FE: PoS 13

Burrburrary 24rd, EoH 47

The smoke from the pyre of ghoul bodies drifted into the overcast morning sky in black curls.

“I’d like to give the world a home,” said Vindaloo.

“Where all can live in peace,” said the circle of Minutemares. Every one of them held a bottle of Sparkle Cola in their hooves.

“I’d like to give the world a Sparkle Cola,” said Vindaloo.

“And drink it in perfect unity,” said the Minutemares.

“We have all lost ponies and creatures who were close to us,” said Vindaloo. “Some are dead, and some are missing. We think of them now, and hope we may see them again, in this life or the next.”

“So we pray,” said the Minutemares.

“And we think of these ghouls, monsters through no fault of their own. With these flames, we free their souls that they might one day be reborn.” Vindaloo had explained to Lyra that radiation healed ghouls and that if you left a dead ghoul body lying around in the low-level radiation of the wasteland they’d eventually come back to life. Burning the bodies of feral ghouls was a true act of mercy; otherwise, their souls would be trapped forever in a rotting shell.

“So we pray,” said the Minutemares.

“We drink now, in their memory,” said Vindaloo, “And find solace in the delicious and good-for-you quality of Sparkle Cola. With real carrot flavor!” She pulled the cap off her bottle with her teeth. The Minutemares did likewise. Paneer gnawed on the top of her bottle until her mother opened it for her and passed it back.

Lyra didn’t know what the hell this was. She looked at the bottle of Sparkle Cola clutched between her hooves earth pony style. Best to just go along with it. You had to pick your battles when it came to wasteland crazy.

Opening soda bottles with teeth already sore from the recoil of mouth-firing her pistol hurt. Did earth ponies have extra-strong teeth, that they could do these things? She stuffed the cap in her bag and downed the bottle. The sticky-sweet carrot flavor made her gag, but she didn’t want to seem rude by spitting it out. At least the weather had kept it cold.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

“Out with it,” said Vindaloo without even turning to look at her.

“Out with what?” said Lyra.

“With whatever is making you hang around me like you’ve got something you want to say. I can feel you back there.”

They were almost to Triple Diamond City. Lyra had been watching the big neon Gitgo sign that loomed over Swampway Park’s neighborhood for a few miles now. It was comforting to see that the familiar landmark still stood, even if it now canted recklessly over its rooftop, held up by only a single intact strut. Seeing it’s orange and green triangular logo gleaming in the midmorning sun made the snow seem less cold around her legs.

Either that or frostbite was starting to set in.

She hurried up beside Vindaloo and said in a voice meant only for her ears, “Why are you using old Sparkle Cola advertising slogans for religious rituals?”

“What else have we got left? Twilight’s gone. Some say she died to save us. Others say she abandoned us. Nopony knows. Luna and Celestia definitely abandoned us. Cadence and Flurry are imprisoned in stone. Maybe dead. Again, nopony knows.”

Lyra pursed her lips. “What about Harmony?”

“Harmony was always a myth.”

“It’s not, though? I’ve seen it’s power. I mean. I’m not a fan of organized religion, but when creatures try to live harmoniously…”

“Let me stop you right there,” said Vindaloo.

Lyra sighed. “Okay. I see your point. But why Sparkle Cola?”

“It’s valuable, it gives us energy, almost everypony likes it, and we have the old ad slogans for rituals.” Vindaloo shook her head. “It might not be much of a faith, but faith is all we’ve got. It might not be real, but it helps bring us together, and it helps keep us going.”

So things were so desperate that some ponies were turning to junk food as their highest solace. All right. She’d just been comforted by the sight of the Gitgo sign, so who was she to judge.

She looked up at the sign again. Light flickered on the glass of its bulbs, and gunfire echoed between the nearby buildings. Vindaloo sent Trail Mix ahead with a couple of scouts, and she came back wide-eyed and shaking. “Princesses,” she said.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Lyra peeked her head over the edge of the burned-out car she hid behind to get a look at what the three red pips on her EFS represented.

The Minutemares hid half a block from the three-way intersection dominated by the Gitgo sign. One road when north further into Buckstone, the other went back at an angle towards Swampway Park.

Three winged unicorns — one white, one purple, and one blue — hovered in midair beneath the sign, blasting at a pile of rubble at the base of a lamp post. The lamp post had a Triple Diamond City banner on it, defaced with the words “The Great and Powerful Super Alicorns will rule forever!” seared into it by magic. Muzzle flashes sparkled amongst the rubble; Lyra surmised that the alicorns must’ve ambushed a group of TDC guards trying to replace the sign.

“Three alicorns?” whispered Lyra. “What the actual fuck?”

“I told you about the princesses. Didn’t you believe me?”

“Not really, no,” said Lyra. “Three of them? How are they not ruling the wasteland?”

Vindaloo laughed. “There are way more than three, but individually they don’t seem to be much more powerful than you are when your magic is working. They call themselves ‘super alicorns’ because they’re arrogant like that. There’s nothing super about them.

“They’re the victims of some sort of pre-war super-soldier program. The white ones specialize in shields, the purple ones are good at teleporting, and the blue ones can turn invisible. They operate in wings of three, usually one of each color, and they claim to be telepathically linked.”

“And there are a lot of these things? Like a whole group of them?” said Lyra.

“Yeah. They’re getting reinforcements from somewhere.”

Lyra hid her face in the wheel well of the abandoned car. “The wasteland keeps getting worse and worse.”

“They’re not impossible to beat. They think they’re too good for weapons or armor, and they don’t care about cover, so if you can kill the white ones, the rest are easy to take down.”

“But killing the white ones is the trick,” said Lyra.

Vindaloo scowled. “Yeah. I wish we had ammo for our... Trail Mix! No!”

Twenty hooves away, Trail Mix poked her head up from out of cover and fired several shots at the white alicorn. They sparked uselessly against her shield. Purple and Blue craned their necks and shot magic bolts at Trail Mix. One bolt tore a horrible gash along the side of Trail Mix’s head, severing her left ear.

Vindaloo swore, then swore again, louder, as a magic bolt tore a chunk of metal off the roof of the car a few hooves from her own head.

Lyra flopped on her belly in the snow and covered her eyes with her hooves. These magic bolts weren’t the allegedly non-lethal self-defense bolts she used — they were military-grade kinetic impact spells, designed to maim and kill. A magic blast rocked the body of the car. What model was it? If it was spark-powered, they could be in a lot of trouble. Time to put her head between her legs and kiss her ass goodbye. Instead, she opened her eyes. One of the red pips vanished from her EFS. Did that mean the blue one had turned invisible? Great. Just great.

Then she noticed something about the location of the white one. “Vindaloo! I have a stupid idea!”

“Great. Just what we need,” said Vindaloo. Lyra couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic or not.

Lyra wiggled closer to her. A flurry of impacts rocked the car. “You know what can break through a magic shield? Besides a minigun? Large impacts.”

“Okay? Like what?”

“The Gitgo sign! It’s hanging on by one girder, and the white alicorn’s right underneath it. Do you think you can shoot it out?”

Vindaloo peeked over the trunk of the car and sighted along the top of her rifle, careful to stay out of sight of the alicorns. “It’s a hell of a shot.”

Something tickled the back of Lyra’s mind. A tiny worm of a thought that turned into a big fat python of guilt when she tugged it out to look at it. She stuffed a hoof into her saddlebags, past her books and tools, to find a metal and plastic cylinder with a narrow middle nestled at the bottom. “Do you think you’d have more luck with a scope?”

Vindaloo looked at Lyra sideways. “Yes. Why?”

“Let me see your rifle for a second.” Even without her magic, it took Lyra moments to fit the scope onto the top rail of VIndaloo’s rifle.

“You just happened to have that?” said Vindaloo, her expression skeptical.

“Frgth I hd ith,” said Lyra around the grip of her screwdriver.

“’Forgot’, huh?” Vindaloo snatched her rifle back, popped it into her shoulder rig, looked through the scope. She made some adjustments to it with her mouth, then sighted again. Then she did something Lyra had never see her do before, and would never see her do again — she flipped the fire selector on her rifle to ‘burst’.

Vindaloo’s first burst fell short. She swore and fired again. Bullets sparkled against the one rusty strut holding up the Gitgo sign. The sign lurched visibly.

Vindaloo fired three more bursts.

The Gitgo sign, a symbol of Lyra’s life before the war and one of Buckstone’s most recognizable landmarks, tilted slowly towards the street, its progress accelerating the further it tilted. Lyra stared at the red pip on her EFS. Right about now, the white alicorn must be realizing what was happening. Would she try to fly away? Strengthen her shield? This had better…

The sign tore free and plummeted four stories with the stately grace of a noblepony walking to the guillotine. The red dot representing the white alicorn gained an up arrow for a fleeting second. Lyra saw her rush into view, wings spread wide. It looked like she might fly clear! Then the corner of the sign connected with the cusp of her shield. The shield sparked. The corner of the sign crumpled. Shards of orange and green glass sprayed from it. Cracks burst along the curve of the shield, glowing with friction heat. Kinetic transfer knocked the alicorn downward, her mighty wings struggling to stay airborne.

Then the shield shattered. The corner of the sign slammed directly into the alicorn’s face, smashing it flat like a tomato under a car tire. It drove her down out of sight. The whole sign trembled as it hit the ground with a sound of breaking glass and wrenching metal. Lyra thought it might fall on its side; but no — it stood upside down and at an angle, dripping bits of neon tube, warped and damaged but intact, now proudly advertising the ogtiG brand.

Two agonized wails rent the air. The blue and purple alicorns took flight; the blue shimmering until she matched the color of the sky, the purple dodging and weaving to avoid the bullets whizzing past her before teleporting out of sight.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

“You guys saved our asses just now… fuck me with Celestia’s forehooves, are you Minutemares?” The Triple Diamond City guards wore cute armor suits modeled on a boopball umpire’s outfit and carried holstered bats as melee weapons.

“Yep, that’s us,” said Vindaloo, striding out of the wreckage, Paneer on her back. “And we’ve got wounded.” The other Minutemares followed her in a wedge formation.

Most injuries were minor wounds from the ghouls or hiding amongst broken rusty metal, but Trail Mix was in bad shape. The super alicorn’s bolt had taken a chunk out of her skull, and not even two precious stimpacks had been enough to stabilize her. She needed the attention of a surgeon, or she would die. The Minutemares had cleared one of the sleds for her, and BON-80n hovered next to it while the guards led them across the highway overpass to the gates of Swampway Park. Lyra whistled as the erstwhile boopball stadium came into view — somepony had transformed it into a fortress. Not just a fortress, but a castle. Green and red battlements ran along the edges of the stadium walls, topped by a half dozen towers. Guards with heavy weapons watched from those towers — the buildings for half a block around had been leveled to provide fields of fire for rocket launchers and machine guns.

The corrugated metal front gate rolled upwards as they approached, and functionaries in boopball uniforms rushed to help them. Before Vindaloo could protest, the Minutemares were separated into groups — BON-80n and Trail Mix whisked off in one direction, the rank and file Minutemares in a second, and Lyra, Vindaloo, and Paneer in a third.

“What? Why? I… Where are you taking us?” sputtered Vindaloo.

“The Mayor needth to thee you,” said a middle-aged purple earth pony with a clipboard in a shoulder mount and a comically large revolver in a holster on her chest. “Right thith way.”

She led them up several flights of stairs and into the stands, where Lyra had a good view of the entire park. The baseball diamond and stands were packed with crude but surprisingly clean buildings. A small public square around the pitcher’s mound was home to some businesses, restaurants, and a bunker with Rainbow Dash’s cutie mark spray-painted on the front. Further away in the outfield, there were areas that looked like they would be farms in the warmer months and a large warehouse with a neon sign reading “Absolutely Everything”.

“We need to have them bathed before we take them to the mayor,” said a synthetic-sounding voice from behind Lyra.

“No, the mayor inthisted we bring the Minutemare’s leaderth to her immediately,” said the purple earth pony, droplets of spit fluttering from her lips when she hit the sibilants.

Lyra looked back to see who’d spoken — she hadn’t noticed a robot with them. It wasn’t a robot. It was a changeling! Sort of. A changeling made out of dun-colored ceramic plates. Its carapace was worn, scratched, and chipped in a few places. A missing chunk on its breast showed a metal endoskeleton gleaming inside of it. “Oh my gosh, what are you?”

“You don’t know?” said Vindaloo. “I thought you were from CIM.”

Lyra rolled her eyes.“I told you, I went there for a bachelor’s degree. It’s not like they let me in on every super secret project.”

“My name is Co-processor, and I’m a hiveling,” said the robot changeling.

“So… did all the changelings turn into robots? How did that work?” Lyra couldn’t help trying to stare through Co-processor’s chest into their inner workings.

“I’m afraid that’s classified,” said Co-processor, their tone wary.

“Are there a lot of you around the wasteland?” said Lyra.

Vindaloo interrupted. “We don’t know,” she said. “They’re only allowed in Triple Diamond City in their natural forms, but they can create illusions like Changelings used to. Outside these walls? Anycreature could be one, so keep your eyes open.”

“The Hiveling Collective works for the good of all sentient beings in the Commonwealth,” said Co-processor, its ceramic eyebrows rotating into a downward angle. “All other information is classified.” And it wouldn’t answer any more questions.

The purple earth pony led them into a VIP box overlooking the stadium and went behind a decorative curtain, leaving Vindaloo and Lyra standing around the Mayor’s foyer feeling awkward. Paneer slid off her mother’s back and began exploring the room; pushing her nose under cushions, fiddling with decorative arrangements of gems, looking out the window.

“Paneer, stop that,” said Vindaloo.

“No, let her,” said a horribly burned Princess Celestia, stepping through the curtain.

Lyra made a soft, strangled noise. No. It wasn’t Celestia. Too small, and Celestia would never try to carry off the rhinestone-studded baseball uniform and cap this mare was wearing. And she wasn’t exactly burned — Lyra had seen that twisted, whorled flesh before. Her face was hidden behind a featureless porcelain mask, but Lyra was sure it hid the skeletal features of a ghoul.

“Lyra. I was wondering if it was you, from what the guards described,” said Rarity.

“R-Rarity?”

“The very same.”

Lyra pointed at her wings — plucked chicken wings like the hooked claws of a mantis, but wings nonetheless. “P-Princess Rarity?”

Rarity shook her head, too-perfect-and-probably-a-wig mane falling over one of her mask’s eye holes. “Just Mayor,” said Rarity, spreading her wings. “These were Twilight’s little contingency plan. I did want to be a princess once when I was young and foolish. Seeing what the role did to Twilight changed my mind.

“All who can live peacefully are welcome in my city, but I claim no authority beyond its walls. Come. Sit. Drink. We have so much to discuss.”

They joined Rarity on the cushions and the purple pony brought them three glasses of wine and one cup of fruit juice on a tray she held in her mouth. “Thank you, Frazzle darling,” said Rarity.

Frazzle set down the tray and lay down beside and slightly behind Rarity.

Lyra took a drink to settle her nerves. With her magic still burned out, she had to lap at her glass like Vindaloo did. “Are any of your friends alive?”

“I don’t know,” said Rarity, her voice sad. “I can assume from the fact that I have wings Pinkie is gone. There was an order of succession, after all. We are all fortunate that Twilight’s spell didn’t judge Starlight worthy of the role. The Dashites say that Rainbow will return one day, but I’ve heard nothing from her. Fluttershy… I prefer not to talk about her. And Applejack? The Steel Rangers have heard nothing one way or the other, and I’d rather not get my hopes up.”

Lyra needed to process all of this. Rarity was, to her, the ‘good’ Ministry Mare. Her Ministry of Image had been one of the first, from before the war — implemented along with Starlight’s Ministry of Magical Arts and Sciences to administer the cultural part of Twilight’s programs. The ministry had paid Lyra, for a while: her band, before she’d had Bean, had played new wave humie filk. Not a lot of commercial potential, but Image thought their voices needed to be heard, so yay for them. The Ministry of Peace had come next — Fluttershy had wanted to step in when things started to go bad in the world, and, ironically, had a huge role in starting the big war. If there was ever a mare willing to start a war for peace, it was Fluttershy.

When the war had started, Applejack and Rainbow Dash had been raring to step up to the plate and run the Ministries of Wartime Production and Awesome. And when popular opinion started to turn against the war, Pinkie offered the innocent-seeming suggestion of a Ministry of Morale.

But Rarity had resisted. Her ministry alone had no role in the war. Towards the end, Pinkie had insisted that Image institute a massive censorship campaign against ‘unfriendly’ media, but rumor had it that Rarity had moved redacted materials to secret ministry hubs instead of destroying them.

“You said you wanted to speak to us immediately?” Vindaloo asked Rarity, as Lyra tuned back into the conversation.

“I’m amazed to see that the Minutemares have re-formed. It was my understanding you’d been massacred at Breeder’s Hill,” said Rarity.

“Three of us escaped,” said Vindaloo, “accompanied by a handful of refugees. Lyra led us to Stable 93 and helped us reclaim it. We’ve since trained those refugees, and there are now thirty of us, here and at the Stable.”

“Would you like to recruit from the citizens of Triple Diamond City?” said Rarity.

Vindaloo’s tilted her head back slightly. “You’d allow that?”

Rarity opened out her featherless wings in a magnanimous gesture. “I seek to help as many of the wasteland’s creatures as I can, but the city can only support so many. I’ve been allowing certain trusted groups to recruit from those sheltering here. The Minutemares have always been my allies.”

Vindaloo bowed her head slightly. “We’d be honored. Was there anything else?”

“Yes. My beloved Rara has disappeared. I wanted to know if you’ve seen anything of her in your travels.”

“Don’t you have a detective who specializes in missing ponies?” said Vindaloo.

Rarity took a sip from her glass. “Paper Heart. Yes. He has disappeared as well. While looking for her, in fact.”

Vindaloo frowned. “Well, that’s not good. I was going to send Lyra his way. She’s looking for her family.”

Lyra shot a glance at Vindaloo. She hadn’t expected even that basic kindness from her. But why not? She looked at the thin red mare, sitting with Paneer cuddled against her side. Vindaloo had a lot of sharp edges — cheekbones, ribs, words, bullets. But she was probably as close to a good pony as she’d met in the wasteland.

Rarity turned to face her. “Lyra! Your family is missing?” Her expression was hidden behind her mask, but her voice expressed sincere concern.

Lyra told Rarity her story, from the Bad Day until it overlapped with Vindaloo’s. “I know they were alive when they left Stable 93, but I don’t know where they went after that.”

“Oh! Yes, yes!” Rarity tapped her hooves on her cushion excitedly. “A group of refugees from Stable 93 passed through here several years ago! I have no idea if your family was with them, but several of them stayed! Our dearest DJ mumblemumble is from Stable 93! Perhaps she knows what became of them. Perhaps they are…” Rarity took a deep breath. “Well. Excessive hope is not always judicious in the wasteland. Best to leave it at that.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

The radio station occupied the top story of a four-story building in Pitcher Square, easily recognizable by the large jury-rigged antenna. Lyra climbed the staircase along the side of the building. A large oval window by the door showed a small, plump-by-wastelands-standards pink pegasus speaking into the microphone of a radio console. She wore a Bad Harmony tank top and, typical of wasteland fashion, no pants. Her long purple mane covered one eye. Lyra could see that her cutie mark was scarred somehow. Their eyes met through the glass, and the pink pegasus covered her mouth and gasped. She waved Lyra in.

“Somepony I need to talk to just came in, so I have to go. Um… I’m going to play some songs now. Hold on.” She flipped some switches on her console with her wingtips, and the reel to reel tape on the other side of the room began to turn.

“I can’t believe it’s you!” The mare leaped from her chair, wings fluttering, and wrapped her forelegs around Lyra’s neck. “I didn’t even know you were still alive.”

“Okay, I don’t know who you are.”

“Well, I guess you wouldn’t. I was one of the ponies you saved. On the last elevator down. I’d be dead if it wasn’t for you.”

The little pegasus — who couldn’t be more than twenty-two and was a little young for her even going by apparent and not chronological age — rubbed her face against Lyra’s chest beaming like a child cuddling a puppy. Lyra’s eyes drifted to her croup and the very round curves of her rump cheeks. No. Bad Lyra. Not a good time to be horny. “If I could have some personal space?” she said, pushing the younger mare away as gently as she could.

“Um… Okay. I’m sorry. I just…” She blushed and looked at the floor, “You know. I was always grateful to you. A lot of us were. Ponies would leave you flowers, sometimes. Ponies you saved.”

Lyra blinked. “I… I did not know that.”

“They probably all rotted away by the time you woke up,” said the DJ mare.

Lyra’s throat felt a little tight. She’d been thinking of that good deed as one of the worst decisions of her life. And here was one pony who would be dead if not for her. “I don’t know what to say. You’re welcome?”

The DJ mare grinned and blushed. “So. Um. I don’t mean to be rude? But you have my bag.”

Lyra blinked. “Oh! You’re Soft Sounds?” She unslung her bag. “Yes, of course, you can have it back.”

Soft Sounds pushed her long purple mane out of her face; it immediately fell back over her eye. “I don’t need the bag. I got a new one. But…” Her eyes looked up towards Lyra, gleaming with hope. “Do you still have the books that were in it?”

“I do, actually!” She fished them out with her mouth and set them on the top of the radio console, glad she hadn’t used either for scrap paper.

Soft Sounds grabbed the Leaftember Issue and hugged it to her chest. “Oh, I thought I’d lost this forever. We left the Stable in such a hurry; I didn’t have time to go and get my bag. It’s… It’s the last edition, you know. There’s never going to be another Leaftember Issue, and I haven’t been able to find another copy.” She closed her eyes, leaned down to sniff the book, and kissed the edge. Lyra wondered if she should leave the two of them alone.

“How did you get out of the tank?” said Soft Sounds.

“It just opened for me,” said Lyra. “I guess it decided I was better. Did you know my family?”

“I did! A little. Bean was my age, but we weren’t really friends? When I was little, ponies picked on me, and he’d stick up for me. But he didn’t want to talk to me or anything. He just…” She trailed off and started flipping through the magazine.

Lyra narrowed her eyes. “He just what.”

“I think he just liked to get into fights,” she said, licking her hoof and turning the page of her magazine.

Lyra blew out through her nose. “Okay. Do you know where they are now?”

“Not Bean, no. Beanpole and his friend Sea Sprite…” Soft Sounds looked up. “They went to the Enclave. I’m sorry.”

The floor ripped itself out from under Lyra. Someone was shouting. Screaming. Crying. Saying ‘no no no’ over and over. Lyra couldn’t stand to hear it, but the voice wouldn’t stop. She banged her head against the floor, trying to knock herself out so she wouldn’t have to listen anymore.

“I shouldn’t have said! I shouldn’t have said! Oh, I shouldn’t have said!” Gentle pink hooves took hold of Lyra and a few moments later Lyra found herself in an office chair with a blanket over her and an old tin can full of very strong, very smelly, very dark beer between her hooves. Soft Sounds huddled against the radio console, watching Lyra like she might jump out the studio window and try to end it all. Or go for her throat.

Lyra took a big slug of the beer. Its bitter, sour taste braced her. “Tell me what happened? And yes, I very much want to know, so don’t ask.”

Soft sounds flinched like Lyra had raised a hoof to her, but she spoke. “So, okay, all of us from Stable 93 came into Triple Diamond City in one big group. And Rarity’s ponies were all over us, cleaning us up, getting us food, asking if any of us were sick or hurt. It was a big relief, I’d been pretty miserable… well, for most of my life, before that. TDC was the nicest place I’d ever seen. It still is. So nice that I didn’t even mind when they put us all in quarantine for two weeks when they found out about the Pukwudgie Flu.

“We finally got out, and the first thing we saw was a big black airship and three vertibirds coming down through the clouds. It was exact to the minute — the Enclave must have spies here. The airship settled over the farm field, and armored ponies came down out of the vertibirds and tried to round us pegasi up and herd us into the airship. Rarity flew right out the window of her office and tried to talk to them, and when they didn’t listen, she threw them around until they did.

“Then an Enclave officer came out of the airship and asked if he could talk to us. Rarity said she wouldn’t stop him. The officer told us that in the Enclave we’d always be safe and that they had huge floating farms with enough food for everypony. Rarity asked them if they had so much food, then why didn’t they share.” Soft Sounds giggled. “He didn’t like that.”

“But some ponies wanted to go with them?” said Lyra. “Why?”

Soft Sounds rolled her eyes. “Um, I don’t want to say anything bad about your husband. But I guess different ponies are scared of different things. Some ponies are scared of being hurt or hungry. Others are more scared of mean ponies in scary armor who try to kidnap them. Some ponies are so scared of being hurt or hungry they’re willing to believe that a mean pony in scary armor might tell them the whole truth. I don’t know. I don’t want to say anything bad.”

She turned back to the console and started fiddling with some dials and buttons. Lyra was pretty sure that those buttons and dials didn’t need fiddling with, and that Soft Sounds was tired of talking.

“What about Bean?” said Lyra.

“I haven’t seen him around in a long time. And I didn’t like who he grew up into. He was very militaristic. Like. Not mean or tribalist or anything? Just really obsessed with weapons and armor, and kind of angry.”

“Angry,” said Lyra warily.

“He never grew out of wanting to get into fights. He never started them, you know? But he always managed to find a reason. Somepony who needed correcting. Who he felt wasn’t behaving right. And things tended to… escalate. It’s like something was eating at him, and he needed an outlet.”

Maybe that his mother had abandoned him to save the lives of a bunch of strangers? Lyra’s stomach twisted itself into a guilty knot.

“You might ask at the Steel Rangers recruiting station, they…” She pressed her hooves against her cheeks. “Oh, gosh I’m so sorry!”

Lyra felt a nauseating tingle of dread and hope in her belly. “What! What?” She said, kicking her rolling chair towards her.

Soft Sounds leaned back from Lyra. “It’s not like I DJ the only good radio program in the world or anything. Would you like me to put you on the air?”

Lyra took a big drink of her beer. “Yes. Yes, I would.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Lyra stood on the balcony, looking at the sky and listening to the sound of her own voice. “…so Bean, Beanpole, if you’re out there, I miss you. Please come find me. I have friends at Triple Diamond City and Stable 93. Please come find me.”

Beanpole was gone. He might as well be dead. He was locked up over those clouds where she couldn’t get at him. Maybe one day she’d find a working vertibird and go up there and give him a piece of her mind. But she wasn’t sure she wanted to. She’d pressed Soft Sounds as to exactly what kind of relationship Beanpole and Sea Sprite had, and she’d just started stammering.

That son of a bitch.

Yes, she’d also cheated on him, but that didn’t make her any less angry. He’d done it first. That fucking fucker of fucks…

No. That wasn’t fair. Did she expect him to wait twenty years for her?

Yes. Yes, she did. She was that awesome.

She hadn’t waited two weeks for him.

“Harmony, I’m such a slut,” she muttered to herself.

Lyra gritted her teeth and walked down the stairs. At least there was a chance she might find Bean.

She needed to see how Vindaloo and BON-80n were doing. They would both be at the hospital, waiting for the Triple Diamond City doctors to finish operating on Trail Mix. But first, she wanted to check-in at the Steel Rangers recruiting station, which was across the square from the radio station.

“HellowouldyouliketojointheSteelRangers,” said a sour-looking, nauseous green pony in a heavy robe covered in utility pouches. He was pressing keys on a terminal with a rapid rhythm that said ‘video game’ rather than ‘doing work’. A name tag on his breast identified his as Field Scribe Tilt-a-Whirl.

Lyra leaned up on the counter in front of him. “No. I want to ask if a certain pony signed up here.”

Field Scribe Tilt-a-Whirl glared at her over the top of his terminal. “If you don’t want to sign up, or don’t have a cache of pre-war technology you want to tell me about, then I can’t help you.”

Lyra felt her jaw muscles tighten. Oh, this lazy asshole was not going to come between her and her son. “Good game?”

Tilt-a-Whirl flushed but didn’t stop pushing buttons.

“Listen,” said Lyra, marshaling herself for a last stab at being reasonable, “I’m looking for my son. I think he might have joined up with you. Can you please tell me if he did.”

“Nope,” said Tilt-a-Whirl.

Lyra drew in a deep breath, ready to employ some of the verbal decapitation techniques she’d learned by watching Vindaloo.

Before she could launch her attack, a deep, resonate voice spoke from behind her. “What seems to be the problem here, Field Scribe Tilt-a-Whirl?”

Tilt-a-Whirl’s cheeks paled to an even more nauseous shade of green. His hooves zipped to the left side of the keyboard — Lyra knew an alt-tab when she saw one. “Nothing at all, Paladin Steelhooves.”

Lyra turned around and found herself face to chest with a model of power armor she wasn’t familiar with. She looked up into his visor, and said, “Hello, Paladin. My name is Lyra Heartstrings and I’m looking for my son, Bean Heartstrings. I think he might’ve wanted to join the Steel Rangers.”

Steel Hooves nodded. “From Stable 93. Are you with the Minutemares who arrived today?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Is Crispy Apples still with them?”

“Yeah. We left him back at the stable. He’s leading the Minutemares we left back there.” She hesitated. Steelhooves knew Crispy. Did he like him? Did he like the Minutemares? It was impossible to read his body language through the armor. She could spin Crispy and the Minutemares either way, but they were her friends, so she decided not to mention the war crime. “He’s been a good leader. Brave and kind. The Minutemares were almost gone, but he and Vindaloo are bringing them back.”

“Glad to hear it. He’s my cousin, you know.”

Lyra smiled. “I did not.” Jackpot.

“Should, I, ah, look her son up then?” stammered Tilt-a-Whirl.

“No,” rumbled Steelhooves. That voice could melt butter. It was certainly melting Lyra’s butter. She swore internally. Why was she so horny today? Was she going into heat? It was awfully early in the year for that. Her body’s internal clock must be entirely out of whack from being in the tank for so long. She was glad she still had those sanitary pads she’d found in Soft Sounds’ bag.

“I remember Bean,” said Steelhooves. “I spoke to him myself. We talked for a long time. In the end, he decided that he didn’t want to join us. The Steel Rangers don’t currently operate in the northeast, and he felt a loyalty to the region.”

“Oh,” said Lyra, shoulders slumping.

“It was good that he didn’t want to join us, because he was insistent on a combat role, and I would have had to reject him.”

Lyra blinked. “What?” She had to say she felt a little offended. From what she knew about her son, it seemed to her like he’d make a good soldier. Maybe the Steel Rangers just weren’t good enough for her boy.

“A Steel Ranger must be calm, rational, and dispassionate. We work for the long term good of Equestria. Your son hides and marshals his rage, but it only grows stronger for being disciplined. I would worry if I were you.”

“W-why?” said Lyra. If Steelhooves needed her to worry, she was on it.

“If your son wanted to join a local army, there are only two of any significance in the Commonwealth. You would have heard if he’d become a Minutemare. That leaves the Ponysmith.”

“The unicorn who kidnaps other unicorns and enslaves them to fight for him?” Lyra felt the blood drain from her cheeks. Oh, this was bad. That was very, very bad. This was the worst day since the Bad Day. It couldn’t possibly get any worse.

“Yes. That one. But I doubt he’d waste your son’s potential as a slave. He has rangers of his own — armored ponies who lead his unicorn slave hordes. He preys on the talented and disaffected amongst the unicorns, and makes them his officers.”

It was worse. Lyra’s stomach sank so low it fell out of her belly and landed in a sodden pile at her hooves. “Oh my Harmony, no,” she said.

“I hope I’m wrong. But it may well be that your son is in desperate need of a stern talking-to from his mother.”

“Damn straight,” said Lyra, setting her jaw.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

On her way to the hospital, Lyra found an empty tin can in the street outside the noodle stand and kicked it in front of her as she walked. The streets swarmed with creatures, working, laughing, talking, smiling. Mostly earth ponies, but also griffons, hippogriffs, yaks, zebras, and buffalo. Very few pegasi (most with scarred cutie marks, and even fewer unicorns. She saw a diamond dog playing harmonica in front of a pork pie hat full of bottlecaps; that was a relief. They weren’t all diamondclaws now.

The hivelings especially fascinated her. She watched their strange ceramic bodies, dun-colored plates shifting against each other. Glittering compound eyes made of dozens of tiny cameras. Rainbow-sheened polymer wings. Other ponies — like Vindaloo apparently — might be disturbed by them, but Lyra found them hypnotic.

She kicked her can ahead of her, right into the claws of a hippogriff.

“Oh, gosh, I’m so sorry!” said Lyra.

“Not at all,” said the griff, who wore a boopball jersey. “Let me get that for you.” He hooked it on the end of a spiked pole he held in his other claw and tossed it into his saddlebags.

“Um, thank you,” said Lyra, blinking.

“Have a beautiful day!” said the griff. He went on his way, lion-like tail held proudly high.

Lyra looked around the streets with new eyes. Creatures in boopball jerseys were scattered everywhere amongst the population, cleaning things, fixing things, carrying things, answering questions. She didn’t know exactly what their deal was, but Lyra got the sense that as far as local government went, Rarity had her act together.

Lyra turned the last corner to the hospital, and her heart plummeted. Vindaloo, BON-80n, and almost all of the Minutemares were sitting on the benches in the small plaza out front, looking dejected.

Vindaloo looked up towards her as she approached. “Trail Mix is dead.”

Level Up
New Perk: Co-ordinated Fire. Allied ponies within voice range gain a 10% accuracy bonus against targets you can detect on your EFS.

Next Chapter: Chapter 14: 1000 Homo Dashites Estimated time remaining: 4 Hours, 54 Minutes