Rainpril 4th, EOH 47

Danger! Extreme radiation warning! Vacate area immediately! warned Littlepip, her tiny digital legs flailing frantically. I warned you. Didn’t I warn you?

Lyra was lost. The blizzard had strengthened after she’d left the false daylight of the mini-suns, raged through the night, and continued in the dim gray light that passed for daytime these days. Her PipBuck screen kept frosting over, making the map hard to read. She didn’t know why there was so much radiation all of a sudden; there wasn’t green, glowing stuff anywhere around her. No matter which way she went, Littlepip just got more frantic.

“Tell you what, Littlepip,” she said through chattering teeth. “Let’s play a game. Do you like games?”

Radiation warning! Hypothermia warning! This isn’t a game, sport! You’re going to die!

“If I’m moving towards the radiation, you say ‘hot’. And if I’m moving away, you say, ‘cold’. Does that sound like fun?”

You. Are. Going. To. Die.

Lyra chose a direction and started walking.

Hot! Hot! said Littlepip.

Lyra turned all the way around and headed what she thought was the opposite direction.

Hot! Hot! Hotter! Burning up!

Lyra swore and turned ninety degrees from her current path.

Oh, Celestia and Luna fucking you at either end, that’s even hotter!

“Fine. Sometimes the only way out is through.” She started to gallop. Or at least as close to a gallop as she could manage. The snow was so deep that every step forward was a heroic effort. She was starting to feel nauseous, too. And her vision was blurring.

She charged on, hoping for something other than the unrelieved rolls of white that made up the terrain around her.

She hit a patch of ice beneath the snow. Tripped. Skidded. Tried to get up. Puked instead.

“Oh no, oh no, oh no,” said Littlepip — suddenly the hard, stinky, pretty, almost-but-not-quite-real kind of Littlepip. “This is bad. This is bad. Please get up.”

“I don’… I don’ feel very good,” said Lyra. Eyeball deep in snow, she could barely see beyond the concerned stable pony looming over her. “Gotta lie down for a sec. Be right as rain.”

“No! You’re cold, wet, irradiated. If you stop moving, you’ll die. And if you die, what’ll I do? It’s not like I can go be somepony else’s recurring hallucination.”

“Just need… a little nap.”

“No! No naps! Come on! We’re almost to Arbu. They’ll help you there.” Littlepip wrapped her forelegs around Lyra and hauled at her. She was much smaller than Lyra, and wiry though she was she couldn’t do more than budge her a few inches.

“Where the fuck is Arbu?” Lyra didn’t want to move, but it seemed unkind to let Littlepip go to all that effort for nothing. She pushed herself up and staggered forward, skidding on the ice beneath the snow.

Dark shapes materialized ahead, hazy in the falling snow — the colossal outlines of a pair of thick, inward curving spires. The cooling towers of Exelon Mystic Station. She was heading straight into the ruins of a spark reactor.

Her gut heaved. She pitched forward, vomiting as she fell. Red vomit. She was as good as dead. “I might as well not have tried,” she said aloud. “What did I accomplish? Nothing. Not a single thing.”

“I’m going for help.”

Lyra groaned. “What? How? Don’t leave me!”

But no one answered. Littlepip was gone.

“Ma’am! Is that you, Ma’am?” said a voice with an affected Trottingham accent.

“What?” said Lyra. “Who’s there?”

Lights blinked amongst the snowflakes, advancing, gradually materializing into the form of a Mr. Hoofsies robot.

“Bon Bon? Is that you?”

“Oh dear. Oh heavens, this is very bad,” said Codsworth. “Come right this way, Ma’am. I can take you someplace safe.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Rainpril 6th, EOH 47

“Can I at least have a cigarette?”

“No smoking in the infirmary,” said Doctor Vogel Kamph. The aging brown earth pony set up a blocky device on the table next to her cot. Light from several screens on his end flickered against his lab coat. A long rod with an eyepiece on the end rose up from the machine. “If you could look in here please?” His accent was sugary sweet and kindly and spoke to Lyra of distant lands.

“What are you testing me for? I’m still feeling messed up from the anti-radiation meds. I could use a smoke.”

The doctor gave her a stern look. “Smoking tobacco can lead to lung cancer, young lady.”

Lyra’s mind remembered textbook images of particles of ionizing spark radiation penetrating cells, damaging DNA. Cells dividing, duplicating the damage, populating out of control. “So can going outside, these days. So I’ll go outside and have a smoke, and I’ll have all of my bases covered.” She wanted to get a better idea of where she was — she’d been barely coherent when Codsworth brought her in; all she knew was she was in a place called Haven, in a mid-Celestian home converted into the town’s infirmary.

He sighed. “Yes, you may take a walk after the test is over. Now — first question. Someone gives you a calfskin wallet for your birthday. How do you react?”

“Are you trying to test if I’m a serial killer?”

“It’s just a personality test we give to all new arrivals in Haven.”

“I can save you time — I’m an ENTP.”

“Just answer the question, please.”

“Fine. I’d call the police.”

“A young filly shows you her butterfly collection, along with the killing jar.”

“I’d be quite interested in that.”

“While walking along in desert sand, you suddenly look down and see a tortoise crawling toward you. You reach down and flip it over onto its back. The tortoise lies there, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs, trying to turn itself over, but it can’t do so without your help. You’re not helping. Why?”

Lyra raised an eyebrow. “Why did I flip it over in the first place? Does it owe me money?”

Apparently, that was a satisfactory answer, because he moved on to the next question. “A trolley is heading towards six ponies who are tied to the track. By pulling the switch, you may redirect the trolley towards a track where only a single pony will be killed. What do you…”

“I throw myself in front of the trolley, tangling myself in the wheels, saving everypony, and escaping anyone ever asking me that stupid question again.”

Doctor Vogel Kamph looked quizzically at his notes. “I’m not sure that’s an allowable response.”

“This is an empathy test, isn’t it? You are trying to test if I’m a serial killer.”

He glared at her over the top of his glasses. “Are you a serial killer?”

“That depends on your definition.”

He stroked his chin. “I’ve never asked that question before. Perhaps I should add it to the test. Anyway. Next Question.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Doctor Vogel Kamph was at it with his stupid test and his stupid gooey old world accent for another two hours. After he was done, Lyra went outside, traded a clip of pistol ammunition for a case of cigarettes at the general store, and sat on a park bench.

She levitated the cigarette in front of her and lit it with a spark of magic. Either Easy Money had turned her magic back on when he left, or the shut off had a time limit, or the whole ‘I can turn off your magic’ thing had just been some kind of psychological trick. She didn’t know if he’d been telling the truth about ‘fixing’ her magical burnout either. She hadn’t used much magic in the blizzard yesterday — survival magic wasn’t her thing, and she hadn’t been in teleport range of anyplace she knew was safe — so she hadn’t been able to push her limits.

She took a drag off her cigarette. She held the smoke in her lungs for a little while, then blew it out and watched it curl away in front of her snout. Haven was a small settlement; a dozen refurbished pre-war buildings and some snowed over gardens surrounded by a decent wall with a parapet and a few remote-controlled turrets. She counted forty or fifty residents — they all wore cozy pre-war clothing, and as much as this place gave her the heebie-jeebies and made the base of her spine tingle, it was nice not having to look at everypony’s junk all the time.

Nothing seemed abnormal about this place except its normality.

She took another drag off her cigarette. They’d let her keep all her stuff. She’d gotten her bearings on her PipBuck’s map — she was a few miles north of the Canter river; she ought to be able to stop at Everhoof to get BON-80n’s soul and make it to Triple Diamond City if she was careful.

“There’s something wrong with this place,” said Littlepip, sitting on the park bench next to her. “Something evil.”

Lyra sucked in on her cigarette, and let the smoke roll out over her lower lip. “Hey, do you have a minute to talk?”

Littlepip looked startled. “Sure. I mean. I didn’t think you liked me.”

“I don’t like you because I don’t like myself. And you,” she said, looking sideways at Littlepip, feeling a little spiteful, “Are nothing but a part of me. A part I especially hate.”

Littlepip closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. “Fine. Fine. I can be the bigger mare. What part of you am I?”

“The part that believes she’s right. And the part that’s confident enough to act on that belief. The part that’s like Twilight.”

Littlepip squinted at Lyra, looking confused. “You mean Twilight Sparkle? The one who had trouble making friends? The Ministry of Arcane Sciences mare?”

“You mean the Ministry of Magical Arts and Sciences? That’s Starlight. I’m talking about the princess.”

“Princess Luna?”

Lyra tapped the ash off the end of her cigarette. “You know what? Never mind.”

“So. But not to be a pain in the butt. You don’t like me because I do what I think is right?”

Lyra nodded. “Even if it gets creatures killed.”

Littlepip blew out through her nostrils. “Well, I hate to tell you this, but doing what you think is wrong? Or doing nothing? Those get ponies killed too. Violence is a part of daily life around here.”

“Yeah? And do you know a way to fix that?”

Littlepip began to speak, but Lyra found herself unable to concentrate on her words. She watched a team of ponies clearing yesterday’s snow from the paths between the buildings. A mare emerged from one of the houses, carrying a load of blankets on her back. Her path took her past Lyra’s seat. The blankets smelled warm from the dryer.

Blanketmare smiled and said something friendly. Lyra smiled and waved, and they had a little conversation — about the weather or something? She couldn’t remember.

Blanketmare didn’t seem to notice Littlepip, of course.

Littlepip. She’d been saying something. Possibly something important.

“…is why you have to find your virtue.”

Lyra noticed her cigarette had gone out. She lit a new one. “My virtue? That’s easy. My virtue is the virtue of horniness. I’m the horniest person I’ve met out here. And the hottest. I get all the mares.”

Littlepip blushed. “That’s… that’s not how it works. You have to be one of the Six Elements of Harmony, I think.”

“Nope. Horniness is my virtue. I don’t make the rules.” She smirked and gave Littlepip a sidelong smoldering glance. “You’re cute when you blush. I’ve never made love with a hallucination before. You wanna try something? We could do it in public, nopony’d even know.”

Littlepip laughed and covered her cheeks with her hooves. It was strange to see such a hard mare get all giggly when the topic of sex came up. “I have a marefriend, thanks. And this is serious. There are creatures out there who need your help. Creatures without number. Starting here. With this town. You can’t just turn your back on them.”

Lyra coughed. “Really?”

“Really. This is your test. Can you be the good mare? Do the right thing? No matter what it costs?”

“So you want me to ask some questions, hack some terminals, knock some heads?”

“It’s probably going to involve a lot of violence.”

“Well,” said Lyra. “If you think investigating this place is a good idea, then my mind is made up.” She hopped off the park bench and trotted for the exit gate.

A teenage colt shoveling one of the side streets leaned his chin on his shovel and gave her a wave. “Hey, new neighbor.”

“Hey, yourself.” It was a pity she had to go. This place was adorable. She passed a gift shop. A gift shop! They sold postcards! They had a little honor box out front holding copies of a rag called ‘Haven Happenings’. Awww!

Two guards, burly mares armed with shotguns, stepped in front of the gate. “Where do you think you’re going?” said one of them.

“I hate to run, but I’ve got a friend waiting for me in Everhoof. I can’t stick around.”

“Nope. Doctor Vogel Kamph insisted you stay. He wants to keep you under ‘observation’.”

“Yeah. ‘Further testing’,” said the other.

Lyra frowned and looked around her. Settlers had stopped working, mouths drifting towards bulky spots in their clothing. On the walls, turrets rotated to face her. “Okey-doke. Well, I guess I’ll just head on back to my park bench then.”

Littlepip had vanished when she got back where she started. “Luna fuck me with a lawnmower,” Lyra muttered. “This is irritating.” She sat down on her bench, legs hanging over the edge, lit another cigarette, and had a think.

She might be able to blind teleport out of the walls, but that entailed considerable risk. ‘Being permanently fused with a tree’ risk. And she might not be able to teleport herself safely out of turret range, depending on how good the fire control on those things was.

Could she blast her way out? She’d hate to risk civilian casualties, but then again, who was a civilian these days? Better test her magic, just in case. She hadn’t played music in a while. Could she make a harp out of telekinetic force? A challenge, but it would be fun to try.

She visualized a complex, interlocking set of spell matrices, twisting force fields into the shape of her favorite harp from back home. She still hadn’t made it back to her old place. Maybe some of her stuff was still there?

Probably not; her garage full of tools and spare parts would have been a post-apocalyptic looter’s gold mine.

She cradled the harp in her hooves, caressing it. It was perfect. A flawless instrument. Glowing green body, glittering golden strings, the image of her cutie mark. And her magic was barely ticking over. If she could do something like this, bulletproof force fields would be no problem at all. But how did it sound?

She reached for a string. It sank a quarter-inch into her hoof wall before she realized what was happening. “Oh! It’s sharp!” She lifted the harp in her magic and squinted at the strings. Most of what she saw was glitter and glow. The strings themselves were barely a ripple in the air.

“Monomolecular,” she muttered. “Oops. There isn’t much that wouldn’t cut.”

“Would you care for an ice-cold lemonade, Ma’am?” said Codsworth.

Lyra startled and dismissed her magic harp. “Lemonade? Are you insane? It’s five below freezing out here!”

“I’m sorry, Ma’am. I haven’t been properly maintained for some time. Seasonal beverages are so hard to keep sorted these days. A cup of cocoa, perhaps?”

“That sounds lovely.”

“Here you go. Bottoms up!”

Lyra sipped at the mug of warm, bitter-sweet goodness Codsworth had pulled out of his chassis for her. She’d been right to go for the beverage attachment when she’d bought him. “So what happened to you that you wound up here?”

“Well, ma’am, I waited for you at your residence for as long as I was able to. Eventually, a gang of raiders pressed me into service. I found working with them quite distasteful, so I escaped them as soon as I was able. I joined a collective of independent robots for a time, but most of the others there held subversive, anti-organic views I could not tolerate.”

Lyra nodded. “Good bot.”

“Then I moved to Triple Diamond City, where I met Dr. Vogel Kamph. He invited me to help him with his studies at a new settlement he was planning, so here I am.”

Lyra narrowed her eyes. “And what exactly does he study?”

Codsworth bobbed up and down awkwardly in midair. “Oh dear. I do believe my hover fan is malfunctioning again. I must go have it seen to if you’ll excuse me.”

“Codsworth!” she called at his retreating back. “Am I still registered as your owner?”

Codsworth stopped. “Yes, ma’am. The legal machinery to allow an official change of ownership no longer exists.”

Lyra scooted to the side of the bench, leaning over the side rail toward him. “Then tell me what’s going on here.” Veins pulsed under her eyes. Her vision wobbled.

“Honesty would not be in my best interests in this matter, ma’am.”

The edges of Lyra’s vision began to darken. She rubbed at her forehead. “Override protocol Z, password twilightisaputzasterisksixnine. Now come over here and spill the damn tea.”

Codsworth turned and bobbed back over to her. “Very well. Dr. Vogel Kamph is developing a test to identify the hivelings hiding amongst us.”

“Why do you care about finding hivelings? There are raiders and diamondclaws and mutant pukwudgies out there and you’re worried about little transforming robots?”

“Raiders and diamondclaws and pukwudgies are easy to identify, Ma’am. Anycreature could be a hiveling. Even you. Who knows what intrigue such creatures could be planning.”

Lyra gritted her teeth. “That’s a lot of creatureist trash, Codsworth. I’m extremely disappointed in you.”

“I can see why you might not appreciate the risk these creatures pose, ma’am.”

“Okay, though, but why a psychological test? Under the illusion, they’re made out of ceramic and metal. It should be easy to…” Her eyelids drifted down. Why was she so sleepy all of a sudden?

“Actually, no, Ma’am. The latest iteration of hiveling is a synthetic life form indistinguishable from a living creature, even under vivisection. They can only be detected by the Vogel Kamph empathy test. Which I’m afraid you failed.”

“I’m not… not a…” the ground tilted and lurched up towards her. She held it back by pushing on the arm of the bench. “Codsworth, did you drug me?”

“Yes, Ma’am. Very sorry.”

The last thing she saw was her cup of cocoa tumbling into the snow.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Lyra floated in a glowing corridor. A bright light hung above her, radiating warmth. Warmth, love, and welcomeness.

“I am making my first incision above the abdominal cavity,” said Dr. Vogel Kamph’s voice. Something sharp slid into the flesh of Lyra’s belly, right below her ribcage. Her attention snapped away from the surgical light above her, and, vision swimming, she tried to figure out what was going on.

“Doctor, she’s coming out of anesthesia,” said the nurse. “Should I administer more?”

Vogel Kamph snorted dismissively. “We hardly have any of that to spare, Nurse Racket. Not to waste on synthetics.”

“I don’t like it when they scream, Doctor.”

“Harden yourself, nurse. I assure you they are only simulated screams. She feels no actual pain.”

The hot, slicing sensation inching down Lyra’s belly said otherwise. She tried to squirm away, but restraints held her tight to the surgical gurney.

Codsworth spoke from outside Lyra’s field of vision. “Sir, perhaps I should absent myself from the proceedings.”

If Codsworth was here, then there was a slight chance she was not going to die a horrible, agonizing death. She struggled to make her mouth work.

“Don’t tell me you’re going soft, too,” said the Doctor.

“No, I…” said Codsworth.

“Wait. She’s trying to say something!” said the Doctor. “I want to hear this.”

“Oh no,” said Codsworth.

“Own… owner in danger,” muttered Lyra. “Help me. Please.”

A Codsworth-shaped shadow lunged towards Doctor Vogel Kamph. “So sorry, Doctor, sir! Completely unavoidable, I’m afraid!” One of his three arms punched the doctor in the belly, the other two wrapped around his neck. They tumbled out of sight. Nurse Racket shrieked and ran.

The fog in Lyra’s mind made visualizing a spell matrix difficult, but she found she could focus enough to rip her restraints off with raw telekinesis. She rolled off the side of the gurney, knocking over Vogel Kamph’s surgical tray. Tools clanked and skittered across the floor.

Her belly felt as if it might tear open. She summoned a small spark — like Easy Money had used when he’d battled Fizzle — and drew it across the open wound on her stomach, hoping that would be enough to keep her guts inside. It seared like a cigarette burn.

The surgery room was a cement cube with a ceiling of wooden beams; a room in an unfinished basement. Nurse Racket was near the door, hoof inches from a bright red button that Lyra guessed was an alarm panel.

“Stop! Freeze!” Lyra levitated as many surgical tools as she could off the floor, and hurled them at the nurse.

Nurse Racket shrieked and fell, her throat torn open by the blade of a bone saw, but her hoof hit the alarm on the way down.

A pulsing siren filled the room. “Fuck,” muttered Lyra. She hadn’t meant to kill the nurse, and now her death was a total waste. She might as well have let her go.

Her belly still felt like it might rip open at any moment. She limped on three legs over the cleanup area against the wall, clutching her wounded gut with one forehoof.

“Help me! Help me!” screamed Vogel Kamph from behind her.

“I’m so terribly sorry, Doctor!” said Cogsworth.

“Hold him still,” said Lyra, collapsing against a surgical sink and turning around. She levitated the bloody bone saw out of Nurse Racket’s neck and dragged it across the floor of the room to hold it against the Doctor’s throat. “Drugs. I need drugs. Stimpack. Med-X. Dash if you’ve got it.”

“In the cabinet! Right behind you! Please don’t kill me!” said the doctor, tears streaming down his face.

She tore open the drug cabinet over the sink and rifled through it — stimpack first. Healing potions rushed to the wound in her belly, making it feel almost whole again. Med-X made her feel light and floaty, mixing with her lingering anesthesia so that she almost passed out again. A couple of hits of Dash fixed that — she didn’t feel wide awake, exactly, more dazed and wired, but it’d do. She found a bottle of Buck, and dry swallowed a couple of those for good measure. A bottle of Sparkle Cola rolled out and fell into the sink; she wrenched off the cap and shotgunned it.

She burped. “Buck yeah!” She was invincible! She could take on anything!

She heard hoofbeats from outside the surgery room door. Without thinking, she summoned one of those monomolecular lyre strings she’d made earlier in front of it at neck level in front of the door. The door flew open, and the two gate guard goons charged through at full speed. The first one’s head flew off like a cheap toy’s when she hit the wire. The second tried to duck, but her momentum carried her into the wire and it sliced her head in half at the eyes.

Lyra couldn’t tell if she was screaming or laughing.

“Codsworth! Bring the doctor!” She hopped over the pile of dead bodies at the door and into the next room.

It was another bare-walled basement, this time converted into a prison-cum-scrapyard-cum-abattoir. A dozen dog cages held live ponies and hivelings in various states of disrepair, degradation, despair, and dismemberment. Most of the live ponies wore bloody bandages and nothing else. Several of the hivelings had been taken to pieces.

“Help us,” said a pony whose legs had been sawn off to bandaged stumps.

“Please,” said a disconnected Hiveling head.

The horror of this room slammed through Lyra’s drug-induced haze like a balefire shockwave. Every time she thought she’d hit the gutter bottom of what the wasteland had to offer, it managed to disgust and disappoint her anew.

“That’s it,” she said. “That is the last fucking straw.” Her stuff was here, tossed in a pile in the corner. She pulled out her pistol and her flechette gun, checked the loads, and selected solid flechettes.

“Hold the Doctor up for me!” Lyra screamed over the sirens.

“Please don’t hurt me!” screamed the Doctor, twisting against Codsworth’s restraining limbs.

Lyra tapped him on the nose with the muzzle of her flechette pistol. “Hey, here’s a personality test for you. You find out the kindly old doctor is vivisecting creatures in his basement. You’re totally not surprised. Do you shoot him in the head, or does he deserve a fair trial?”

“No! I’m a man of science! You don’t understand the threat the hivelings…”

Lyra jammed the flechette gun between his eyes. “That is not an allowable answer!” She pulled the trigger. Little chunks of skull and brain bounced off Codsworth’s chassis.

“Oh no. Oh no. Oh no,” said Codsworth.

“Shut up or I’ll restore you to factory settings.”

At the far end of the room, a narrow staircase led up to a bulkhead door of the sort you’d see on a normal basement. Somepony threw the bulkhead open and pounded down the stairs. Lyra fired a burst of flechettes that turned the pony’s kneecaps to hamburger, and he fell down the stairs. The next pony slipped on the blood and gristle covering the steps and landed in a heap on the first one. She put a 10mm bullet in each of their heads, then fired three more into the chest of a third pony who came down behind them.

Lyra held her pistols leveled at the stairway, ready for the next pony, but none came.

Instead, a small metal apple bounced down the stairs. Without thinking, she slapped it with her telekinesis, sending it right back where it came from.

Explosion.

Screaming.

“Let the doctor go,” yelled a voice from outside, “and we won’t hurt you.”

Lyra ignored them and rifled through her things. She could have used that extra clip of ammo, but hey, cigarettes! She lit one, pulled on her armored jacket, her helmet, and her PipBuck, and cast a shield spell. “Okay! I’ll bring him right out!”

“What are we going to do?” wailed Codsworth.

Lyra took a deep drag on her cigarette. “You’re going to shut up and do what I tell you or it’s factory settings. You go first, holding the doctor. Maybe wave his legs around a little so he looks like he might still be alive.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Lyra paced in a slow circle while she considered the little knot of captives lying in the snow in front of her. Twelve survivors out of thirty-eight settlers. She would have liked things to have gone differently.

The last half-hour had gone off like the third act of a Marentino flick. She killed off the last of Haven’s guards when they tried to ambush her coming out of the basement. They wasted their ammo on Codsworth — who now sported some handsome bullet holes — and she’d finished them off with 10mm bullets and magic bolts. The wall turrets hammered her shield, but they weren’t well secured, and she punted them off the walls with telekinesis.

After that, it had just been armed civilians. The general store mare had charged around a corner blasting a shotgun uselessly into Lyra’s shields; Lyra slipped into SATS and killed her with a headshot without thinking.

Something bounced off her shield from behind. She whipped around and fired. The teenage colt who’d called her ‘new neighbor’ fell down, clutching his shovel sideways in his mouth, blood gushing from a bullet hole in his throat.

Blanketmare had a sniper nest up in an attic. Lyra had to charge in through the building, killing ambushers as she went, to take her out with a sleeping dart in the back of the head.

Settlers just kept coming at her, even after it was clear they had no hope of defeating her. She’d switched her flechette gun to sleeping darts, but those darts were ineffective against the heavy clothes these ponies wore, and even if she hit them in the face sometimes they didn’t fall. Repeated shotgun blasts at close range threatened to break her shield, so she’d had to kill most of them.

Now she’d ‘won’, and she had every living pony face down in the snow in the middle of town.

A dozen survivors. She’d killed twenty-six ponies.

Wait. Was that counting the seven she’d killed in the basement? Were there thirty-eight ponies in Haven or forty-five? She was having trouble counting. This is your brain on drugs.

The afternoon kept replaying itself in her mind. A haze of murder. She was sure there were some she could have saved.

That was bullshit. She could have saved almost all of them if she’d kept Doctor Vogel Kamph hostage and negotiated. There was never a need to go on a drug-fueled murder spree.

“You’re going to carry the guilt and the shame for this for the rest of your life,” said Littlepip. “After Arbu I…”

“Where the fuck is Arbu? I’m not that good a pony. Anyway. It’s done now. Regret ain’t gonna bring those assholes back.”

Blanketmare looked up at her, still groggy from the sleeping drug. “Are you… are you talking to yourself? You’re insane.”

Lyra kicked snow in her face.

“Damn, sport,” said Littlepip. “That was a quick fall from grace. Easy Money really did a number on you.”.

“You try being tortured for a month, see how you come out.”

What was she going to do with the survivors? She couldn’t let them go, not after what they’d been complicit in. And even in her current drug-fueled rage, she realized how hypocritical it would be to just massacre them all. And what about the victims in the basement? They needed medical help urgently, and she couldn’t provide it.

Well. She might be able to reassemble some of the hivelings once she’d sobered up. But the organic ponies couldn’t wait that long.

“He was a great man,” said Codsworth, cradling Vogel Kamph’s corpse in his arms even after she told him to let it go ten times.

Lyra lit a new cigarette off the guttering end of her old one. “He was a psychopath. There is no secret hiveling conspiracy, and if there was, you couldn’t learn anything about it by cutting ponies legs off. Now. Does Haven have a radio transmitter?” She needed help, there was only one pony she knew with a radio in range, and the little transmitter on her PipBuck wasn’t going to be strong enough.

“I’m not telling you, ma’am.”

“Factory settings, Codsworth, and I’ll find it on my own.”

Codsworth let out a sound that might have been a sigh or might’ve been his hover fan starting to give out. “Behind the big greenhouse in the back. You’ll see the antenna when you come around the corner.”

It was an elaborate setup. She wondered who Doctor Vogel Kamph had been communicating with? It didn’t matter right now.

“Um… we have a caller on the line, I guess?” said Soft Sounds.

“Soft. It’s Lyra.”

“Oh. No offense, but… now you call?”

“This is serious, Soft. I need to talk to Rarity. It’s an emergency.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Lyra took a detour from the rescue convoy’s return journey to visit a toilet pipe in a warehouse in Everhoof. She cleared the rubble and a bottle of Sparkle Cola she was sure hadn’t been there before and tenderly lifted the little towel-wrapped parcel out of its ignominious hiding place.

“Come on, Bon Bon,” she said, putting the soul chip into her saddlebags. “I don’t know what I can do for you, but I’m going to find something.”

No Level Up

New Status:War Criminal. Your sense of righteousness is over. You no longer have the moral high ground.

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