“Wow,” said Crispy. “That thing is really ugly.”

“Wrong,” said Lyra, slamming Baby’s hood shut. “It’s the most beautiful thing invented in the history of ever.” She wiped the oil off her hooves with a rag.

Lyra really had gotten the car ready in a week. Sleeping less than three hours a night, running on coffee and Jet (which Haymaker sold her on the sly when Bon Bon wouldn’t let her have any of her medicinal supply), and enlisting any nearby pony that didn’t look busy enough. The majors delegated Star Metal to help her with the armor and weapons since Lyra didn’t have a clue about those. A delivery thestral had arrived that morning with the flux regulator and a note from Ditzy saying it was on the house and good luck doing-you-know what to you-know-who.

The note had been decorated with little drawings of hearts and explosions.

So was her car. Paneer and the Stable 93 Committee for the Arts (which Paneer had somehow found time to form) had confirmed that stealth was not a priority for the vehicle’s mission, and gone crazy with it — black and white checkerboard patterns, neon-green-on-dayglo-orange dazzle camouflage, the afore-mentioned hearts and explosions, and cheerful little sayings like ‘THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS’ and ‘FUCK THE PONYSMITH’t. Since they also helped mount the armor, Lyra couldn’t complain.

She turned to the assembled residents of Stable 93. “All right,” she said, wiping the grease off her hooves with a rag. “Baby is a ‘17 Cowvega station wagon with a Biggs and Stallion sparkle engine under the hood packing 435 ponypower. I’ve modified her with four-wheel drive, a reinforced undercarriage, and solid tires for those rough wasteland roads. She’s equipped with composite armor,” a nice why of saying they’d put on whatever steel and ceramic plates they’d been able to scavenge, “a snow plow-cum-battering ram, a remote-controlled minigun turret operated from the passenger seat, and a mine dropper.

“I’ve taken out the back seats to allow extra room for weapons and supplies, and added firing ports for up to four ponies.”

“Will it hold power armor?” asked Crispy.

Lyra smacked the roof of the car. “Baby will hold exactly one suit of power armor. Now. Let’s see if he starts.”

Lyra slid into the driver’s seat, closed the door, put her hooves in the control yoke, and took a deep breath. She turned the ignition with her magic.

Baby rumbled.

Baby groaned.

Baby coughed and died.

“Come on guy,” whispered Lyra, stroking the control yoke. “I know you’ve had a rough time, but we really need you.”

She cranked the ignition again.

Baby’s engine roared into life.

Cheers and stomping from outside.

Lyra pressed a hind hoof on the gas pedal, and Baby lumbered out of his place in the packed snow. More cheering. Lyra honked and watched through the visor slit in the armor over the front window as the crowd hurried away from the front of the car. She headed for the wreckage of the outside wall gate, rumbled down the remains of the StableTec parking lot driveway, and signaled as she turned onto the main road.

Baby rattled and rumbled its way through packed snow, across potholes, and over downed limbs. The vibrations knocked her teeth together, but the car? The car didn’t care.

She did donuts in the Sanctuary Hills town green for an hour before she headed back.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Lyra took one last look around her office, to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything. She had her armored jacket, a clean Stable 93 suit with ballistic patches sewed on at vital points, her helmet, Little Macintosh, her 10mm pistol, two rocket launchers, and a lunchbox mine. Her flechette pistol, loaded with the last few rounds of sleeping dart ammo, nestled against her breast. Her tools were in the car. She was probably ready.

Her eyes rested for a moment on the chipped-winged Somambula statue on the shelf over her desk. ‘’Never give up hope.” Lyra bit her lower lip. Hope was starting to seem like a poisonous emotion to her, making promises about the future it couldn’t fulfill. Right now her deepest hope was that things would change, That they would go back to the way they were before the war. That Rarity and the Minutemares could forge a new Equestria like the one she had left behind on the Bad Day. Was there cause for hope? She felt it eating at her belly; the anxiety of an unproven future.

She turned to look in the full-length mirror by her door.

A terrifying mare looked back at her. Hard eyed. Battle-scarred. Bristling with weapons.

“Looking good, Sport,” said Little Pip.

“Oh. It’s you,” said Lyra. Littlepip looked just like her, now.

“I’m sorry things didn’t work out,” said Little Pip. “I know you didn’t want this. You wanted to stay the pony you used to be. But you’re heading out to do murder, and you don’t even care, do you? You’re scared, but you’re scared it won’t work. You’re not at all upset about killing ponies, because in this new world it’s what you have to do. It’s not what Harmony would have liked, but that’s the way it has to be for now.

“For what it’s worth: when it’s my turn, I’m going to try to stay pure and unsullied by the wasteland, and I’m going to fail, too.”

“Then what’s the point?”

“The point is you can still make this hell world a better place than it would have been without you. Or at least you can try.”

Lyra ran her hoof down the surface of the mirror. Littlepip imitated the gesture. “There has to be a way out. A way to turn back the clock. I never was a pillar of society, but this is too much.”

“If you need someone to blame, blame me. Say I made you this way. Your little psychotic break. But I don’t think you need me anymore. Time to wave goodbye now.”

Lyra reached for Littlepip. Her hoof bounced off the mirror. “Stop! Stop! You need to tell me who you are! Did the Hive put you in me?”

Littlepip stepped back away from the mirror. Darkness curled around her like tendrils. “They will set a Watcher over us,” she said, “And we will give unto them that thirst a fountain.”

And then there was nothing in the mirror but Lyra.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

“You’re in charge of your brother while we’re gone,” said Crispy.

“I know,” said Paneer.

“But Thick Thighs is here to help you, okay?” said Vindaloo.

“I’ll help you with anything you need,” purred Thick Thighs.

Paneer, bundled up against the twilight cold with her little brother Alto Clef swaddled in a foal carrier on her shoulder, raised an eyebrow. “So she’s Alto’s foalsitter, but not mine?”

“Eeeee!” said Alto.

Vindaloo took her daughter's head in her hooves. “Paneer. My wonderful, brave child. You’ve proven yourself. You’re a mare, now. No more foalsitters. Like I said: You’re in charge of your brother while we’re gone.”

Gears turned behind Paneer’s eyes. “So… does that mean I’m old enough to drink?”

“We’ll talk about it when we come back.”

“Yeah? What if you don’t come back?” Paneer’s joking tone barely hid the way her voice cracked.

“If we don’t come back, you can have one drink.”

Lyra walked away from the family goodbye for one last look under the hood — checked the fluids, checked the cables, satisfied herself the spark battery wasn’t fixing to explode. Everything was tickety-boo. She heard fluttering and high pitched cheeps from the woods, and looked up from the engine to watch the flapping of dark leathery wings against the night sky.

One dark form broke off from the others and landed next to Lyra.

“Blue Note! You just gave birth. By C-section. What are you doing out here?”

“Hartwing was wounded in the battle, so Blue Note is the most experienced available thestral. She is leading your escort.” She wore a combat armor helmet with a radio headset and a uniform made out of the new blue ballistic fabric under a bulletproof vest-cum-battle saddle. Two rifles poked out beyond her shoulders, and a 10mm pistol hung on a bandoleer alongside extra clips and a pair of binoculars.

Lyra sighed. “I know you always like to be at the forefront of things, but you need to give your body time to recover.”

“Med-X and Stimpacks say otherwise.”

“Is it pointless to argue with you?”

“Yes. Blue Note has made up her mind.”

There wasn’t a lot of flexibility in the roster for the mission — they needed the best six ponies available riding in Baby, no matter who they were. That meant Crispy in their best suit of power armor, which was mostly but not entirely Fizzlepop’s purple enameled suit. The armor took up most of the back of the vehicle, leaving only room for Vindaloo (sniper), Rotgut (riflepony), and Bon Bon (medic) to ride alongside in the back. Ivory Spark was in the passenger seat operating the minigun on the roof. Lyra was driving and providing magic support.

Twenty-three thestral scouts formed their escort.

That was their assassination/rescue team. That was it.

They were doomed.

Bean had better appreciate this, or he was in for one hell of a spanking.

Vindaloo walked over to them. “Crispy’s getting suited up. Is the car ready?” Lyra couldn’t see her face well in the dark, but when she spoke Lyra could tell she’d been crying.

“Baby’s raring to go.”

Vindaloo lifted her head and raised her voice. “Load her up!”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Miles of road rattled away under Baby’s wheels. On a map, the journey from Sanctuary Hills to Sawhorse was supposed to be half an hour. She’d driven that way for deliveries a time or two, and it had always taken longer than that. This run was no exception — instead of traffic blocking the way, it was broken bridges, downed trees, and in one harrowing case the corpse of a dead diamondclaw.

They turned off the headlights and drove around it slowly so as not to draw the attention of whatever had killed it.

Lyra would have liked to open Baby up and tear down the highway, but after 20 years there wasn’t a lot of the old elevated highway left. Chunks of it loomed overhead, edges dangling rebar like festive streamers and littered with abandoned cars. Lyra was stuck on the back roads, which were hardly in better shape. Sometimes she could drive over or around what was in the way. Sometimes everypony had to get out and drag an obstacle out of the road. Sometimes she just had to turn back and go another way.

Nonetheless, Lyra felt powerful being behind the wheel again. She was in total control of the only vehicle in the world, a vehicle that straddled the gap between ‘family utility vehicle’ and ‘armored fighting vehicle’. She was a force to be reckoned with. A master of disaster. The delivery driver from hell.

Blue Note’s voice crackled over the radio. “Road Warriors, this is Wing Sauce. We’ve got princesses.”

Crispy responded on his suit radio, his voice both muffled behind Lyra and crackling from her dashboard. “Wing Sauce, this is Road Warrior actual. How many?”

“Counting at least five wings. Some following us, some waiting on the road ahead.”

“Oh, fuck me. Green Meanie, stop the car.”

Lyra’s headlights illuminated a row of six alicorns — white blue purple, white blue purple. Their eyes gleamed in the headlights. “We wish to speak to the little green one,” said one of the purple ones.

Lyra flicked on Baby’s megaphone. “That’s me.”

“You are headed towards the Ponysmith’s lands in your terrible machine. Why?”

Lyra flicked off the megaphone and looked over her shoulder. “Um, guys?”

“Tell them it’s classified,” said Crispy.

Lyra sighed and turned the megaphone back on. “I don’t know. What do you think?”

The alicorns tossed their heads, motions eerily synchronized. “You mean him harm.”

Lyra shut off the megaphone again. “Guys…”

Vindaloo wriggled over the front seats and reached for the megaphone button. “We’re not going to throw him a birthday party. What do you want?”

“We have worked together against him before,” said the purple alicorn. “We might assist you. But you would have to do something for us, first.”

Vindaloo took her hoof off the megaphone button. “Princesses want to help? I don’t buy it.”

“I don’t trust them,” said Crispy. “They might’ve worked with you once, Lyra, but they aren’t our friends. Ivory, spin up the minigun barrels.”

“No!” said Lyra. “The armor on this thing isn’t up to half a dozen alicorns blasting right at it at point-blank range. Can’t we at least ask what they want?”

Vindaloo looked back at Crispy. She tilted her head towards Lyra. Crispy’s armored head nodded once.

Lyra sighed in relief. She hit the megaphone button. “Okay. Talk.”

“Thank you, lesser creature,” said one of the purple alicorns. “We have more than enough power to mow the Ponysmith’s armies down like hay and drive him from our lands. But the Hagsgate Air Defense Station prevents our approach by air. If you remove it, we could swarm his base like ravens on the corpse of a yak.”

“We need to rescue a prisoner in his compound,” said Lyra.

“The great and powerful super alicorns find interior spaces confining,” said one of the blue ones, fluffing her wings. “You may enter the compound buildings under our protection.”

“How’s the station protected?”

“A large number of the ones in Sombra’s livery, and two or three of the armored ones.”

Lyra grinned and looked back at Vindaloo. “We’ll find out if our little trick still works.”

Vindaloo nodded. “Tell them yes.”

“Sounds great,” said Lyra over the megaphone. “Can you lift us over some potholes on the way?”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Lyra rammed Baby through the chain-link gate of the Hagsgate Air Defense Station, tires spinning in the mud, metal screeching, bits of steel from the gate flying in all directions. She cranked the control yoke sideways and drifted to a stop in front of the Quonset hut that hunkered beneath the radar dish at the center of the station. Dozens of surface-to-air missile launchers stood in the base yard around them like massive, glowering fireworks. The fallen ballistic missile the Road Warriors had driven around on the way here was a testament to the missiles’ effectiveness.

Unislaves, deactivated two hundred tails out, stared blankly ahead even as shrapnel from the gate creased their hides.

“Go, go, go,” said Crispy, throwing open the back door and surging out into the darkness in a storm of clanging metal and whining servos.

“There are way more than two or three centurions here,” said Blue Note over the radio. “We count at least twenty.”

“Flocking princesses probably worried them,” said Crispy.

“Monsieur, there is no call for that kind of language,” said Bon Bon.

A pair of centurions pounded around the corner of the radar tower, throwing up snow from beneath their armored hooves. Bullets sparked off Crispy’s armor. He turned towards the first one and fired the dual combat shotguns on his battle saddle. The shotguns were loaded with a gift from Artillery and Caisson — experimental discarding sabot shells with fin-stabilized molybdenum penetrators. They were highly effective. His target staggered and fell. The next one had an anti-machine rifle, but Ivory’s minigun turret perforated his armor like a tin can on a firing range.

“They’ve got this,” said Vindaloo. “Lyra, Rotgut. Come with me.”

Lyra rammed in the front door of the Quonset hut with a force field and kept the field going as Vindaloo and Rotgut charged inside. She followed them, one of her rocket launchers ready. Bullets pounded into her shield with enough kinetic transfer energy to push her back outside. She opened ports in her shield for Vindaloo and Rotgut to fire through. Her shield was stronger than the centurions’ armor, and it didn’t take long for Vindaloo’s .50 caliber bullets and Rotgut’s enchanted armor-piercing ammo to finish them off.

Lyra stepped over the bodies of the armored centurions and up to the row of terminals that were the only objects in the room. She could just rip out the wiring, wreck the terminals. The missiles would be inoperable. Unless they had secondary controls or some spare terminals. But she had a better idea — blow the missiles up on their launchers. She sat down at one terminal and plucked a sticky note off the edge.

Armor Lord, your new password is N0@llic0rnS. I’m tired of resetting if for you. Just keep this note by your terminal, okay? — Button Mash

That saved her some time hacking in. She pulled up the radar display and the launch commands. Lock the missiles in place, trigger the launch sequence, and she should be able to…

On the radar display, tiny dots circled in and out of range. She suddenly had an even better idea.

“What’s taking so long!” shouted Vindaloo over the noise of her anti-machine rifle. Centurions kept trying to come through the doors and windows of the Quonset hut; Vindaloo and Rotgut’s fire was keeping them suppressed but they were badly outnumbered.

“Writing us an insurance policy!” said Lyra.

What exactly is that supposed to mean? said a voice in her head.

“You’re spying on me,” said Lyra, entering the launch control settings and holding her PipBuck next to the screen. “Who told you you could read my mind?”

The great and powerful super alicorns do as they please!

“Lyra, don’t go crazy now, save it for after the battle!” said Rotgut.

“Your approach is clear,” said Lyra, “Get out of my head and into the fight.” She slammed down a psychic barrier over her brain and tugged the terminals’ power cords out of the wall. Then she hopped down from her stool, levitated her rocket to the end of the bank of terminals, and pressed the button. “Fire in the hole!”

The terminals exploded in a wave of droplets of melted plastic and shattering glass.

“Overkill, much?” said Rotgut. A centurion’s head poked through the window; he aimed a burst of armor-piercing rifle bullets at it. It pulled back, dented but not visibly disabled.

“Just trying to be thorough,” said Lyra, hitting the ground behind him and raising a dome-shaped shield over the three of them.

“Crispy, we’re pinned down here,” said Vindaloo into her PipBuck.

“I’m hit,” said Crispy. “It’s not bad. Bon Bon’s looking at it. But the chest plate of my armor is ruined. They’ve got at least a legion here. Even with the unislaves disabled, there are too many centurions for us to fight! When are those princesses coming?”

Lyra lowered her psychic shield and reached her thoughts out for the super alicorn mind she’d been talking to. “The launch controls are destroyed,” she said looking over the wreckage of the terminals for the alicorns’ benefit. “Are you happy?”

We do not trust you.

“And we don’t trust you either. But we have an alliance and we need your help.”

You have been useful to us. Thank you.

“It’ll be easier for you to fight these centurions while they’re distracted with us,” hissed Lyra. “And you promised. Starlight, Trixie, whoever the white ones are, you made a promise, right? What did Twilight think about ponies who broke promises?”

…

The far wall of the Quonset hut burst into flame and flying metal. Shrapnel bounced off of Lyra’s shield. She turned to see a centurion trotting through the whole a breaching charge had made in the wall. Grenade machine guns on his flanks spoke, filling the room with explosions that threatened to overwhelm Lyra’s shield.

She ripped the lunchbox mine from her side and kicked it across the floor under the edge of her shield, careful to keep the lid side up. The centurion ignored it; and rightly — normal IEDs were no use against power armor.

This wasn’t a normal IED. Lyra triggered the lunchbox mine with a flick of telekinesis, and a dozen of those shotgun shell sabots shot straight up, punching holes in the underside of the centurion’s armor. She stopped firing and fell face down on the floor.

But the explosion had rattled VIndaloo and Rotgut, and more centurions were coming through the windows and doors. Waves of buckshot hit what was left of Lyra’s shield, shattering it.

She whipped out Little Macintosh and entered SATS and flipped between the four centurions, looking for a vulnerable spot. Slow-motion lead filled the air around her..

She was going to die. They were all going to die.

Lyra picked a target, aiming at the joint between his chest and neck armor, and emptied the cylinder. The first three bullets tore through the ballistic fabric joint, and the net two slammed into his body. Blood spurted from his ruined throat.

She came out of SATS in time to feel a bullet slam into her chest like a kick from a diamondclaw. More bullets tore at her clothes as she flew through the air and impacted the wall.

The screams of stooping eagles tore the air.

Something sucked the surviving three centurions out the windows and door like acrobats on wires. Colored light flashed, followed by cracking noises and wet sounds. Lyra was reminded of the bonfire at a griffon beach party she’d been to. They’d put crabs and shellfish on the rocks around the fire to cook. Then eager beaks cracked through the shells, pulling out the glistening white meat inside.

She looked at her chest. No blood. The bullet hadn’t gotten through her armored jacket, but it hurt to breathe. She could still move. She was fine. Rotgut and Vindaloo lay on the floor in puddles of blood.

“I think Vin’s dead,” said Rotgut, trying to stand. His right foreleg was torn and bloodied; shattered bone stuck out of pulped flesh. Bon Bon was going to have to look at that. Lyra reached into her saddlebags. Her towel was on top of everything else; she tossed it to Rotgut for direct pressure.

Underneath it amongst the other junk in her saddlebags was one stimpack. She grabbed it with her magic, knelt in Vindaloo’s blood, jammed it into her chest, and smashed down the stopper.

“Don’t be dead. Don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead. I worked too hard to make friends with you, please don’t be dead.”

Vindaloo rolled over, coughing up blood.

“Oh, thank Harmony,” said Lyra.

“Not enough,” groaned Vindaloo, blood drooling from her lips. “Everything hurts. I’m dying.”

Lyra gasped. How was she going to tell Paneer? “No!”

“Naw,” said Vindaloo. “I’m just fucking with you. I’m not good, though. Can you help me walk back to the car?”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Everyone was wounded. Bon Bon and Ivory Spark had taken hits on their armor as Lyra had. Crispy’s ‘not bad’ wound had turned his chest plate into a twisted mess and left jagged lines of raw pink flesh across his breast even after Bon Bon’s attention. Vindaloo wheezed with every breath.

Bon Bon stooped over Rotgut’s leg, working intently to save the mangled limb. Her muzzle moved back and forth, Cream coat flecked with blood, blue eyes intent, wrapping bandages around the splint she’d made. Lyra longed to go to her, and holder, and ask her if she was all right, but she knew she needed to let her do her job.

“Blue Note says they are four legions on the way,” said Vindaloo. “Centurions only.”

“That’s good,” said Crispy. “By the time they’re here, we won’t be anymore. We can drive to the Ironworks while the princesses tie the legions down. Hit the prison, hit the command bunker.”

Lyra felt a chill at the base of her spine. She looked over her shoulder. Vindaloo was tying a length of ballistic fabric over her husband’s bare chest while they talked. She began to cough and spat out a pink chunky thing that Lyra hoped was bloody phlegm and not a chunk of lung.

She climbed into the front seat — Baby had sported several holes in his armor when Lyra had staggered back to him with Rotgut and Vindaloo hanging off her. If the majors were thinking of continuing the attack, better make sure the engine actually turned over before they got too attached to that plan.

Baby’s engine purred like a tiger. “It’s a miracle.”

Ivory Spark, dozing in the passenger seat with one foreleg in a sling, cracked an eye open. “Not what I’d call it.”

“How much ammo do we have left?”

“Five hundred rounds.”

Lyra laid her head on the control yoke. Five hundred rounds sounded like a lot, but for the minigun it was less than five seconds of continuous fire. “We can’t do this.”

Ivory closed his eyes again. “Can’t never could.” Or possibly “Can’t. Never could.” His tone was ambiguous.

Baby bounced as something heavy landed on top of him. Lyra looked back and saw a white head hanging down over the edge of the car, staring into the open backdoor. Blood stained its horn and the fur on its forehead.

“The battle goes gloriously. We have seen few like it,” said the white alicorn.

“Glad you decided to show up,” said Vindaloo.

“We’re going to attack the Ironworks compound now,” said Crispy. “We’re going to rescue her son, and then kill the Ponysmith.”

“We will send an escort,” said the white alicorn. Her upside-down smile had a predatory gleam.

Grim calculus filled Lyra’s mind, and not only about the mixed benefits of an alicorn escort. Raid a prison with five wounded ponies and a car that was probably one solid hit away from being a lawn decoration. Then raid a command center.

A searing pain flared in Lyra’s lower back. With crystal clarity, she saw them all shot down. One by one. She saw a magic bolt blast through Crispy’s chest. Vindaloo’s head exploded into gory fragments. Baby took an anti-machine rifle round to the engine block and exploded in a rolling wave of fire, taking Ivory and Rotgut with it. Gunfire tore Bon Bon’s beautiful face apart. A bronze-armored Centurion kicked her and knocked her to the ground.

Lyra shook her head to clear it. She knew what she had to do, and that knowledge made a heavy weight settle in her chest. She climbed over the seats into the back of the car.

“Excuse me,” said Lyra to the alicorn, “but can we please have some privacy?”

The alicorn tilted its head skeptically and then withdrew. Its weight still rested on top of the car.

“What’s the matter, Lyra?” said Vindaloo.

Lyra’s throat felt raw, like she’d smoked a whole pack of cigarettes. Her cheeks were dry. She didn’t have any tears left. “I think we need to… we need to focus on destroying Ponysmith. Bean…”

She lost her tongue for a moment. Vindaloo and Crispy didn’t say anything, just watched her.

“I don’t think we’re strong enough to complete both goals. We’re all wounded. Baby’s running, but I don’t think he’s in good shape. If we try to do everything we set out to do, we risk not accomplishing anything at all. And Bean…” The tears came now, shooting down her cheeks, hot and bitter. “He’s an adult. He’s made his choices. And he’s only one pony. I’m only one pony. But Ponysmith’s a danger to the whole wasteland. So if we’re going to keep this mission going. We need to focus on… on our primary objective.”

Crispy and Vindaloo looked at each other, and in that glance, Lyra realized that they’d already discussed the same thing.

“Thank you, Lyra,” said Vindaloo. “I’m afraid you might be right. Crispy and I need to make that call soon.”

“Can Baby make it to the Sawhorse Ironworks?” said Crispy.

Lyra nodded. “Yes, but his armor’s chewed up bad. One solid hit might be enough to take him out. We can make it there. We can make it back home. But it might be one or the other.”

“Go see if Bon Bon needs any help,” said Vindaloo. “We’ll let you know what we decide in a little while.”

Bon Bon nuzzled her cheek as Lyra stepped over. “Rotgut,” she said, “I need you to make a choice.”

“Lots of hard choices tonight,” said Rotgut.

“Your leg is set as best I can in the field. I am able to use a stimpack on it. But the setting is not ideal. The bone is damaged. If I use it, it may, how do you say, not heal well. You will likely have a limp for the rest of your life.”

“But if you don’t, you could maybe operate on me back at the stable, and it’d be fine?” said Rotgut. “I just wanna be clear on this.”

“Oui.”

Rotgut raised his head and looked down at his leg. “Can it wait ‘til the Majors figure out their plan? If we’re gonna retreat, I can wait. But if we’re going forward, I need to be in the thick of it.”

Bon Bon nodded. “You may wait.”

Lyra swallowed around a dry throat. “Brave.”

“Lots of ponies being brave tonight,” said Rotgut.

Crispy tapped the roof of the car. The white alicorn poked her head down again.

“Listen up,” said Crispy. “Vin and I have made a decision. We’re going for the Ponysmith’s command bunker. Here’s the plan.”

Lyra listened close, memorizing the details of her role. She managed to cry quietly.

She heard the hiss of a stimpack next to her. Rotgut sat up, bending his leg to test it. Bon Bon draped a leg across Lyra’s withers.

“Maybe we will still find him,” said Bon Bon. “Maybe you can still rescue him.”

“Hope is stupid,” said Lyra, hanging her head.

She felt Bon Bon shrug. “If anger and despair serve you better, who am I to judge? But look at me. I have something to say.”

Lyra lifted her head. Bon Bon awkwardly mashed the end of her snout against Lyra’s. A hot rush of joy spread across Lyra’s face and through her body.

“Oh,” said Lyra. “Oh.”

“I lied,” said Bon Bon. “I have nothing to say. I just wanted to kiss you.”

“I love you,” said Lyra.

Bon Bon blushed and looked away. “I love you, too. Forever. No matter what. But I think you should drive now.”

Lyra climbed back into the driver’s seat and turned Baby down the road towards Sawhorse Iron Works.

Max Level

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