My point, Aurora, is that I don’t think you’re as stupid as you pretend to be. I don’t think it was dumb luck that allowed you to rescue your friend without so much as a bruise to show for what you claimed happened. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that your Stable happens to be populated by pegasi or that the Enclave chose to make contact with you instead of culling you like they do with any other dustwing they find.”

Side by side, he set the spiked shoes on the floor, their iron tines pointing up like tiny stalagmites. He lifted his foreleg and set his hoof onto the first, bearing his weight onto the spikes until they sank into the dark keratin. Aurora watched, bewildered.

When the first shoe was secure, he adjusted his stance and pressed the next hoof onto the pointed iron. “An entire Stable descended from Equestria’s most influential pegasi. Wonderbolts, ministry staff, even Rainbow Dash herself. Oh, and of course your Stable’s first overmare just happens to be Commander Spitfire, one of the earliest known progenitors of the early Enclave. And I’ve kept up with our progress back home. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the Enclave just happened to show up in force the minute we start excavating.”

He lifted his hoof to examine the iron’s fit, then dropped it back to the floor with a hard clank. “What’s the real purpose of your Stable?”

So that’s what this is. Ironshod hadn’t stalked her across the wasteland for petty payback. He’d deluded himself into believing a homebrew conspiracy built from his own paranoia, and the lies Aurora sowed to get herself in and out of Blinder’s Bluff intact had thrown down deep roots inside Ironshod’s mind. She closed her eyes against the stinging cold, struggling to keep up with his tangled knots of logic. He believed Stable 10 belonged to the Enclave, and she had done nothing in the last several days but convince him he was right.

“Aurora.” Smooth, chilled iron touched her chin and she opened her eyes. He took his hoof away, his expression shifting. He looked tired. Like someone who had spent his entire life pushing against a boulder that refused to move, and after so many years he finally saw a chance to gain an inch. “Tell me.”

She swallowed. Her throat felt like she'd swallowed glass. “My home has nothing to do with the Enclave.”

Ironshod’s eyes darkened. “Lie to me again.”

Tremors shuddered down her body as fear drenched her thawing nerves with adrenaline. “I’m not lying.”

She watched the cloud of fog trail the disappointed sigh across his lips with quiet dread.

“You are. But that’s alright. Lying comes naturally to your kind, and I’ll gladly spend as much time as you need to teach you to tell the truth.” Slowly, he stepped toward her chair until the gap between them had dwindled to nothing. She instinctively bent away but he pressed his hoof against her cheek, stopping her, the metal shoe hovering at the bottom of her field of view.

He chuckled. “All that talk about your name. Seems only fair for you to learn something about mine.”

His hoof slid off her cheek and clicked against the floor. Her eyes widened with understanding. “Don’t.”

“Then tell the truth.”

She did her best to match the intensity of his gaze. “I did.”

The words reverberated off the freezer walls and Ironshod stood above her unfazed. Seconds ticked by as he waited but Aurora couldn’t think of anything else to say except what she’d already told him. Her heart slammed against her ribs as rising panic urged her to pull against her straps. Nothing.

Ironshod watched her struggle, his eyes devoid of sympathy. Only once she stopped did he speak again. “Are you ready to learn?”

She shook her head hard enough to disturb the tears gathering in her vision. “Ironshod, don’t...”

The words trailed away as she helplessly tracked the slow rise of his hoof, its iron rim catching the light as it stopped just behind his shoulder. The strike caught her across the cheek. The freezer lurched. Her head cracked against shelves on her way down. Everything felt dull as she settled on the floor, only to be wrenched upright just as the leading wave of white-hot pain roared through her skull.

Blood, wet and warm, streamed into her mouth. Ironshod stared down at her, waiting for the answer she couldn't give him.

He sighed. "Let's try again."

His bloodied hoof rose.

And fell.

Traffic in the corridors of Stable 6 parted for Elder Coldbrook like waves off the bow of a ship, allowing him and the wiry scribe trailing behind him an unobstructed path down to the radio room. He skimmed the first paragraphs of the report hovering in its open folder as they walked, his vision surreptitiously aided by a pair of spectacles floating just above the printed lines.

They were making good progress with the dig despite the Enclave’s persistent harassment. His knights had found rubble among the boulders. Concrete, pieces of rebar. Clear evidence of prewar construction though nothing resembling the outer skin of a Stable. An access tunnel, they surmised. Stable-Tec did love digging tunnels. He tucked his readers into his uniform and floated the folder back to his scribe.

“The second we break through, I want to know. Dismissed.” He didn’t wait for the young stallion to answer nor did he look back to see if he’d turned back into the flow of corridor traffic.

Life had gotten busier over the last several days. Much busier. Every day brought at least a dozen new entrepreneuring faces claiming to be related to, business partners with or sworn rivals of Autumn Song in the hopes of filling the vacuum left by her family’s shattered trade syndicate. He knew he’d need to make that decision soon before the wasteland found a way of making it for him. Between the influx of independent traders and the constant comings and goings of Rangers assigned to either assist with the dig or join the braidwork of armed patrols on the local roads, the whole of Blinder’s Bluff was a hive of activity.

He tracked a gap in traffic and swung left through it, crossing the corridor and slipping through a steel door simply marked COMMS. A wine-coated mare greeted him on the other side, clipboard strapped to her foreleg. She’d been waiting on him and tipped her head for him to follow. He did, trailing her through what had at one time been the Stable’s I.T. space. They passed by two scribes with their faces buried in their terminals in an attempt to look busier than they were.

The mare led him through an unlocked door and into a back office. A single desk sat pushed up against the far wall. On it rested a terminal and a single headset. As he approached the desk the mare turned and left the room, closing the door behind her. He sat down and put the headset on. The faint sound of another stallion’s breathing hissed in his ear.

He squinted at the terminal and pressed the key that activated his microphone.

“Elder Coronado,” he said, summoning his best smile as he spoke despite the terminal’s lack of a camera. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Did you use back channels in my chapter to commandeer a full suit of power armor?”

His eyes glazed at the tinny noise of his colleague’s voice. “Well, I do recall a chapter in the Friendship Journal touching heavily on the concept of sharing.”

“I’ll take that as a yes, then.” An annoyed sigh bristled out of the headphones but he stopped short of speaking his mind, which meant he had bigger fish to fry. “I have another question that I suspect you already know I’m going to ask. I would appreciate your honesty in the matter.”

Coldbrook reclined as far as the rigid chair would allow, staring at the empty wall behind the terminal. The rumor mill must have been working overtime. He’d expected it to take another few days or even another week before one of the other elders caught wind of his little dig, let alone scrape up the courage to ask him about it directly.

He smiled. “Congratulations, you’re the first to hear about it.”

A moment’s hesitation. Barely a blink, but noticeable. “Yes or no. Are you conducting an op in my city?”

He opened his mouth, then stopped as his smile dimmed. “We’re a thousand miles apart, Elder, and I already have plenty on my plate. No offense, but if I were looking to take on another chapter’s workload I’d ask Elder Nests for a crack at the west coast. See if she’s not pulling my hocks over that quote-unquote synthetic advisor she’s always going on about.”

He could hear Coronado murmur something to someone but the words were too muddied by distance and a muffled microphone to make out anything concrete. So there was another pair of ears in the audience. Risky not to tell him beforehand. Rude not to introduce them.

Coronado’s hoof came away from the microphone with a scratch that made Coldbrook jerk slightly in his seat. “I’m sitting across my desk from a mare claiming one of your paladins abducted one of her companions and shot another. A stallion by the name Ironshod.”

The chair creaked as Coldbrook straightened. “I’m sorry, no, that’s not accurate. Paladin Ironshod was given orders to take a logistics team to Junction City. He’s overseeing construction of a supply depot there.”

“How long ago since he left?”

He paused. “Three days ago.”

Coronado’s voice dimmed as he addressed his guest. “How long for you?”

A mare’s voice, distant but vaguely familiar, answered. “Four days. But we hit some… snags. On the way.”

Coldbrook leaned forward in his seat. “Elder, who is that with you?”

The question flickered across the impossible distance between them at the speed of light and still the root-horned Elder at the other end managed to dodge it. “You need to be more concerned with the whereabouts of your Paladin.”

Another pause. Another private discourse between the kirin and the mare with him. “A gray stallion, above average height, silver magic and bearing a crucible for a mark. Would you call that an accurate description?”

His expression flickered and he allowed his gaze to shift past the radio, straying to some distant point beyond the wall behind it. He imagined if he had proper magic the riveted plates might release a satisfying groan under the force of anger warming the core of his chest, but as things were he would have to settle with quiet fuming as he wondered what in the celestial fuck Ironshod thought he was doing.

“Yes.” The words rolled out of his mouth like stones. “That would be him.”

“Well alright then. Any thoughts on what might motivate him to travel all this way against orders? Little unusual for a paladin to turn wanderer, even for your command.”

Mouthy fucking kirin. “I couldn’t say. Paladin Ironshod has a reputation for obsessing on his work from time to time, most definitely, but the reasons that appear to have taken him east are his alone. Naturally I take this matter very seriously, Elder Coronado, but there’s not much I can do for you beyond offer my assurance that he will be strongly reprimanded upon--”

Jumbled noise from the other end interrupted him until the mare’s voice practically burrowed into his ears.

“TELL ME WHERE HE TOOK AURORA YOU SADISTIC FUCKING SNAKE!”

Ah, he thought, listening to the commotion of the microphone being wrestled away. So that’s where the three of you went.

Coronado and the Rangers tending the radio room weren’t impressed by her outburst. Moreso, the ponies currently pinning her to the floor with overlapping fields of magic and more than a few heavy hooves didn’t seem keen on letting her back up. She heard one of them ask about shackles and a suppression ring and a small part of her dared them to try. It hadn’t worked out well the last time she wore one.

This wasn’t the first time one of them had been abducted, either. It was as if they were stuck on some kind of cruel merry-go-round, always bending toward the same roadblocks. Always forced to turn to the powers that be to dig them out of their pit only to stumble into a deeper one somewhere down the line. And the more she thought about it, the more convinced she became that the only way to win the game was not to play. It was no wonder nobody bothered trying to fix their broken little world. Why fix anything if the next pony can just kick it over.

Ginger grimaced at the peeling linoleum as the Rangers’ weight shifted off of her enough so that she didn’t have to strain for her breath. The pressure of magic dissipated from around her legs and a gentle clatter of hooves moved away from her. Confused, she looked up to see a cloven hoof extended toward her.

“Come on,” he said. “Stand up.”

She did, hooking her hoof into his and allowing herself to be pulled off the floor. Were it not for the Rangers that had tackled her in the first place, she might have considered the gesture chivalrous. If she had to guess by the intensity of stares aimed her way by radio room personnel and more than a few armed Rangers gathering in the doorway, no one here was thinking about offering her their coats.

Coronado waved them away and she watched as they warily returned to their posts.

“I hope it felt good getting that out of your system,” he said, gesturing toward the bank of outdated radio equipment behind him. “Because you just chased him off frequency.”

She listened to the dull hiss of empty airwaves flow from the radio. The absence of Coldbrook’s verbal bile was evidence enough that he had walked away from the conversation.

“He would have anyway, once you got close to the things he’s involved in.”

Coronado frowned at that. “Am I to assume you’re being vague for a reason?”

She looked up at him, meeting the strange pony’s gaze. “Yes.”

Her hind leg resumed its slow, nervous bouncing. Distrust flowed over her like wet mortar. There was a good chance Coronado didn’t know about his colleague’s obsession with SOLUS, and unless he was an expert actor he hadn’t given her any indication that would suggest he knew what was happening at Stable 10. The less he knew about that, the better. They couldn’t afford another Coldbrook, least of all Aurora.

Coronado pursed his lips and closed his eyes, the exact likeness of a parent quickly running out of patience with their unruly foal. “Okay. I’ll see what I can do.”

Her ear twitched. “What does that mean?”

“It means what it means. There’s evidently a paladin conducting an unsanctioned operation in my city and who you’ve accused of violating the Charter.” He spoke with finality, hinting that she wouldn’t like what he was about to say while expecting her to accept it. “I’ll pass all the information including your description of Paladin Ironshod to city security. If he turns up, we’ll do everything to help your friend.”

She stared at him. “If he turns up.”

Coronado’s brow dropped at the insinuation. “I’m sorry, I thought this was what you wanted me to do for you.”

“It’s…” She bit down on the words before they could make things worse. He was right. This was exactly what she’d asked for and, despite giving him every reason to throw her out, the Elder was cooperating. “I’m sorry. Thank you for your help.”

He nodded, his expression softening. “If you think of anything else that might help, don't hesitate to come back. Ideally not through the servant’s quarters, next time.”

The little joke glanced off her like a poorly aimed bullet. She wasn’t in the mood. Coronado waited a moment for her to respond before nodding toward one of the stallions still lurking in the doorway.

“I’ll let Knight Fletcher show you the way out.”

There was nothing left to say. She’d gotten what she wanted. Yet as she followed the stallion she couldn’t help but worry it wasn’t enough.

Chops leaned against the remains of a streetlight converted into a makeshift community signpost. Bits of weathered paper, most of it either scavenged or made from scratch, fluttered in the afternoon breeze that wound its way through Fillydelphia's bustling main drag. He watched Dancer make light conversation with a pretty mare posted at the rear of a trade wagon, the latter blushing while the lesser casually plied his charm in the hopes of learning the whereabouts of the Pinfeathers mare and her entourage.

He shifted his wings to keep the muscles from tightening up, careful not to move them in a way that might attract the attention of a clutch of Rangers chatting across the street. An unremarkable jacket featuring the faded logo of a long forgotten buckball team on his back hadn’t been his ideal choice of disguise, forcing him to link feathers under his belly to keep them hidden. It served its purpose, however. Ponies passed him without so much as a second glance. He might as well have been invisible, not that he wasn’t already used to the feeling.

Dancer, as usual, went with a little more flash to match his gratingly extroverted personality. Had the younger stallion not joined up with the Enclave he would have probably wound up scraping together bits at one of New Canterlot’s stagnant theaters, or anywhere else that had use for a loudmouth with an ego. He hadn’t been willing to settle for just a simple brown duster to cover his wings. Nope. Needed to throw a black ammo bandolier over his shoulder to go with it. The brass rims of several shotgun cartridges poked out from the leather loops. He’d even gone through the effort to leave a few empty to suggest he’d fired a few rounds off. Chops hadn’t bothered trying to argue. It didn’t matter that neither of them were presently armed, let alone with a weapon that would arguably crack an earth pony’s teeth were someone stupid enough to modify it with a bite trigger. Dancer was always going to be Dancer whether it made sense or not. It wasn’t as if there weren’t plenty of morons already walking the wasteland pulling dumber stunts than wearing ammo for looks.

At least Dancer did a convincing job of blending in.

The trader mare giggled at something Dancer said. At the rate things were going, Chops figured he’d be standing guard outside a rented bedroom before they found Aurora. It didn’t help that they were already on thin ice with Minister Primrose, but at least they weren’t in former Lieutenant Julip’s position. Emphasis on the former, that mare was well past thin ice and neck deep in freezing water. As far as Chops was concerned, his number one priority was to avoid getting dragged down with her. Outside of the Enclave, the options for a mute quickly dwindled. There weren’t any jobs for a stallion who had to write everything he wanted to say. Fewer when they found out why he’d been born without a voice.

He chewed the inside of his cheek and watched Dancer charm the young mare. The only reason he’d even been considered by the recruiters was thanks to that preening idiot. The two of them had grown up together in the same backwater neighborhood on the outskirts of the city, not far from the sloping ruins of Old Canterlot and all the poisons that leached out from the rubble. They weren’t friends. Not in the traditional sense of the word, anyway, but close enough that he didn’t argue the point whenever Dancer recounted their early years together. Even then Dancer had been boisterous and outgoing, and the opportunity to glom onto a colt whom he didn’t have to worry about talking over had probably seemed like a golden opportunity. As they grew older, Chops had found an old book in a discount store on something called sign language. Convincing Dancer to sit down and learn it with him hadn’t been so much a request as it had been a threat. If Dancer wanted to yammer on until he was blue in the face, Chops wasn’t going to keep spending caps on pencils and paper just to get a word in edgewise. It was either that or he’d refuse to listen.

Dancer chose to learn, as he called it, “wingspeak” and eventually would use their mutual skill to convince the recruiters to give Chops a chance. As far as they were concerned, taking on two eager stallions capable of communicating in a forgotten language could only reap dividends.

He sighed and turned his attention back to the road where ponies of every stripe trotted along with their carts down the decently maintained pavement. Not much wingspeaking he could do when the first sight of a stray feather would probably send the local population into a frenzy. Granted the risk of being pegged as Enclave at first sight was slim, but it wasn’t worth the risk. Plus Dancer hated being called a dustwing with a capital H. Even the suggestion would make him foul to be around for days. Bad enough, even, that Chops would sometimes consider whether this whole arrangement was worth the trouble.

His jacket scraped against the old posters as he glanced up the main drag. His stomach growled, irritated that he hadn’t replenished all the calories he’d burned making the flights to and promptly from New Canterlot. Neither of them wanted to stop for a break on the way to Fillydelphia, not after the ass-chewing they’d gotten thanks to Julip. Were he not starving for a decent meal and a nap, he might have recognized the mare galloping across the pavement the first time.

Ginger Dressage raced by without seeing him. Chops straightened, looking up and down the road for signs of Aurora or their ghoul but saw nothing. Already, the sound of the lone mare’s hooves were quickly fading into the crowd. He darted up the sidewalk, stopping directly in Dancer’s line of sight and stomped a hoof onto the concrete.

Grudgingly, Dancer tore his attention away from the mare and glowered up at him. “What?”

He stabbed a hoof in the direction Ginger had run. Dancer frowned and looked up the road, but by now the unicorn was well out of sight. He looked back to Chops and shook his head. “What?”

He pressed his lips into a thin line and stared daggers at the stallion, wings fidgeting under cover of his disguise. Dancer was thinking with his dick, and his dick was terrible at pantomime. Chops pointed again, eyes wider. The trader mare cleared her throat as if to provide a counterpoint. It was all the convincing Dancer needed.

“If you need to take a leak, just find an alley. I’m busy.”

Chops sighed a soundless scream and tore off in the direction Ginger had run, leaving his partner behind.

The bar of soap rocketed across the bathroom and exploded against the tile floor, peppering the little bathroom nook with lily scented shards.

“Spitfire you bitch! You fucking BITCH!”

Tears mixed into the water still drizzling from the showerhead as Rainbow coughed out a furious sob. Had she really been that blind to what was happening around her? Had Jet Stream been in on it, too? How many ponies had known? How many traitors did it take to hijack a project as big as SOLUS? Just Spitfire, Thunderlane and a few loyal Wonderbolts? All of the Wonderbolts? More?

Her head was spinning. Her legs shuddered as she staggered out of the bathroom and dripped her way across the main compartment, the implications swirling around her like debris around the core of a hurricane. The missiles had been timed. Synchronized to launch somehow. She felt dizzy but didn’t want to sit on the bed. She didn’t want someone to have to replace the sheets if she threw up. Her bony flanks hit the floor with a wet splat.

Her voice dropped to a shuddering whisper. “Everything you put me through. All the things you made me do. Just so you could live in this hole in the ground while the rest of the world burns.”

She wiped her feathers across her eyes, accidentally smearing her face with a film of soap. She didn’t care. She didn’t deserve to care. Spitfire duped her and now everything she’d even known was dead and dust. Her gaze turned to the little amenities Sledge and the others had scrounged up to make her feel more at home and felt the tears welling back into her eyes. She didn’t deserve any of this. Not the food or the coffee or the hot showers or the rescue that brought her here in the first place. It was her fault that any of these ponies had to live here. The truth of it burned itself into her chest like a brand, and she buckled under the force of her own loathful sobs.

Every resource that Spitfire had gained access to, every channel of communication she used, every ounce of influence she exploited had been dropped into her lap when Rainbow relinquished control of the Ministry of Awesome just to save her own reputation. Equestria was dead because she’d been too afraid to be seen as anything but the daring guardian of Loyalty that everyone imagined her to be. There was no spell that could undo what she’d done. No magical mcguffin that would turn back the clock and let her try again. She rolled onto her side and let the cold floor sap the warmth from her. Everything, all of this, was her fault.

Laying there, her knees curled toward her chin, she worried about what came next.

It didn’t take long.

The lights shuddered and blinked off. A low, descending groan rumbled through the Stable’s skeleton like a gargantuan bell hurled into a pit followed by an impossibly deep silence.

In the absolute darkness that followed, Rainbow sniffed and slowly sat up. She held up her wing but saw nothing. The tiny light on Sledge’s card reader was gone. The glow from the desk terminal was a fading shadow left behind by cooling vacuum tubes. Voices began to murmur from the neighboring compartment, rising to shouts as it became apparent that the doors weren’t responding. More cries erupted from the corridors outside as realization dawned on the residents of Stable 10.

The generator had failed.

Next Chapter: Chapter 35: Unlikely Allies Estimated time remaining: 36 Hours, 14 Minutes