A collar of magical force slammed down on Lyra’s neck. It drove her face into the snow, pinning her out of reach of BON-80n’s wrecked body. “Bon Bon!” screamed Lyra, freezing tears soaking her cheeks.

Flickers of electricity flashed behind the cracks in BON-80ns metal chassis. “I… and-am z-still are func-z-tional, mon petit tournevis-z.” Her voice crackled, half masked by feedback.

“What’s all this about?” said Paper Heart, from outside Lyra’s field of vision.

“Celestia’s last living student will be coming with me,” said Easy Money. “So will you.” He stood naked in the snow — no weapons, no armor, just a small satchel strapped across his shoulder, probably to hold his cigarettes. His coat was so pure white it made the fresh snow look dingy by comparison. The cutie mark on his hard-muscled flank was a pile of gambling chips.

“Collecting more oddities for your boss?” said Fizzle, pawing at the snow with her hoof.

“Her son is one of the Ponysmith’s most valuable officers.” He tilted his head back. “We’d assumed he’d exaggerated her prowess — children usually go one way or the other about their parents. But from the rumors I’ve collected and what our troops witnessed in combat yesterday, it seems he was understating.”

“My magic has been burnt out for weeks,” said Lyra. “You haven’t seen anything.”

Easy Money nodded. “I’m sure. I’m sure there’s a lot you can teach us. And you will — you won’t have any choice.”

“I’ll come willingly if you let me see my son.”

“Oh no.” He shook his head. “I’m so sorry. But I don’t negotiate. You won’t be allowed to see him. You and all your companions are coming with me, no conditions.”

“Celestia fuck you with two flaming forehooves!” snapped Lyra. Her hooves scrabbled in the snow, and her magic picked uselessly at the force field collaring her neck. Her mouth tasted bitter. Coppery.

“Pretty sure Celestia’s dead,” said Easy.

“If you’re done?” said Fizzle. Her voice sounded calm, droll, like it had when she’d walked down that airship ramp so many years ago. “Because these creatures are under my protection. If you want them, you’ll have to deal with me first.”

“Are you sure about that?” said Easy Money. “Last time we fought, it didn’t go well for you.”

Fizzle stepped between him and Lyra. Her hooves crunched through the snow next to Lyra’s head. “I’ve been so bored in there. It’ll be good to finally get a chance to stretch my legs.”

Still holding Lyra down, Easy Money lashed out with a force field, wielding it like a scythe blade straight for Fizzle’s neck. Her horn flashed, and his force scythe disintegrated, torn apart by raw magic. Fizzle jumped towards him. He hunkered down, leaped up, and met her in midair. Light sparkled out of Lyra’s field of vision. They landed again, further into the park. A line of torn flesh zig-zagged across Easy Money’s cheek.

“You’re holding back,” said Fizzle with a wicked smile. “Let her go. Or do you not think you can catch her again?”

He tapped the ash off the end of his cigarette. A bright spark traced his wound, searing it shut. He didn’t flinch. “Why do you want to risk your life for them? I don’t understand.”

“As if I’d hold my life so tightly,” said Fizzle. “I’ve been a soldier all my life. I’ve fought for good creatures, and I’ve fought for bad. But I’ve always fought for something.”

“You’re a mercenary,” he said. “You kill for money. There’s nothing romantic about it.”

“And you’d do it for free,” she said, smirking.

“I see. That’s an interesting way to look at it.” He nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, that makes a lot of sense. Thank you for your insight.”

Fizzle pranced in place, her horn sparking. “Then let her go. Give me your full effort. Catch her again later. It’ll be more fun that way.”

He flicked his cigarette away and charged her. The storm-dimmed park flashed noontime bright with magical overglow as the towering white body slammed into the lithe purple one. Snow melted to steam around them. The pressure lifted off Lyra’s neck.

She raced to BON-80n’s side, snow spraying from underneath her hooves. She looked her over with wild surmise. The damage was bad — her engine block smashed, her chassis bent into a cracked egg shape. Guts of plastic and wire glittered with melting snow.

“Ple-z go,” she said, “I will-zzz-be fine.”

“No,” Lyra said, “I’m going to help you. Do you trust me?” said Lyra.

“With-z my life.”

Lyra pried open BON-80n’s access panel with her magic. “I need to get at your soul.” She struggled to keep her voice steady. Act cheerful. Bedside manner. That’s what BON-80n would do.

“Ponies k-z-eep it in their pineal gland-z-s. Thos-z-e are not removable.”

“Ponies are pretty sloppily designed,” said Lyra. Her heart didn’t beat as she scanned her friend’s insides, looking for something she’d only seen once. There it was! In a nest of wires was a thing about a hoof long, looking like the love child of a spark plug and a vacuum tube. Her soul chip. “Okay. Good news. I found your soul. I’m going to remove it. I don’t…” She bit down on her words before the turned into sobs. “I don’t know if this is going to hurt. Are you ready?”

A tentacle draped itself weakly around Lyra’s foreleg. “Z-do.” Her chassis lights blinked pink and went out. The tentacle tightened.

Lyra began detaching connections one at a time. Magic light flickered overhead. The ground shook. Lyra bit her lower lip as she gently eased the soul chip from its socket. The tentacle around Lyra’s foreleg went limp. Lyra levitated out what was left of her towel, wrapped the soul chip in it, and put it in her saddlebags. Time to go. Keeping her body low to avoid drawing attention, she galloped uphill towards the statehouse. When she reached its steps, she paused to look back.

Fizzle and Easy Money moved as if they were dancing — ducking, diving, circling, always facing each other, bodies never quite connecting. The sparks from her forehead and the overglow from his horn reflected on the snow like something from one of Coloratura’s shows.

Coloratura. Lyra saw no sign of her or Paper Heart. She hoped they were all right. They’d be heading southwest, towards Triple Diamond City. Lyra would lead Easy Money away from them. One way or another, with him or without him, she was heading north. North to the Sawhorse Iron Works

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Lyra found the Puddinghead Bridge deserted. Empty pillbox bunkers on either end suggested the Ponysmith’s work; apparently, this was where some of the troops she’d seen heading for the library had come from. They’d left landmines at either end of the bridge — military models with Ministry of Peace-mandated blinking orange warning lights. She punted the first one she encountered out over the Canter River with a telekinetic fist. It exploded in midair, sprinkling the water with shrapnel. She moved more carefully after that.

The Canter River ran pinkish beneath the bridge. She vaguely remembered somepony — was it Fizzlepop’s recorded message? — mentioning Canterlot being poisoned. Was the Canter polluted by whatever had happened a thousand miles away? Not even the scrappy brown foliage of the wasteland would grow on its banks.

She passed into Canterstown, where she kept the spire of the Breeder’s Hill monument far to her right, worried that the Ponysmith might still have troops at the Minutemares’ old base. Then she swung north again towards the Mystical river, which she found to be a reassuringly normal shade of brown.

As she approached the Route 99 bridge into Everhoof, a bullet-pocked the pavement at her feet. Lyra yelped and dove for cover.

A pony wearing a helmet made out of some kind of animal skull poked her head up over the wreckage of a Cowvega, keeping her rifle leveled at her. “Go gotta pay the toll, you wanna cross the bridge, sweet cheeks!”

The voice of Littlepip whispered in her ear. They’re raiders. Kill them. Kill them all. They deserve to die.

Lyra gritted her teeth and ignored it — moral imperative to purge the wasteland of evil or no, these ponies had the drop on her. “I’ve got some trade goods. T-shirts. Figurines. Mint condition.”

“Toss ‘em over. Let’s have a look.”

Lyra unslung the tote bag with her magic and tossed it. A second pony, dressed in spiky leather armor, darted out from behind their Cowvega to grab it and pull it back to cover. “It checks out!” She said after a moment or two.

“Can I go now?” said Lyra, peeking out from cover.

“I don’t know,” said cow skull helmet. “What else you got? That looks like a pretty nice pistol.”

“What I’ve got,” said Lyra, narrowing her eyes, “Is a hot tip. I’ve got Easy Money on my tail. Word to the wise, you might want to take the rest of the day off from the bridge troll rat race. Spend some time with the husband and foals. It’d do you some good.”

“Bullshit,” said cow skull helmet.

“I’m a unicorn in a stable suit. Do I not seem like his type to you?”

The other raider poked her head up. “C’mon, Cow Pie, this shit’ll buy us an ass load of dash. Let’s go. Just in case she’s telling the truth.”

Cow Pie sneered. “Fine. But don’t expect any more freebies.”

“It was hardly free,” muttered Lyra as she trudged across the snowy bridge into Everhoof.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

More than anything, she needed a place to hide BON-80n’s soul chip. That Easy Money would catch her was given. But she believed — had to believe — that she’d escape again, come back, and find BON-80n a new body. Somehow. She realized she wasn’t far from the old Amarezon Warehouse. It was such an obvious target for looters that by now it would be completely safe from them: anything Ditzy hadn’t taken with her to Triple Diamond City would have been stripped away years ago. She picked up her pace. The effort made her legs and lungs burn.

“How… how have I been in the wasteland all this time and I’m still out of shape?” she gasped. She paused to rest against a fence post, then slipped through a gap in the wire and cut across a tank farm towards the warehouse. The tanks were slumped and broken and oozing bright green fluid.

Elevated radiation levels detected! Please go someplace else! said Littlepip from the screen of her PipBuck.

“What.. what the hell?” gasped Lyra. “I left you back in Stable 114!”

Littlepip said nothing.

The warehouse stood bare and sad, the front scorched and slumped where the balefire shock wave had hit it. Inside, anything that could be moved was gone. No carts, no conveyors, no doors. Even the huge ceiling fans — Amarezon had been too cheap to air-condition these places — were missing, as were some sections of wall. Lyra headed for the bathrooms. She laid the soul chip in its towel shroud at the bottom of an exposed toilet pipe and covered it with rubble. She thought of leaving her Pipbuck and pistol, but if she was missing items Easy Money might guess that she’d made a pitstop.

Back in the snow, she retraced her steps. She made it back across the bridge successfully — Fizzle had bought her a lot of time! Had she won? Lyra couldn’t count on that.

Looking back across the bridge, she saw how extremely obvious her double trail of hoof-prints was. It was still snowing, but not hard enough that her passage wouldn’t be obvious for hours. That wasn’t good.

Looking around for something to cover her tracks with, Lyra’s eyes settled on the Cowvega Cow Pie had been hiding behind. The hood latch on the dashboard was broken, so she bucked at the hood with her hind hooves until it popped open. The engine block was a write-off, cracked and partly melted, but the spark battery seemed fine! She pulled it out, set it in the snow at the end of the bridge, and walked as far away as she could and still have a chance of hitting it.

She emptied a clip at it to no visible effect, and was about to reload and try moving closer when the spark battery started flashing and sounding a warning beep. Lyra yelped, turned, and ran.

The shockwave caught her, lifted her, and threw her ten hooves. Struggling not to give in to a post-traumatic panic attack, Lyra pushed herself out of the snow with aching legs and looked back to see if that trick had helped.

It had.

Not only had the exploding spark battery cleared away her hoofprints, but it had also cleared away half the bridge. Cow Pie and her friend were going to be livid when they came back tomorrow to find their ambush spot gone. As a bonus, there was no way Easy Money had missed that. He should be along presently if he was going to come at all.

Shaking herself off, Lyra headed west along the MacGriff Highway into Maneford.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Easy Money caught up with her in the parking lot of a grocery store near the elevated highway. Lyra stopped and waited for him in the highway’s shadow. There was an APC parked up there. She realized it was the Ministry of Morale checkpoint where the Bad Day had started for her. She thought about the idea of her journey ending where it began, and her chest felt heavy. She needed her journey not to end here. She had to see Little Bean. One last time.

“I’ll come peacefully,” she shouted as Easy Money came within voice range.

“No. You have a lot to learn, so we might as well have a lesson right now. That lesson is that you must never, ever disobey me.” His legs and face were soaked in blood. It didn’t look like it was his. “I told you you had to come with me. You ran away. So.” His horn flashed. Something hard hit the back of Lyra’s forelegs, forcing her to kneel. “This is going to hurt. A lot. Rest assured that I will not be permanently damaging you. You will work for us, eventually.”

Bands of magical force snapped around Lyra’s body. Blows pummeled her — her ribs, her belly, her flanks, her face. Force slammed into her nose, and blood gushed out, reddening the snow.

“Oops,” he said. “I got a little carried away there. Here. Let me get that for you.” He ripped off her helmet with his magic, tossed it away, and grabbed her by the mane. He jerked her head back, pulling clumps of her mane out by the roots, and drew a filmy force field across her nose, wiping the blood away. It was immediately replaced by more.

“See. I’m not so bad. I want to help you.”

“Help me?” mumbled Lyra. Almost every part of her body hurt. It was hard to even process what he was saying. What did he want to help her with? She looked into his golden eyes. He was still smiling. He looked so nice. How could he be so mean? “I need to talk to Bean.”

He tapped the ash off the end of his cigarette. “I told you ‘no’.”

His forehoof lashed out and struck her in the throat, caving in her windpipe. Lyra tried to gasp in pain and shock, but the air wouldn’t go in. She tried to reach for her throat, but his magic held her tight. She tried to scream, but only a thin whine came out.

He looked down at her, still smiling, smiling, smiling so calmly. The edges of her vision darkened, like the vignetting in an old photograph.

Easy Money flicked open the flap of his shoulder pouch, pulled out a stimpack, and jammed it into her neck. Healing potion flooded her body. Her windpipe made a sickening popping noise as it filled back out to its normal volume. She used her first full breath to sob.

“That’s enough for now,” He said, releasing his magic and letting her slump in a pile in the parking lot. “Get on your hooves and come with me. If you try to run away again, I’ll cut off your legs.”

Level Up
New Perk: Pain Tolerance. The Wasteland can dish it out, and you can take it. You regenerate 5 hp per minute.

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