Chapter 12: Parish
“Pinkie’s made a lot of predictions today but… ugh, what’s that smell?”

Tinker groaned softly as we trotted by the decrepit sign, and I felt her move a little closer to me as we finally entered the city of New Oatleans. I could tell that the sign used to be a light blue, but the color had long since faded and flaked away from the wood, peeling away the golden text that used to welcome visitors to the city. A strange symbol still remained surprisingly untouched at the center of the sign. It almost looked like a flower, but I didn’t exactly have anything to compare it to aside from the paper Shayle used to fold when we were younger. Maybe she would have known what it was, but she wasn’t with us.

I wondered where she was, what she was doing as I passed from the Wasteland into what everyone kept telling me was a war zone that should be avoided. I could hear distant pops every so often, the only signs that anyone was fighting there at all, but we were too far to know anything else. Maybe she was closer, deeper into the city and getting a closer look at the war we had been told about between the Remnant and those Steel Rangers. I hoped she wasn’t, I wanted her to be further away, off in the Wasteland where it was at least somewhat peaceful.

Seer stopped briefly once we had passed the sign, lowering her head silently. We all stopped behind her, watching on and looking to each other in confusion over what the zebra leading us into the city was doing. I sat down and looked around nervously, searching for anything that looked like a warehouse among the looming towers ahead.

From a distance, it had seemed big, but not nearly as large as it actually was now that we were almost among the skyscrapers and crumbling structures. It was amazing in a way, to think that over two centuries before ponies had somehow built things so tall they could almost touch the clouds, and so sturdy that some survived the bombs that had burned the rest of our world. And it was intimidating to think of what could be waiting inside, or what made that place so important as to start a new war between pony and zebra.

“Stay close,” Seer finally spoke up and pulled my eyes away from the towering buildings. “And don’t get distracted. This place is never safe.” She was already walking forward, her rifle seeming to have been tightened against her body in anticipation.

Charmer reached back and checked her shotgun one last time before falling in behind the beaded-mane ahead of us. I think I saw some fear in her eye in the brief moment she gazed at me and Tinker, and the worry I was trying to suppress took up more of my mind.

I followed suit and checked to make sure Shayle’s pistol was still firmly strapped to my leg and pulled it once or twice to be certain it would come out if I needed it. I tried to tell myself that it wouldn’t be necessary, but I knew it would be. Every other trip we had made for supplies involved fighting at some point, and going into a place that even kept Seer and Charmer on edge didn’t make any promises of safety in my mind. I just hoped it wouldn’t end with my friends’ blood, or my own.

“Why do we have to do this?” Tinker asked me quietly once we had started off behind the two mares.

“To get supplies for the Remnant,” I explained to her.

“Why can’t they send soldiers to do that?” She urged and looked around. “Or at least someone who knows how to fight?”

I shrugged and continued walking, not sure of a good answer myself. “I guess the soldiers are all fighting. They can’t spare anyone to do this.”

“But I’m not even a zebra, and neither is Charmer. Helping you can only hurt us,” she said in a whisper, as if not wanting the others to hear her. “What if they use what you find to kill ponies like me and her?”

“They’re using it for the war,” I assured her, pushing her worry and doubt into a compartment in the back of my brain. “They wouldn’t kill innocent ponies like that.” Unless Xion was in charge, but he wasn’t. The Remnant would leave the other ponies alone once the Steel Rangers were gone and let them live in peace, right?

Tinker whined quietly and looked away from me. She mumbled something to herself, but I didn’t catch it, I don’t think I was supposed to.

I almost jumped out of my coat when my hoof dropped an extra inch into a pool of lukewarm water, and squealed quickly as I yanked it from the puddle. Seer spun on her hooves to face me, glaring at my display before nodding to the ground. The dirt and dust of the Wasteland had started to disappear, replaced by mud and even some sickly yellow-green spongy stuff growing out of countless puddles.

“Watch your step and keep your voice down,” she hissed at me. “We don’t want to wake the locals.”

“Locals?” Tinker asked quietly, cocking her brow at Seer.

“Wildlife, the dangerous kind,” the zebra snapped back at her before turning back around and continuing forward.

The puddles only got bigger and more frequent as we got closer to the actual city, and soon each step came with a disgusting squish or slurp as the ground turned to sticking mud. Tinker groaned beside me as she squeezed her eyes shut, probably trying to ignore the feeling under and around her hooves and hoping for dry ground. I would be lying if I didn’t want the same right about then.

The foul smell of rot and mold came slowly at first, but before we even reached the first of the towers it was unbearable. The pools of water around us reeked of countless disgusting things, and the smell only seeped into the mud around us and onto our hooves. I figured out that part when I tried to cover my nostrils and got a big whiff of the putrid gunk covering my hoof that burned my nose and started a bout of coughing for a few seconds. Charmer heaved once or twice as we walked, and I think I saw Seer holding her breath as long as possible up at the front.

If that was what the entire city smelled like, I was having a really hard time thinking of why anyone would want to be in there, no matter what valuable supplies or weapons might be lying around. I just wanted it to end, and wished that it would only be the outskirts that smelled so horrible.

Unfortunately, that’s not how it was. The stench started to fade once we came to a boardwalk of cracked and stained planks, but it still wafted through the air all around us, only helping to make the city more miserable than it should have been. Tinker stopped behind us a few feet once we hit the planks and tried to scrape the mud from her hooves, apparently bothered by the feeling of the foul slime squishing under her with each step. Luckily we didn’t need to worry about leaving her behind; Seer and Charmer stopped once the burned pony couldn’t handle the stench anymore and puked on the side of the walkway.

“You can go back if you want,” Seer told her quietly, just barely loud enough for me to hear. “We’ll meet you back at the sign.”

“Hell no,” Charmer spat once she finished retching. “I’m not goin’ back through that shit yet.”

The zebra nodded and stepped back. She looked over at me and Tinker and waved us over, grinning lightly. We both stepped up beside her, and I finally got my first look at what New Oatleans was.

The boardwalk we stood on was the last bit of actual land I could see, only broken by bits of rubble sticking out of the ocean of dirty water that claimed the city’s ancient streets. Tangled vines and layers of moss climbed the buildings, reaching for the upper floors before they died and dried up at their highest points. Ripples of movement danced over the surface as whatever waited under the surface swam about, staying hidden from watching eyes.

From where we were, I could see almost straight into the center of the city, but my vision was stopped by a curtain of swirling green-yellow gasses that curled up toward the sky, only making it a few meters off the surface of the water. Bridges of planks strapped over empty barrels spanned the canals between buildings. Some barely looked safe enough for someone as young as me or Tinker to cross without it breaking, while others already drifted in segments that had been broken by gunfights, or something much more horrifying.

More bridges spanned the gaps between taller towers, rope holding loose boards between them reaching between higher floors to keep soldiers or travelers away from the stinking water below. I didn’t see many, but a few zebras trotted along one of the bridges that trailed from the depths of the city. Their weapons were slung over their backs as the bandaged soldiers limped out of the fighting, making their way to wherever the Remnant had set up a hospital or safe area for the wounded. They paid us no mind, their eyes glued on the striped body ahead of them until they disappeared into one of the towers looming over us.

“Welcome to New Oatleans,” Seer expressed quietly. “Is it what you expected?”

I shook my head in unison with Tinker, struck by the sight of the city that had seemed so much different from a distance. I don’t know exactly what I had been expecting, maybe a larger, better built version of Shanty, but it wasn’t the marshy ghost town in front of me.

“How did it flood?” I asked curiously, unable to comprehend why everything around the city had been so dry.

“Someone dammed the river,” she explained quietly. “I don’t know why, but now the water flows into the city.”

“How do they fight in here?” Tinker asked in awe. “It seems impossible.”

“They fight between buildings.” Seer shook her head. “It’s never a pretty fight either.”

“Why don’t they stop then?” the filly beside me continued, obviously confused about the entire war.

“Because they can’t,” Seer answered calmly. “Someone tells them what to do and they do it. I doubt most of them even know why.”

“Do you?” Charmer interrupted from behind us, finally finished with her purge. Seer just shook her head again.

“We should get moving,” the zebra quickly announced. “I want to be out of here before sunset.” None of us argued. “And stay away from the water if you can. Move quickly over bridges, don’t stop for anything.”

“Why?” I don’t know why I asked, I should have just assumed she had a good reason, but I had to know what was so dangerous about it.

“Hopefully you won’t have to learn that answer,” she answered quickly and started off across a low-lying bridge.

A pang of disappointment shot through me, but I knew that was all I would get out of her. I decided to take her word for it and pray that we wouldn’t find out why she was so worried about the water, but I had a feeling the ripples weren’t caused by any friendly critters.

Seer led us into a shorter tower just off the boardwalk, across a bridge with a quickly erected sign with a single Zebrican word; Cavete. Beware.

The room we found ourselves in was almost barren. Only a few desks flipped up to block the windows had any real impact on the room, and the floor was littered with spent brass and pockmarks of stains from blood. The stench from outside was less apparent inside, but it was still there; the faint burning in my nostrils with each breath assured me of that much.

Seer wasted no time in the room; she didn’t even bother looking around for where to go next. She trotted quickly around a corner and out to another bridge, leading us across to a new building that looked almost identical to the first on the inside and outside. Above us, something slammed to the ground as hooves stomped around, and a muffled voice carried down to us.

“I told you she was spying, sir.”

Seer stopped short of the next door and put a hoof up to her lips to make sure we stayed quiet before sitting down slowly and closing her eyes. We all stopped and sat as well, looking around confused as the voices overhead continued.

“Where were you taking these supplies, spurcus?” a more collected voice asked roughly.

“She was taking them to the Rangers! I know-” The first voice suddenly stopped, and something fell to the ground above us again. I had a feeling it wasn’t a saddlebag.

“I was asking her, not you,” the calm, apparently in charge, voice stated. “Where were you taking them?”

I couldn’t understand what the new voice was saying, but her quiet, stammering voice sounded scared. I didn’t know what was happening, but I wasn’t comfortable with it. I looked over at Seer, suddenly wanting to rush up there and help the mare being questioned, but she was just sitting with her eyes closed and a peaceful expression on her face.

“That’s not a very good excuse,” the commanding voice responded.

“She’s probably a pony, damn spurs,” a new voice joined in, one that sounded excited.

“No!” I heard the feminine voice that time as she pleaded. “Please, I not spy!”

“I don’t believe you.”

Shuffling hooves and muffled screams in a language I had never heard before filled the floor above us, moving across the room toward the wall. My eyes tracked the movement through the ceiling, fear and horror filling my mind until I finally lifted my hooves to pull down my ears. I didn’t want to listen to whatever was happening, and I didn’t want to believe that soldiers would do whatever was happening to the poor mare.

A moment later, a stripeless body fell to the water through the window with a nightmarish scream. A splash of blood covered her chest from a gash running almost the entire length of her underside, and soon the water around her churned into a splotch of red. Her head popped out of the water with a scream, and the mare flailed her hooves helplessly to stay afloat. I stood to race over to the window and help, unable to watch her inevitably drown, bleed out, or both.

A jaw clamped down on my tail and yanked me back before striped hooves wrapped around my chest and muzzle. “Don’t,” Seer whispered to me regretfully. “Just leave her.”

I thrashed to get away, unable to believe that Seer could possibly ask me not to help the mare as she continued to scream in pain and panic and flail in the water.

And then it stopped with a tremendous splash.

I stopped thrashing and looked to the window, but the mare was gone. Her blood still covered a circle of the sea outside, but her blank white body had disappeared entirely, leaving behind violent ripples that splashed across the buildings around where she had fallen.

Overhead I heard hooves walking away from the wall where they had dropped her, a few little chuckles barely making it through the floor to us. “Why couldn’t we have some fun with her first, sir?” One asked.

“Because we have a mission to do, and we will not be late for the sake of morale.”

A few grumbles answered, but no protest was voiced. I wanted to yell up to them, probably along with a few bullets from the gun on my hoof, but I was still restrained by Seer. She tightened her grip when I looked up at the ceiling again, but she didn’t say anything.

After a few minutes of silence, I relaxed and dropped my head, staring at the striped hoof that was wrapped around my chest. She wasn’t holding my muzzle anymore, but for some reason still had her hoof around me, as if she expected me to jump out the window to try and save the mare from whatever had happened to her. I didn’t want to do that, I knew there was no point. She was gone.

“Why did they do it?” I asked Seer quietly, still staring down at her hoof.

“They thought she was a pony spy,” she told me softly, her voice quivering slightly.

“I know that,” I grumbled. “I mean why did they think that? And why did they throw her to… whatever took her?”

“Because she is a Kupigala,” she answered. “A member of a very old and small tribe who have never had stripes.”

“But, they’re still zebras, right?” I asked, confused. I had never heard of such a zebra before, let alone seen one of them.

“Yes, they are. Some just don’t want to believe so,” the mare explained sadly. “Most of the Remnant sees them as impure.”

“Just because they don’t have stripes?”

“That’s part of it, but the rest would take too long to explain. Maybe when we’re done here I can tell you.” Seer finally released me and stood up. Tinker and Charmer stared at us with confusion; probably too far away to have heard what we were talking about.

I stood looked around, suddenly very worried about Charmer and Tinker being with us. If they had thought a fellow zebra, with stripes or not, was a spy, what would they think of two actual ponies being around? I tried to ignore that worry as I followed Seer out to another bridge, catching up as fast as I could to ask her one last niggling question.

“Seer, what does spurcus mean?”

She stopped and looked down to me sadly. “It’s a hateful word for the Kupigala. It means ‘tainted’.” She looked away again and continued. “You shouldn’t say it, ever.”

I just nodded. Apparently even among ourselves, zebras couldn’t get along.

A gust of wind blew across the bridge and shook the barrels, pulling a discomforting creak from the boards over top of them as we watched. Sprays of water splashed over the tops of the planks, slicking the surface and making it even more worrisome that we would have to cross that bridge. Seer didn’t seem very worried, nor did Charmer, but me and Tinker stood back and looked on as we waited for the older mares to start crossing.

“Can’t we find another way?” Tinker asked shakily, staring at the wet, wobbly bridge uncomfortably.

“It would take too long to go around, every other bridge is probably in the same condition,” the zebra replied and turned to smile at us. “It’ll be fine.” She took her first steps confidently and continued to the center of the bridge without hesitating. “See, it’s perfectly safe,” she assured us and continued to the other side.

Charmer went next, crossing the bridge worry free as the planks groaned quietly underneath her. At least I think it was quietly, every noise they made seemed deafening as I prepared myself to cross with Tinker. She leaned into me and gulped before stepping onto the first plank in unison with me, receiving yet another squeak of protest from the soaked wood.

One of her hooves slipped under her, but the filly quickly caught her balance after squealing in fear. The bridge shook slightly under her near-fall, but quickly fell back into rocking along with the small waves splashing against the barrels. I put a gentle hoof under her foreleg and led her forward slowly, smiling despite how nervous I was that we would both end up in the water.

The bridge lurched as something hit the underside, and Tinker flew at me and tossed her legs around my neck with a squeal. My hooves locked on the bridge where we were, probably a whole meter from where we had started, and waited for it to stop wobbling as my mind raced through everything that could have caused the jump.

“Hurry up you two,” Seer called from the far side. “We’ve got a ways to go still.”

I took a deep breath and looked down at the filly who was clamped around me. She looked up and quickly released me, blushing slightly. “Sorry.”

The bridge bounced again, but this time both of us fell to our bellies. My jaw smacked into the wood, sending a painful ring through my skull that receded to focus on my teeth. I heard Charmer say something, but it was drowned out by the bridge suddenly screaming and shifting. I opened my eyes to see a sickly-green colored mass in front of me. I rolled my view up, following a long, scaly neck that ended in a horrifically familiar head.

A mutant snake.

The monster opened its jaws and flashed a row of jagged teeth as the head swung back and forth, staring between me and Tinker. The filly froze and locked her eyes on the beast, shaking uncontrollably until a gunshot cracked the air. A chunk of the snake’s neck blew apart, spraying the water with blood and flesh. The gunshot was apparently just enough for Tinker, and the filly jumped to her hooves to run.

“Tinker!” I heard Charmer scream before another blast from her shotgun tore into the serpent over me.

Its gaze locked on the fleeing filly, and before I knew what was happening the monster struck out at her. I screamed and pulled the pistol from my hoof, quickly firing off every shot I could into the snake’s coiled body. It didn’t seem to do much, but Charmer’s shotgun firing off again pushed the monster’s head off course and shook the bridge. I jumped up and turned, hoping to see Tinker still running. Thank Caesar she was; I just caught sight of her tail whipping into the building behind us.

I followed her quickly as more gunshots filled the air behind me, and I prayed that the snake’s attention would turn to the mares who actually posed a threat to it. I reached the door and looked inside to find Tinker cowering in a corner, her body still shaking violently and her head buried in her hooves. Certain she was safe, I turned around and reloaded the pistol, an act which took a little longer than I would have liked, and got ready to help fight off the serpent with Charmer and Seer. The toothy maw had turned to them, completely ignoring the easier meals to focus on the threat. A few chunks were missing from its back, along with a few gushing holes from Seer’s rifle.

With the extra time I had, I closed one eye to aim and fired off neatly aimed shots at the creature, putting a few more little holes in the scales. Suddenly, another blast from Charmer’s shotgun sent a spray of blood out from one side of the snake’s face, and the coils around the bridge tightened. Wood splintered and barrels collapsed under the weight, tearing the bridge apart and sending the snake back into the water.

Along with Charmer.

The mouth shot out and clamped down on the mare’s leg, pulling her into the murky pool with a screech as her shotgun clattered into the building behind where the mares were standing. Seer jumped to the edge and took aim, but never fired. Instead she collapsed in the doorway and waited with her rifle pointed at the water, waiting for something to surface again. I just stared where they had fallen in and dug my teeth into the grip of Shayle’s pistol, shaking and waiting for Charmer to rise victorious.

A stream of bubbles popped along the surface where I’d last seen her, along with a few larger ones from the snake. Only a few seconds later, the large bubbles stopped, and a layer of red slowly creeped across the pool. I almost jumped for joy. She’d killed it!

Then the small ones stopped, and still no Charmer.

The pistol clattered to the floor where I stood, along with my heart as the blood continued to spread through the water. She couldn’t be, she had won! The snake died first, it had to have died first. She wasn’t dead!

Her mane broke the surface first, splaying across the water until her back came into view. But she didn’t move. She just floated there, limp and still as the waves bobbed her body up and down. No.

Seer’s hooves plunged into the water and pulled the pony out. Her leg was still bleeding in a row where the snake’s teeth had broken her skin and blood streamed slowly down to her hoof. The zebra dragged her into the building and placed her carefully on her back. I didn’t see her breathing, I didn’t see her moving at all.

“Felix! Find a way around,” Seer shouted across to me. “We’ll wait here, please hurry,” she explained and turned her attention to Charmer. She started pressing on the pony’s chest desperately, trying to get her breathing again.

I wanted to watch, I had to see that Charmer was still alive. She had to be alive. But I couldn’t, I had to help, and that meant finding a way over to her as fast as I could. I quickly put the pistol back in its holster, ran into the building and lifted Tinker to her hooves. She protested at first, but when she realized it was me she shakily rose.

“Let’s go, Charmer’s hurt,” I told her quickly and ran around the room looking for another way out.

“She is? What happened?” she asked worriedly and followed me.

“No time, we need to find a way across,” I frantically explained. Thankfully, a staircase led up to the second floor, and hopefully a bridge. “This way, let’s go!”

“Felix, slow down, we need to be careful.”

“No, we need to go fast, she’s dying,” I snapped and ran up the stairs. There was a bridge, but it didn’t go where I needed. It went further into the city, but it was the only way out anymore, not that I looked. I quickly ran onto the boards, ignoring Tinker’s protests behind me. The bridge was dry, safe from the spraying water below, so I didn’t care about slipping. I just went as fast as I could. The wood protested loudly beneath me, but I ignored it too. Only one thing mattered, and that was reaching Charmer.

Into the next building, around the corner and across another bridge going deeper. I looked over to my right and saw a set of bridges running parallel to me, straight back to the building Seer and Charmer were in. I just needed to find a way across.

The next building gave it to me, but it was on the fourth floor. I turned and sprinted around the room, snapping my head around in search for the stairs.

“Felix! Wait,” the filly yelled from behind me again. I didn’t listen, I couldn’t slow down. I found the stairs on the outside through a door marked ‘Fire Exit’. They were metal and rusted, but they seemed stable enough as I jumped up them as fast as I could, racing to the fourth floor and the bridge across.

Tinker’s hooves rattled the metal close behind me, following and still arguing that I needed to slow down.

I dashed into the fourth floor room and ran across it, dodging the smashed desks and holes that had been blown in the floor at some point. I could see the bridge on the other side, I just had to reach it. I jumped over the last hole and barely made it to the other side, cracking the floor behind me as I raced onto the bridge spanning the sea under us. The boards squealed just like on the other bridges, but again I ignored it, I didn’t have time to care about that. If a full grown zebra could walk across them I could run across them.

Tinker’s hooves hit the wood a few seconds after mine, following desperately. “Felix wa-”

Snap.

The filly’s yell cut off in a scream, and I slid to a halt at the far side of the bridge. I turned around to see what had happened, and froze. I could only see her head and forelegs gripping for life on the boards, the rest of her body left to dangle over the water four stories below. A plank had snapped under her weight, and the bits of wood splashed almost silently to the water below.

“Felix!” she screamed and slid down until her head disappeared, leaving only her hooves holding on for dear life.

I galloped back onto the bridge and dropped my forelegs into the gap, hooking my hooves under her shoulders as my tail gripped around one of the ropes that ran alongside the planks. Why couldn’t I just slow down? Why couldn’t I have just listened to Tinker and maybe stopped this from happening at all? Because I wasn’t thinking, I was only thinking about saving Charmer, and now my fillyfriend was dangling over almost certain death.

I pulled up as hard as I could with my back legs and my tail, trying to get the filly back on the bridge. I almost got her head back above the planks before my back legs slipped and we both slid further down, leaving her hanging by one hoof. Tears streaked down her face as she squeezed her eyes shut, and her choked sobs were all I could hear.

I put my back legs under myself again and pushed up, straining to pull Tinker out of the gap. I could feel my hooves slipping again, and tried to reposition them before we fell. Her other hoof gripped over the planks and pulled, helping me get her up.

My hooves slipped again and I slammed down to my belly, but didn’t slide into the gap with Tinker. She wasn’t even there anymore.

She slipped out of my grip and screamed while she fell. It echoed through my head, pounded at my ears, and shattered my mind until it finally ended with a splash four floors below.

I didn’t even think about it, I just let go with my tail and pushed myself into the gap to drop after her. I wouldn’t leave her in there to drown or meet whatever fate the mare from earlier had. Charmer had Seer helping her, and hopefully the zebra could keep her alive.

When I hit the water, the first thing I felt was pain. The front half of my body stung as it slapped into the sea, and the cold sent a quick shock through my body that froze my lungs for a few seconds. I opened my eyes to look around, and they instantly started burning from whatever was in the water; probably a very unsafe level of radiation. I could barely see down there, but I still caught sight of Tinker’s mane flowing around with the minor current. Her eyes were shut, and her mouth hung open limply.

I quickly flailed my legs to move toward her, at that moment remembering that I had no idea how to swim! But I had to do it, I had to reach her and pull her up to the surface. I pumped my legs frantically to force my body forward, slowly getting closer to the motionless pony. When I finally reached her, I put my forehooves around her and kicked wildly with my back legs, trying to reach the surface. It didn’t look like it was getting any closer, and for a moment I could picture our bodies floating on the surface just before being swallowed by some monster from the depths.

My legs kicked faster, pushing us up to the surface slowly. My lungs burned, my eyes stung, and my vision was suddenly circled by a creeping red blur. I didn’t think I was bleeding, and it wasn’t spreading fast enough to be blood anyways. I had to make it, I had to get us out of the water, or at least where we could breathe! My lungs screamed for air, begging for just one gasp that threatened to overtake my will and fill my lungs with the cloudy water around us.

When I finally broke the surface, my lungs took over and gasped for air, sucking down a small splash of water that sent me into a fit of coughing, but I never let go of Tinker. I pulled her head above the surface, still kicking my legs desperately to keep us both up. I looked around as fast as I could once the coughing stopped, searching for some way out. The bridges were too high off the surface for me to get us out, and they lined up with the lowest windows I could see to get in. The only hope I had was a crumbled building almost 100 meters away. The wall had been blown open right above the water, allowing a small amount of the sea to flow inside, and even us if I could reach it.

I shifted my legs and started kicking, but we weren’t moving fast enough. I wasn’t sure I could keep us going all the way there, and that was if a predator hadn’t heard the splashes and raced over to catch a quick meal. If I was going to make it, there was only one thing I could do.

“Seer!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, holding it for as long as I could until my tired lungs couldn’t push out the word anymore. I doubted she had heard me, we were too far away, and even if we weren’t she was distracted. I still called out again, wishing I was louder as my voice fell into another fit of coughing.

The water under me swirled as something swam beneath us, and my heart screeched to a stop for a second before cranking into overdrive. I couldn’t kick any harder, and I couldn’t go any faster, not with the unconscious filly in my hooves. There was only one way I could ever hope to reach the broken building, and I was not going to do it.

A scaly head rose from the water a few meters from my hooves, and a pair of yellow eyes spun to look at us. I started shaking Tinker and begging her to wake up and help, never taking my eyes off of whatever was about to turn us into lunch. The head rose further and opened its jaws. A row of teeth almost as big as my hoof was all I could see, and I knew it was over. The maw closed in, not bothering to move quicker than necessary; it knew we couldn’t escape.

I squeezed Tinker close and closed my eyes, once again wishing that I had just listened to her and slowed down. If I had just taken a few more seconds, we would have lived.

Whoosh.

Boom!

My eyes shot open as a small shockwave washed over my body, pushing me and Tinker under the surface for a moment. When I pulled us back up, chunks of meat and scales floated about and plopped into the water from above, and the smell of cooked ozone filled my nostrils. The monster that had been about to eat us was nowhere to be seen, but I knew it was still around. There wasn’t nearly enough meat floating around me to make up something that size.

A flutter of feathers was the last thing I heard before stabbing pain shot through my shoulders and I was lifted from the sea below along with Tinker. I yelped and looked up to see a very, very big bird carrying us. Except it had… were those paws?

Yes, yes they were.

“You two are pretty damn stupid,” the griffin slurred as he carried us wherever he was taking us. He had an interesting accent, definitely nothing I’d heard in the Wasteland before. It almost sounded like he was drunk. “Going for a swim with a gator, fucking idiots.”

Obviously he missed the first part of our ‘swim’. “We fell in!” I snapped at him with a cough.

“Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

I grumbled and looked down, quickly wishing I hadn’t. Whoever our savior was, for some reason he decided to take us up a lot higher than was probably necessary, and also the wrong way.

“Hey!” I yelled up to him. “Turn around; our friends are back that way.” I pointed back the direction Seer and Charmer were, trying not to focus on the pain from his talons biting into my shoulders.

“I didn’t see anyone else,” he grumbled. “Are you sure they weren’t eaten?”

“No!” I snapped. “We were trying to reach them after a bridge collapsed.”

“Collapsed? All by itself?” he asked with a smug grin as he tilted and turned back where I had waved.

“Well, no. A snake did it,” I explained grumpily. “And one of them is hurt.”

“I can see that, she doesn’t look too bad though,” he replied simply. “Give her a good smack and she’ll be up in a flash.”

My jaw dropped as I looked up at the jerk carrying us. If I wasn’t in for certain death should he choose to drop me, I would have given him a good smack. “Not her,” I grumbled instead of my other option. “One of our other friends. She got bitten.”

“Aw, don’t worry about that. Snakes around here aren’t poisonous, just big and hungry.”

“The ones in Shanty had poison!” I argued without thinking.

“There’s more than one type of snake, you tool. Oatleans snakes prefer to crush their prey; makes it easier to swallow.”

“What are you, a snake expert?” I growled, allowing my curiosity to indulge itself in another tidbit of what he knew.

“Expert? No, it just helps to stay alive if you know their habits.”

That actually made sense. “So you live here? Don’t you know there’s a war?” I asked, suddenly more confused than upset. Actually, I don’t know why I was upset with the griffin that had just saved us; maybe it was because he was a bit of a jerk. And he was distracting me from the fact that Charmer was still hurt and needed my help!

“There’s also good hunting, and that means damn good scran.”

“Scran?” I asked with a cocked brow. Stupid curiosity keeping me distracted.

“Food,” he clarified with a sigh.

“Then why didn’t you just say that?”

“Because I like my word better.” He grumbled to himself for a few seconds then came to a hover over a tower. “Can I put you down here, your majesty?” he asked sarcastically.

I looked around for where the broken bridge was, hoping we could reach it easily from the building we were over. Even if it was a longer walk, I really didn’t want to ride around under the griffin anymore. Oddly enough, he’d managed to bring us to the roof of the building Seer and Charmer were in. I would have called it a coincidence, but I really doubted that.

“Yeah, this works,” I told him and was promptly dropped onto the roof for a rough landing. At least he was kind enough to gently put Tinker down instead of dropping her. “Thank you.”

“Just try not to ‘fall in’ again,” he requested mockingly. “And don’t piss off gators either, bad idea.” Well, at least I wasn’t crazy for thinking he sounded drunk; his breath might have been flammable.

“I’ll keep it in mind,” I replied, trying to sound at least a little grateful despite still wanting to punch him for saying I should hit Tinker.

“Oh, and don’t touch any whiskey you find, that’s mine,” he growled and poked me in the chest. “If my stash goes missing, I’ll cut your balls off.”

My eyes shot wide and I quickly nodded in understanding. Don’t touch the whiskey, got it. Though I was a little surprised that he threatened to cut off a rather sensitive area when he had both a rifle and a… bow, on his back along with a quiver full of assorted arrows and other devices.

“Good boy,” he told me with a wide smile and patted my head before taking off.

A quiet groan behind me turned my attention to Tinker, who had of course just then started to wake up. “Ugh, what happened?” she asked with a cough.

I practically jumped to the filly’s side and wrapped her in my hooves, a display that gave her a little scare and made her flinch. I didn’t care though, I was too happy to see her waking up by herself.

She returned the gesture after a moment, but I could feel her head turning to look around. “Didn’t I fall off a bridge?” she asked, sounding confused. “Why are we on a roof?”

“I’ll explain after we see that Charmer is okay,” I told the filly and helped her up, not quite in a mood to recount our time with... I never learned his name.

“Okay,” she agreed and coughed again.

I led her downstairs, taking it slow this time, and looked around for the two mares we had been trying to reach. It took awhile to get down from the roof, about 10 flights of stairs, and my legs burned even worse by the time we got down.

Luckily, I wouldn’t have to do any more straining work with them. We rounded the corner on the floor where Seer and Charmer were supposed to be waiting, and my heart started racing as I waited to see what was waiting around the corner. Would Seer still be pressing on the pony? I had no idea, but I hoped I could help somehow.

“Damn it, that hurts!” Charmer yelped as we rounded the corner.

A smile leapt onto my face at the sight of Seer wrapping a bandage around Charmer’s leg, apparently a little too tight. The pony didn’t look her best, mostly because her mane and coat were matted with dirt from the murky water and her leg was caked with a little blood, but she was alive and awake! She still smiled when she saw us, but quickly grimaced again as Seer secured the bandage.

The zebra turned to us looking a little exhausted and stressed after everything that had happened. She looked over us both for a moment then cocked her head to one side. “I didn’t know you could swim.”

I rubbed the back of my neck and grinned awkwardly. “I, uh, can’t.”

The mares looked at me strangely then shook their heads after figuring out what had happened. Or at least part of it, I doubted they knew how we had gotten out of the water, even I was having a hard time figuring out the odds of that happening. I didn’t even know griffins lived in New Oatleans, let alone that they would care about saving a pair of foals from the grip of, I think he called it a gator.

“Well?” Charmer finally broke the strange silence, looking at me expectantly. “Are you going to tell us the story?”

“Maybe when we get to the warehouse,” I suggested with a nervous grin. “Shouldn’t we get going?”

A rumble of thunder outside answered my question, and a moment later the light plop-plop of rain dropping into the sea around us filled my ears. Seer looked out the door and straight up in the air with squinted eyes. “I’m not sure if that’s…”

Suddenly the sound of raindrops picked up, and a curtain of water overcame our building, drenching Seer’s face. She pulled her head back and looked at us with a dry expression. At least it would have been dry if her face wasn’t soaked through to her skin.

I stifled a chuckle at the look of her, and in an instant her eyes were glued to my face. The flipped a lock of beaded mane from her face and glared at me for a moment before smiling. “No, I think I’d like to hear your story now. We can get going once this blows over.”

I smiled nervously and sat down. “Okay, um, so we were running around looking for a way to reach you-”

“He was running around, I was telling him to slow down,” Tinker butted in with a sly grin. I couldn’t tell if she was actually upset about that, or if she was just pretending since we were alive. I would probably find out later. In the corner, Charmer laughed at the interruption.

“Okay, I was running around looking for way to reach you…”

I shrugged off my bag and pulled the pistol from my pocket, setting it gently on the ground before falling to my backside and sighing. The lighting in the cave was strange and cast dancing shadows across the walls around us once Solus had lit the lamps. An old stained couch was the only noticeable piece of furniture in the room, and I did my best to avoid looking at it. I would rather not picture Xion and Seer on it, doing the thing that zebras did for fun sometimes.

Solus sat on the opposite side of the room from me, only setting his bag and the rocket off to the side while keeping the rifle slung over his cloak. He cast a quick glance over at me then pulled back his hood. It wasn’t just his face without stripes, there were no stripes anywhere on his head or neck. Not a single one. If I wasn’t certain that he was Remnant, I could have believed he was a pony; maybe a lithe one, but still a pony. He stared at the door waiting for Minx to show up, almost as if he didn’t know what to do without her.

The mare had told us to hunker down in the cave first while she checked the area, just to make sure there weren’t any raiders or other less-than-friendly equines stalking around or looking to surprise us during the storm. I doubted it would have mattered, I felt surprisingly safe with Minx and Solus around. Safe from others that is, my mind was still fighting with the little thought that Xion told them to kill me if I did anything suspicious.

So I lay on my side and turned away from Solus, who was still looking over at me from the corner of his eye every so often. I closed my eyes and I could see it all again; his eyes, his mark, the blood spraying behind him as my bullet tore through him. I quickly snapped my eyes open again. I didn’t want to relive it, I couldn’t. I just wanted to forget, or wake up and find that it was all just a dream and that I was actually still back in Caesar’s Stand dreaming. I would probably be stuck thinking about it for days, but at least it would only be a dream. I wouldn’t have killed those two ponies, I wouldn’t have gone out with the Scorpions, none of that. I would still be gathering supplies; an easy, straight forward job that only meant killing robots or monsters that didn’t have foals or parents or a special someone.

I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to kill ponies who were just trying to live their lives. Raiders and slavers I could, and would, kill. They ruined lives for a living, and they deserved nothing less than death for their actions. But ponies guarding their home, just trying to keep the ones they loved safe? I squeezed my eyes shut as a thought wiggled into my brain, poisoning my last argument with something that never occurred to me before.

What about Minx?

I had asked myself that question many, many times in the past few days, but it seemed different this time. She was only with the Scorpions, and doing everything Xion said, because she wanted her family to be safe. Even though she may never see them again, and I was starting to hope she would, she still did anything to make sure they stayed alive. She killed and ruined lives, but she had a reason, right? Could I really kill a mare just because she didn’t want to lose the ones she loved? I told myself I couldn’t, but…

I lifted my head and thumped it on the ground a few times while I groaned to myself. “Stupid, stupid, stop thinking.” I rolled over and looked at Solus, deciding that I needed to get my mind off of the Minx and killing stuff for a little bit, even if it meant talking to a likely psychopathic killer. “Um… Solus?” I asked quietly, hoping he wouldn’t jump down my throat just for speaking to him.

His eyes rolled over to me, but he didn’t turn his head. “Yes?”

I never thought of anything to ask him! My first thought was to ask why he didn’t have any stripes, but then I thought that might have been a little rude. Maybe asking about his home, or would that be too private? I bumped my head on the floor again. No thinking, just ask!

“Did you, uh, kill the pegasus?”

“No, she was not a pegasus,” he quickly answered. “She was a unicorn.”

“But I thought Minx said she was,” I pointed out.

“She was wrong,” he explained plainly. “There were no pegasi in Spur.”

“Then how do you know you killed the right pony?” I didn’t mean to sound upset, but I was. How could they just kill another pony, did they even wait long enough to see if it was the pony they wanted?

“She was doing something in the cockpit, running inspections most likely.” He rolled his eyes away from me and to the door.

I guess that made sense, but I didn’t know enough about flying ships or the ponies flying them to question it. They knew better than I did, so I would just have to take their word for it, but I wasn’t sure if it was okay for them to have killed her. Was she really that big of a threat that they had to kill her when, as far as I knew, she hadn’t attacked any zebra towns or anything like that.

And there went my distraction. I had to think of something new to ask, and quick. I didn’t want my mind wandering off to the places I was trying to avoid for just a while. So I quickly thought up something new to distract myself, and prayed that it wouldn’t go somewhere bad.

“Uh, where are you from?” I asked nervously, hoping it wasn’t too stupid of a question.

He turned his head to me and stared strangely. “Far away, why?”

“Just trying to pass the time,” I quickly blurted.

He tilted his brow at me, not answering at first. It got a little awkward. “It is a small tribal land in Zebrica,” he started explaining. “It’s old and very dry now.”

“From the war?” I asked, assuming that would be an obvious reason.

“Yes, of course,” he confirmed with a nod. “My mother and father both live there still, I was sent here when I was young,” he told me, much slower than his usual speech. I hadn’t noticed any accent before, but now that he slowed down I could hear how he said some parts of words more sharp than I was used to. “They raise mutant chickens and sell the eggs.” He almost sounded happy, and I could see a little grin over his lips as he talked about his home.

“Was it a small town?” I asked, hoping to keep him going so my mind would stay off of other topics as long as possible.

“Yes, very. Only four families live there with my mother’s,” he answered and looked back at me.

“Five families? Are you safe like that?” I asked. Five families meant, what? Maybe 12 zebras?

“Of course, they are very big families, at least compared to how you live here,” he told me with a chuckle. “How do you move away from your parents so young?”

I rolled my eyes down and frowned. “Some of us have to.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I did not mean to, uh, upset you,” he quickly replied, sounding like he was panicked. “I only meant that where I come from, we live with every member of our family. Mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, children, aunts, uncles and cousins all share one home; we do not split apart like the zebras here.”

I looked back up to him. “That’s a lot of zebras in one house.”

“No, there is plenty of space. My family lived on a farm with a large barn. Me, my brother, two sisters and three cousins slept in the barn. Mother, father and mother’s parents and siblings slept in the house. More than enough space for everyone.” He grinned.

Great, next he just needed to tell me the story about how he was forced into joining the Scorpions and I wouldn’t be able to hate him as much either. Though I had to admit, he was a surprisingly nice stallion. “Why did you leave?” I asked, ready to hear even more of Xion’s evil and blackmail.

“My family and I did not always get along. I always dreamed about being one of the brave warriors from grandfather’s stories about when he was with the Remnant.” He looked back and the door and continued smiling, lost in the memory of his old home. “My mother wanted me to help with the farm until I was old enough to be wed. But I did not want that. So I asked grandfather how to join the warriors he always told me about, but he told me I must respect my mother’s wishes.”

The stripeless stallion looked back at me. “I ran away and got lost in the desert. I almost died three times,” he explained with a chuckle that seemed inappropriate somehow. “One day, a patrol found me and I asked them if I could become one of them. They told me yes and took me to the base. Many months later, I was sent here to fight in the city.”

No blackmail, no threats to kill his family, only a mildly interesting story that made me wonder how old he was. “How long ago was that?” I asked curiously.

“Four years,” he told me plainly. “Almost died a lot more than three times.” Was he actually proud of how many times he almost died?

“And how did you meet Xion?” I finally got the chance to ask, actually curious to hear how he killed two Steel Rangers by himself. I wasn’t sure how much of a feat that actually was since I’d never seen a Ranger before, but Seer made it sound impressive.

The door swung open and Minx trotted in, looking between the two of us strangely from under her soaking wet hood. “Rainy day story time?” she asked casually.

“I was just about to tell the young one how I met the Triarii,” Solus answered plainly.

“Is it three or four Rangers this time?” the mare retorted with a dry look.

“I thought it was only two,” I quickly cut in, very confused.

“You have heard this story?” the stallion asked me with a questioning stare.

“No, but Seer said you killed two Steel Rangers alone.”

Minx sighed and looked at Solus. “Do you see what happens when you change the story? Do you even remember what actually happened?”

“Of course! It was three, but one of them was out of ammo,” he proudly asserted.

And I was officially lost.

“I only remember two, and they were Scribes,” Minx countered.

“Still Rangers, just less armor,” the stallion argued. “And they have magic.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” she told him jokingly. Suddenly I was starting to wonder why Solus had been so quiet and quick-talking until the last few minutes. And why the two of them were so much more… normal, when Xion wasn’t around. It was as if they were completely different zebras.

“Can I tell my story now?” Solus asked, not looking like he cared what Minx told him.

“As long as it doesn’t disrupt mine, then yes,” she said with a grin and took a seat not far from me.

The mare casually removed everything she was wearing until her entire body was exposed. I instantly noticed how slender she was, almost as skinny as me except she actually had tone. I guess I had expected her to be a little bigger under the cloak she constantly wore, but that wasn’t the case. Her coat was marred from Caesar knows how many fights, but she didn’t seem to care. She just sat down and pulled out a book of all things, opened it to wherever she had left off, and started reading.

Had I officially left the real world, the place where Minx and Solus were professional assassins, or something, who never did anything except for watch me, shoot someone, or do whatever invisible zebras do? When I left with them that morning, the last thing I expected was to be listening to a story that may or may not be true while the mare beside me read a book. And I especially didn’t expect to do it in a cave next to where Shanty used to be, with the zebras who had burned it. I had to be dreaming again.

“Would you still like to hear it, Shayle?” he asked with a warm smile.

“Sure.” Why not? It wasn’t like I had anything better to do than get to know him a little better until the storm passed. I just hoped it wouldn’t end with him asking me to be his marefriend.

I’m not sure when I actually got to sleep, but I knew that I had definitely heard Solus’ entire story before it happened. I listened intently to most of it, but I was skeptical through a lot of the actual fight. That was probably because Minx had shut down who he had actually fought before he even started. He stuck with it being two Scribes, whatever that meant, I didn’t bother to ask for clarification, but he took the liberty of adding in details like auto turrets and landmines. Every time he mentioned something like that Minx would snigger quietly from her corner, apparently not entirely lost in her book.

I was worried at first that staying by her would upset the zebra, after all she had warned against interrupting her book, but I wasn’t comfortable moving. Solus was nice, yes, but he was also bigger and stronger than me, and being too close to him without Minx closer worried me somehow. I still enjoyed the story for the most part, and Minx didn’t seem too bothered by how loud Solus told it at some points, but the entire situation still felt strange to me. Wrong.

At least the distraction kept my mind off of other things like I had hoped, so I fell asleep without too much trouble. I doubt I was out long though, it turns out the cold stone floors weren’t exactly great for sleeping on. My back was tight when I rolled over and sat up, and a quiet crack reverberated through my body when I turned my head, but at least I wasn’t in pain, sweating, or sobbing.

The first place I looked was to the door, but Solus wasn’t there anymore, only his bags still sat in the corner where he had dropped them. I looked around the room slowly, wondering if he had just moved elsewhere, but I didn’t see him. At least Minx was still in there with me, sitting in her corner with her back to me and staring down at something in her hooves, probably her book.

Her gear was still stripped off and set aside, including the rifle that leaned over her bag. She didn’t seem worried about being able to protect herself from me, even though I had put a gun to her head and threatened to shoot her. Then again, she could probably kill me with her hooves if she wanted to, she probably knew some of those fighting moves that Felix told me about back when he was little and just starting school. Why the teacher talked about zebra fighting styles so early on was beyond me, but I guess that was what Remnant controlled education got him.

Then I noticed the top of her book just barely sticking out of her bag.

I slowly stood and trotted over to her, trying to get a peek at what she was staring at. It was probably rude, but I was curious. And a quiet sniffle from the mare didn’t help that. Was she crying?

I stopped for a moment and considered just going back to my bag, laying down, and pretending I had never seen the professional killer crying over something. But suddenly I wanted to know even more, so I gulped and looked down.

“Minx?” I asked quietly, hoping she wouldn’t instantly kick me or something.

She flinched as soon as I spoke, and quickly looked over her shoulder to me before looking back at whatever she was holding. “Yes, little one?”

“Are you okay?” Please don’t hit me!

“Of course, I’m just… remembering,” she explained without turning around. I still couldn’t see what she was holding, and now that she knew I was there I doubted I could get away with peeking over her shoulder at it.

“Your family?” I asked softly, still praying that something I said wouldn’t get me killed.

She looked back at me again with a stern look in her eye, but her voice was still soft and regretful. “Yes.”

I didn’t know what to say after that, because once again I hadn’t thought of anything else to say. I sat down and started running through questions that I could ask without sounding like I was prying, but that was pretty hard, so I just asked the first thing that came to my mind.

“What were they like?”

“My family?” she asked, not sounding irritated like I thought she might become. I nodded. “They were quiet, at least my mate was,” she explained softly. “My daughter wasn’t. She was always excited and happy; I don’t think I ever saw her frown.” The mare smiled at the thought as her eyes glazed over for a moment.

“She sounds like a cute filly,” I told her and put on a smile.

“Yeah, she was,” the mare agreed and nodded. “Sometimes I think she forgot where we lived; she always talked about things from the old stories about the times before the bombs fell.”

“I’m sure she’s still the same happy filly,” I told her, hoping it was true. “And that she really misses her mother.”

The mare shook her head and sniffed loudly. “I hope so too,” she stated flatly. “And hopefully her father was smart enough to tell her I died.”

My smiled dropped. “Why? Don’t you want to see her again?” I asked, completely confused. Wasn’t going back to her family the reason she still listened to Xion?

“I do, more than anything in the world I want to hug my little filly again,” she told me and frowned. “I’ll never get to do that, but I won’t let my daughter know what I’ve become.” Her voice shook and I could hear a few drops hitting the stone under her and dripping against something paper in her hooves. “I want her to know I was a loving mother, not a killer.”

I was about to say something, I didn’t even know what, to try and comfort her, but the words stuck in my throat. What could I have said? I didn’t know how to comfort zebras, or ponies for that matter. My last try with Tinker ended in her walking away, how could trying to help Minx end any different?

So I turned away and curled up by my bag again. There was nothing left to do except wait for the storm to pass.

The door swung open and smacked against the stone wall, pulling my head instantly up to see what had happened. Solus stood in the doorway with his cloak on and soaked from head to hoof. “Trouble coming,” he stated quickly.

Minx was already lifting the rifle from her bag by the time I rolled to my hooves, her eyes dried and a stern look on her face. She didn’t bother grabbing her cloak, apparently not caring to use it, and trotted over to the door with only the gun. I followed closely behind her, hoping that Solus’ definition of ‘trouble’ didn’t mean a huge fight.

“What did you see?” Minx asked quickly as we trotted through the tunnel the way we had come in.

“Very upset, armed ponies,” he explained simply. “Maybe ten.” Oh good, only three times more of them than us. “Probably from Spur.”

“Great,” Minx deadpanned and turned to me. “Find a place to hide and stay there, only shoot if you can hit them. Don’t waste any ammo.” I nodded and she looked back at Solus. “Do what you do; I’ll do what I do.”

“Got it,” the stallion confirmed and lifted his hood, disappearing into thin air as he pushed through the door and into the raging storm. I could see the rain stopping where it hit his cloak, but it was barely noticeable with how heavy the storm was. Minx followed out after him and instantly turned to the hill on the left, jumping up the soaked and sliding mud to reach the top as fast as she could.

That left me alone to find somewhere to hide like Minx said. I looked around frantically, and found a cropping of rocks not far off. I jumped behind them and pulled out my pistol. My mane stuck to one side of my face in the torrent, blocking my vision. I grumbled and brushed the hair back along my head, putting as much of it behind my ear as I could. Suddenly Seer’s separated and beaded mane made more sense than just to look good.

I looked up to the hill to see if I could find Minx, but I didn’t see anything, not even the barrel of her rifle. I didn’t bother looking for Solus. I peeked around the rock to see if anyone was in sight yet, and caught sight of the group of ponies trotting through the rain toward us. I couldn’t hear them if they were talking, but I didn’t really care for what they were saying even if I could. They were armored, some of them anyways, with vests and awkward looking helmets.

The helmet didn’t seem to help much when the loud snapping of a rifle cut the air in a burst of three shots. I barely saw the flashes from where they floated behind the group of ponies, taking off the top of one head and pulling all of their attention backwards.

Minx’s rifle didn’t do quite as much to give her away. The only reason I knew she had shot was one of the pony’s head snapping to the side violently before they crumpled to the mud.

That was when hell broke loose. The ponies all formed a circle and fired outward, sweeping their automatic rifles back and forth to spray a complete circle around them with gunfire. I pulled my head back behind the rocks as shards of stone and splashes of mud flew around me.

Another burst from Solus’ gun cut off their fire, and I pictured another pony falling. I looked back around to see the ponies running away from the invisible zebra, trying to find a better position. That position happened to be where I was.

I pulled the trigger on my pistol and sent shots flying into the group, not specifically aiming at anything. I just wanted them to stop before they reached me. A few ponies stumbled as my shots hit them in the chest and legs, but I didn’t take any down or stop them. The pony at the front of the group jerked violently to one side and fell as Minx took another shot, tripping two of the runners behind him and turning the others around in fear.

I quickly reloaded and got ready to kill, once again being forced to do it if I wanted to live, because I really doubted those ponies would do anything less than kill me after I had already shot at them. I stuck my head back out as one of the tripped ponies got up, and sent a trio of shots into his head and neck. He crumpled back down, and I repeated the process with the pony beside him. Unfortunately, the helmets were good for something, and that was deflecting pistol shots. The pony levitated his rifle in a blue aura, pointed it at me, and opened fire.

I barely got away from the death by pulling my head back behind the rock, only getting a nice burning feeling along my cheek from a grazing shot. Unfortunately that wasn’t good enough for the pony, and his rifle quickly rounded the corner on me. I fired off the pistol as fast as I could, but he wasn’t there, only the floating rifle in his magic looked at me. Three bullets cut into my side like butter, one through my chest and two into my gut, sending an unbelievable wave of pain through my entire body that made me drop the gun from my mouth.

I gasped and slid down on my unhurt side, surprised that my first reaction hadn’t been to scream in misery. My chest seized up for a moment, but quickly started up my breathing again, along with the pounding of my heart trying to escape from my body. The pony stepped around the corner and pushed the rifle to my forehead as I looked up to his face. I wanted to beg, to ask him not to kill me, but I couldn’t find the strength to speak. Instead I looked up in horror, hoping that he would for some reason spare me. His eyes told a different story, and I knew I was going to die.

His head exploded over me as Minx finally took the shot and saved my life, but I only took a moment to savor it before my body reminded me that I was still well on my way to death. I dropped my head into the mud, letting my mane and one side of my face rest in the cold for however long I had left before it all faded away.

My insides burned and convulsed as pain continued to pulse through my body with every beat of my heart. I could barely breath, and a disturbing bubbling sound irritated my ear from somewhere on my chest. I didn’t want look down at it; I didn’t want to see the blood that was doubtlessly covering my belly. I did it anyways, I had to see how bad I was hurt and if I would be okay or if I could stop the bleeding, even though I felt like there was no way, absolutely no way, I could be okay with the amount of pain I was feeling.

Seeing a slick, pasty white tube sticking out of my side didn’t help, not at all! Whatever it was, it looked important, and it was sticking out of me! I looked away as fast as I could, but it didn’t stop me from vomiting. The bile that covered the dirt in front of me was strung with red, but I didn’t focus on it long after the world started to spin out of control around me.

The sound of Solus’ rifle faded away as my ears rang, cutting out all of the sound around me until all I heard was a constant droning tone. A familiar rifle slapped down in the mud next to the fallen unicorn who had shot me, and I rolled my eye down to see Minx sitting beside me and frantically screaming out to someone, probably Solus. Her hoof pressed down on my chest, adding an extra layer of misery to my world of pain that I just wanted to end.

She looked down at me and said something, but I didn’t hear it over the ring. I just looked up at her and felt… I don’t know what I felt. She looked scared, horrified in fact, as she looked down at me. Her wide, bloodshot eyes shined in the rain, and drops of water coursed down her cheeks. She looked back up and screamed again, dropping a bit of rain from her face and onto my mouth. No, it was a tear. She was… crying? For me?

Solus appeared beside her a moment later with a bag in his muzzle instead of the rifle. Minx pulled a bandage from it and pressed it to my chest. The stallion did the same to my gut, but I didn’t think it would help. My vision blurred and started to slowly fade into black. Minx looked down at me again and screamed something at me before digging into the bag. She pulled out a large syringe that I recognized from a few years earlier and jabbed it into my belly.

Hydra.

I wanted to flail away from it, I didn’t want it near me or in me, but I couldn’t control my body anymore. I just closed my eyes as the chilling drug flowed into my body, undoing the damage that had been done by the bullets as I cried and begged for it to go away. I didn’t know if I actually said anything the two zebras over me could hear, but I didn’t care. The needle pulled out of my skin once it was empty, and the pain in my body started to fade away slowly. A second needle stabbed into my thigh, and soon my pain faded into only a mild aching. I kept my eyes closed and tried to get to sleep, suddenly feeling the need to rest.

The ringing in my ears faded away mostly, leaving me with the quiet drippy drop of rain hitting me and the mud. It was nice, peaceful. I liked it.

A soft feeling pressed into my neck, the gentle touch of a wet head burrowing into my coat. It only lingered for a second, but I cracked open my eye enough to see Minx nuzzling against me while Solus covered me with his cloak. I was confused, but my head swam and told me to close my eye again. I could think about it later.

Right then I just wanted to sleep.

Footnote:
Felix LEVELED UP! (Guns 27)

Author’s Note: Again, a million thanks to Kkat and Somber for writing their stories and making this universe one of my favorites, and definitely my favorite overall to write in. I love it, and can’t imagine what I’d be doing with myself if it had never come about. Thank you again to my pre-reader ScytoHarmony for going through each and every chapter to make sure I don’t mess everything up before I publish this. He’s a huge help and I can’t thank him enough. Thank you to Rattlesire, the amazing artist who drew the cover for this story, and to Doomande for being the awesome person he is and paying for the cover. You guys are both awesome! And thanks to every reader who keeps me going with feedback and even just reading the story, it’s fantastic to know that I’ve somehow managed to make something entertaining that keeps people coming back for more, and I hope and pray that I can keep you all entertained.