My Little Pony: Slaves to Celestia

A story of  TOWNS and  FLOWERS

Chapter 3 - Vendetta

The Road to Helsinghoof

We had been walking for hours in the light rain down the asphalted road leading away from New Prospect Penitentiary, our path lit only by the light of Swirly Star's magical horn.

The road had led us through a deep forest which lined either side of the road, the darkness of the night coupled with the thick canopy and underbrush gave the me the impression of the forest being impenetrable, these were ancient woods, untouched by civilization, the vegetation and trees here had been left to grow and expand for goddess know how many hundreds of years before our kingdom had set hoof on the coast and begun dividing the sea of trees.

It had been quiet mostly, but I could feel that there were critters and animals watching us from beyond the light, Manie had been nervous for most of the trip, looking back and forth between the wall of trees, presumably in the direction she 'sensed' them watching us from.

By now the first early morning rays of the sun had begun peering in through the canopy, and for the first time in hours we could see more than a few meters ahead of us, but to be honest, there wasn't much to see anyway except for more road and forest.

I heard someone pace quickly towards me, I looked back and saw Manie coming towards me, she had taken of her hat and was wearing the hooded raincoat, it seemed to be slightly too large for her, looking more like a plastic dress than a raincoat on her.

She reached me and gave me a gentle smile,

“Hey,” she greeted.

"Hello Manie."

"Everything alright?"

“Hmm...” I bowed my head slightly, looking at the rain clattering by my hooves.

“No. Not really.” I answered. “But thanks for asking.”

“Want to talk?"

"About what?"

"You know."

No, I don't know.

It could be any number of things, it had been a long day and a lot of things had happened already.

"I don't know, be specific."

"Sweet... common, you know exactly what I am referring to."

I looked at her showing her that I didn't, she cleared her throat and nodded back towards the others who were some ways back, I looked back at them, they were all walking besides Swirly, either bowing their heads or scanning their surroundings passively, all except for Rainbow Sea who was even further back behind the group.

Ah, of course, Rainbow Sea.

"I see what you are getting at, what about it?"

She lowered her voice and leaned in closer to me.

"I know we got off on the wrong hoof at first, on the boat, and I'm sorry about that..."

"But I... uh... need your help..."

"It's alright, you only compromised my position, went through my stuff and forced me to talk about my painful past regarding my two dead parents."

"Honestly, I am not sure where I have you right now, or why I should do anything to help you."

"But you saved me yesterday."

"I did that because I wanted to stay true to my word and give you and Rainbow a choice, a real choice."

"I am not like the other officers, I would never be that big of an asshole, I care about those left under my responsibility, be it fellow officers or cons."

"But I didn't protect the two of you because of our good standing relationship, quite frankly, the two of you have been nothing but trouble for me, Rainbow Sea clearly has something against me being an officer (which is understandable) and I find it pretty clear that he only stayed because of you."

"You on the other hand seem to switch depending on how what is the most convenient for you, I really don't buy your honeyed words about staying because of 'sincerity' and 'respect'."

"So you hate me? Is that it?"

"I never said anything about hate, I just don't trust you."

"Please Heavens, I need your help!"

"Why would I help you?"

"This is your problem, not mine."

She bowed her head. In submission?

"I'll... I know you... like me, I'll..." she began blushing.

"What... are you getting at?"

"Ooh, you know... I'll... give you a little 'favor' if you help me out here..."

No fucking way.

The mare I found so attractive was offering herself to me if I helped her deal with Rainbow Sea.

It was a tempting offer... but it would never be something I'd agree too.

She was lucky that I was the one leading them, and not some other officer.

"I see..."

"I'm afraid I can't agree to your offer."

She looked cross.

"Am I not good enough for you?"

"Honestly? You are too good for me, but that is beyond the point."

"You are not getting my help by offering yourself as leverage, I am not that kind of guy, I would never take advantage of somepony like that."

"Then what DO you want from me? What could I possibly do to get your help?"

"A promise."

"A promise?" she looked surprised, "All I have to do is make a promise?"

I knew that this would be to easy on her, I didn't trust her to keep the promise, but I wanted to see how things would develop first, so I'd be willing to make this gamble.

"Yes."

"Of course, but you'll have to actually mean it."

"Well what is it?"

I looked back at the group and caught Rainbow Sea looking away from us just ahead of the group, the little rat bastard had been eavesdropping on us.

Manie caught this too and became a bit embarrassed, her twisted suggestion and plea for help being intended for my ears only.

"Rainbow." I called.

"Yup?"

"Back off, we are trying to have a bit of privacy here."

"Hey, fuck you."

I stopped walking, putting myself in his path, he kept walking and bumped into me, to show that he wasn't afraid of me.

Our faces were just inches away from each other.

The group stopped.

"Is this going to be a problem?" I asked him.

"I don't know," he replied slowly, "Is it?"

"Don't forget who is in command here, you made the decision to follow me, I can make the decision to throw you out."

"Meaning what exactly?"

"It means that if you don't mind your own fucking business when I tell you to, I'll be kicking you out of the group, and then you can work the rest of your life mining rocks or something."

"Except you weren't sure if you could do that or not, you can't back your threat up."

"Maybe I can't, but I can still kick your ass if you don't fall the fuck back in line."

"Is that a challenge?"

"I was a hardened officer before this, I've fought bigger fish than you, occasionally armed with firearms and blunt objects."

"You were what, an oil rig worker?"

He didn't say anything.

"Is this really worth it for you? Would you risk humiliation just to talk back at me?"

He remained silent.

"I didn't think so."

"Now if you would please fall back behind Swirly and the others."

"Don't try to do anything stupid, I'll be watching you."

He glared angrily at me.

"Proceed."

Me and Manie began walking again, followed shortly by the others and last by Rainbow Sea who muttered something angrily for himself before putting some distance between himself and the others.

Manie looked pale and frightened.

"He heard everything."

"I guess he did."

She remained silent for just short of a full minute.

"The promise... What... did you want me to agree to do?" she asked slowly.

"Manie. Imagine our group as it were a... hmm... a centipede."

"A centipede...?"

"A centipede. You see, a centipede only works well if all it's legs collaborate and go in the same direction."

"Wh... what does this have to do with us?"

"The group is the centipede and the six of you are it's legs."

"My point is, I need all of you to collaborate for the good of the group as a whole, or this stupid mission is going to be a bust."

"And?"

"Well what I need you to do is promise that you will always keep the group's interests and it's mission ahead of your own. This means no more trying to flip things or work against me for your own devices, no scheming, plotting or manipulating. Essentially, work with us, and not against us."

"I... guess I can do that."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah..."

"What..." she looked back at the group again, to make sure that Rainbow wasn't behind us again, he wasn't.

"What do you intend to do about Rainbow Sea?"

"Well that's easy, I am just going to leave him at Helsinghoof."

"I'll talk with the commanding officer there and see if I can arrange for him to be transferred."

"Failing that, we'll leave at night while he is asleep."

"Okay."

"Sounds good with you?"

"Yeah."

"I'm glad you have something figured out."

"I always have something in plan."

I never have anything in plan.

"And hey..."

"Thanks for not agreeing to... you know."

"Told you, I am not like that."

"I was really sure that you'd be into it, the way y-"

Old grannies!

"Yeah yeah, I know, I know. Don't try to give me second thoughts about it."

Open wounds! Dead ponies!

"Right, right. So uh, thanks."

Dog Drool! Dog Drool!

She stopped and smiled at me, waiting for the group to catch up with her before inserting herself in some conversation Nurse Swirly was having with Blizzard and Strawberry Feather.

Truth was I really didn't know how to deal with Rainbow Sea, or at least, I didn't have a reliable plan on how to deal with him.

My talk about transferring them was really a ruse, I didn't know if that would really even be an option, and as for my backup plan about leaving at night, I was sure that he would suspect something and still manage to show up when we left.

Another thing was that I didn't know what the others thought about it, or what their stance towards the grudge Rainbow Sea had towards Manie really was.

I assumed that Nurse Swirly Star was against Manie, despite showing concern for her, seeing as her husband was among the ponies she killed, Strawberry Feather would almost certainly be on Swirly's side the way he had been leaning on her this whole time, Blizzard Candy and Brook Cotton I didn't know.

I needed some time to think about it, and I would need to speak to Manie again about what exactly it was she did and why.

I sighed and looked ahead, there was a sharp curve just a hundred meters up and a green sign on the side of the road.

We got up to the sign and the curve, there was a steep slope ahead of us which gave us an overlook of the valley in which Helsinghoof was situated in.

Helsinghoof was a small town composed mainly of low cement structures, the town appeared to be centered around the timber industry as a huge area around the town had been cleared of trees and a number of smaller wooden structures and piles of timber were arrayed all around town.

The town itself was surrounded by a medium height cement wall.

Looking up above the town it seemed as if the morning sunlight was punching holes through the clouds, as I looked a bit more closely I noticed rapid movement. Pegasi weatherponies.

The others weren't particularly interested in the valley and had gathered by the sign.

There was nothing especially noteworthy about it, it was a regular green sign with symbols written in white.

“Helsinghoof 6” Blizzard Candy read out loud.

"Ah can read ya know." Brook said.

“What is Helsinghoof 6? Strawberry Feather asked Nurse Swirly.

“Not ‘Helsinghoof 6’,” Nurse Swirly corrected, “The 6 means that Helsinghoof is six kilometers down this road.”

“I’ve heard of Helsinghoof,” Manie said, “It was one of the first settlements built inland, it is a work colony centered around the timber industry.”

“Ya know about the colonies?” Brook Cotton asked her.

“I don't know much about them, I've only rarely heard about them.”

"I don’t know my way around, not much leaves this land without CP’s approval and even less reaches Equestria ears..”

"We should get a map." Blizzard Candy suggested.

"We should get supplies." Rainbow Sea said.

"We'll get both. Helsinghoof is just ahead." I ended.

Soon we drew near to the town Helsinghoof, we stopped just a ways before the town gates.

I could see the silhouettes of guards on the walls getting alerted by our approach, some of them pointed their rifles as us.

"They don't look very friendly." Strawberry Feather said meekly.

I turned to the group.

“I’ll do the talking okay?”

“Fine by me.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Sounds good.” The group agreed.

We all approached the front gate, the group stopped about fifteen meters away, I got closer, close enough to see the guards above in detail.

“*HALT!*” one of the guards shouted as I approached.

Five more guards appeared priming their sights at me.

Their CP uniform seemed different, their armor seemed thicker, they appeared to wear dark colored helmets with glowing eye slits. The armor of the guard hailing me was dark red, his eyes glowed red.

The others had dark blue armor and cyan eyes.

I didn’t recognize their emblem from anywhere, the blue soldiers wore a circular yellow emblem with two triangles opposed to each other. The red soldier had an insignia of a pony skull on his shoulder pads.

“*What the fuck ARE you?*” he asked me in a shocked tone.

"Aren't you gonna ask who I am?"

"*Not before I know what the hell you are.*"

"I am an earth pony."

“Have you never seen a scramble suit before?”

“*No. Take it off, I want to see who you are.*”

“I can’t. The suit has been sealed on me, I can't take it off.”

“*Bull-shit.*” the officer said with an acid tone, he didn't believe me.

“Wanna bet? Come down here and try for yourself.”

“*I am not going anywhere.*”

"*I am warning you, take off the suit.*"

“I can’t take it off, are you daft?”

"*Last warning!*"

"You know what, fine, go ahead and shoot me. This isn't how I wanted to end it, but you might as well save me the trouble of going all the way to the frontier border."

Nothing happened.

He didn’t move and no one said anything for almost a full minute.

“*...the frontier border?*” he reluctantly asked.

“The frontier border.”

“*...why? There is nothing but slow death and pain there.*”

“Noooo shit.”

"I'm on a mission, I gotta escort these ponies past the border-"

"*Wait, PAST the border? Fucking hell! Did you hear that guys? He is going to go PAST the border!*"

Yeah yeah yeah, that's great, just make me lose even more confidence and hope, don't mind me or anything.

I sighed.

"Look, can you please let me and my group in?"

"We are tired and have been walking from New Prospect on foot."

"*Whoa, wait a second! Are you escaped cons?*"

"Really? Are you really asking me if I am an escaped con?"

"Just what would you expect an escaped con to answer?'"

"*Uh...*"

"Hurr durr yes I am an escaped con, please shoot me kind sir?"

"*Hey, fuck you.*"

"No, I'm not an escaped con. If you don't believe me then check with the warden of New Prospect, or with CP mission command."

"*Then who are you?*"

"Captain Tombs, of mainland Civil Protection."

"*Mainland?*"

"*You are a long way from home.*"

"Yes..."

"Yes I am..."

"*Why are you out here? Why are you going past the border?*"

"It's a special assignment. Command didn't like my face apparently... so they dicked me by sending me here."

"*I see...*"

"*Tough luck, eh?*"

"Pretty tough."

"So are we cool here or...?"

"*Yeah yeah.*" the other guards lowered their weapons.

"*Let him in.*"

The gate doors swung open.

"Before you go, I have a question for you."

"*You do? Well, okay, what is it?*" the guard said, putting his rifle down and leaning on the wall cover before him.

"Your armor looks different, are you guys with CP or Overwatch?"

"*Overwatch. We rule everything you see here, save for the prisons, who are under CP jurisdiction.*"

"*Why do you ask? Shouldn't you know that?*"

"I worked all my career in the mainland, we don't hear anything about the frontier over there, CP or not."

"Overwatch is pretty new to me."

"*Ironic then that it is you who control the spread of news too and from the frontier.*"

"I'm sure the higher ups have some fancy reason for it, they always do."

"*That all?*"

"Yeah, thanks."

"*Welcome to Helsinghoof then, don't start any trouble.*"

Helsinghoof looked more like a 'work in progress' than a prisoner work camp, in fact there was little evidence pointing to the town being a work camp.

It was early morning, but there were clean looking ponies roaming about freely in casual clothes that looked fairly new, and remembering that we had our own clothes and gear confiscated on arrival I figured that they must have gotten them at some point on their own and been allowed to keep them.

From my first impression the workers of this town looked pretty free to me.

The town wasn’t so bad either, aside from the construction going on everywhere and everything being built out of that sterile white-grayish cement.

The town was clean and tidy, the main road connected to the town plaza had a few stores that sold basic commodities, two small cafes and an inn that also served as a large bar and restaurant, if it weren't for all the armed guards everywhere you'd almost think that it was just a free town like any other.

I don’t know how the rest of the town looked like (we weren’t intending to stay and explore) but all in all everything seemed pretty nice.

I had everyone gather outside the inn to decide on what to do.

“Alright, this is what happens now.” I told them.

“We will stay here until tomorrow morning, today I'll talk to the local commander about the supplies command redirected."

"In the meanwhile you can go about the town as you'd like."

"I know that I already brought this up before, but if you like the town and would like to stay today will be your last chance to decide whether to come with me or not, I'll give you up until this evening to decide."

"Ah already made my decision." Brook said firmly.

"Right, well now you get to reflect on it some more."

"I'll catch up with you later."

Rainbow Sea rushed off immediately, as the others were leaving I noticed that Manie wasn't going to go with the others.

"Manie."

She looked back at me.

"You are coming with me."

"Why?"

"I want to know what's going on between you and Rainbow Sea."

"What's really going on. Starting from our little talk on the ship."

Manie Manie pulled off her hood and put her hat back on, waiting before giving her answer.

“You were there, Sweet Heavens. You know what happened.”

She looked grim, “This is your fault you know.”

“Really now.”

“It is my fault that you killed his brother and sister?”

“He didn’t know, he didn’t have to know!” Manie said.

I gave her a stern look.

“I think you are being a bit unfair here. You put me in a difficult situation with the others.”

She seemed shocked.

“You have got to be kidding me! You were going to TRICK THEM into believing that you were one of us."

"I think they had the right to know that you were a CP officer.”

“And Rainbow Sea and Swirly Star don’t have the right to know that you killed their loved ones.”

“That is different!”

“No Manie. It is not different.”

"We talked about this. If you want my help you'll have to tell me why you did it."

“Please, Sweet Heavens! It is not that simple!” She sounded desperate.

“This seems like a pretty black and white thing to me."

"You KILLED them Manie, you killed Swirly Star's husband and Rainbow Sea's brother and sister, they have the right to know and the right to be angry about it.”

“It was THEM or ME! I had to do it to protect myself!” she said.

Now we were getting somewhere.

We were starting to make a scene, conversations were broken as ponies passed by us giving us odd looks.

Manie seemed to be in fear, she looked around us cautiously after somepony or something, probably Rainbow Sea.

“Look, I... I’ll explain... but not here...!” she said in a low voice.

“What?”

“I think he is watching us... he didn’t want me talk to you, he is afraid that I’ll be asking you for help!”

"He what?"

"He warned me! Back at the prison, before you came and saved me!"

"Okay."

“So what do you suggest?"

“We need to find someplace quiet. The inn, lets get a room at the inn.”

We went inside the inn, a large multi-story cement building with reinforced windows.

The interior of the building betrayed the exteriors impression of the inn being a terrible low rate motel, the interior lobby hall was nicely refurbished with dark wooden paneling and its floors were covered with large and elaborate rugs and carpets, the lights gave the room a warm and comfy glow and made the hall seem very nice and luxurious.

Suddenly I worried that I wouldn’t be able to afford a room for what few bits I had in my satchel...

Manie Manie pulled me by my foreleg up to the elaborate receptionist desk.

The receptionist pony was a pretty young mare about Nurse Swirly’s age (or what I assumed to be her age) with a dark blue coat and a silvery cobalt mane, she wore a pair of glasses with an azure plastic frame.

It took the receptionist pony a few moments before she looked up and when she did she gasped in surprise (or was it shock?) at the sight of a pony shaped shapeshifter and a white outlined mystery mare of the blackest black.

Then she regained composure and gave us a fake and forced smile.

“Yes? Can I help you?” she asked us in a polite light voice.

“I would like a room for the night...” I said.

“Ah. I understand.” she winked at us. “A room for two then...”

Why did she wink? What was there to unders- Oh wait I get it.

I looked at Manie, she had caught on faster than me and was already giving the receptionist that cute blushing furious expression of hers.

“NO YOU IDIOT, FOR HIM, A ROOM FOR THE NIGHT FOR HIM AND HIM ONLY!!” she yelled at her.

“Yeah, Manie about that... Where will you sleep overnight?” I wondered.

She went completely blank.

“Wha- I-”

“I see...” I gulped and asked the receptionist hesitantly,

“How... how much does it cost to stay here per night?”

“Oh not much at all.” she replied, seemingly unaffected by Manie Manie’s earlier reaction.

“We don’t get many visitors here. So we only charge 5 bits per night and room.”

5 bits? That was a bargain if I ever saw one.

“Five bits per night? How do you even manage to keep this place open with a low rate like that?” I asked in surprise.

“Well our business really lies with the restaurant and bar we have running here, those really rake in the money from both the soldiers and the workers. Many of the workers with the more... dangerous work duties celebrate as if every night was their last, and so they often come here to eat heartily and drink up their hard earned money, so business is pretty good.”

“So why the inn? Doesn’t make much sense having to run an inn if it doesn’t bring in profit.”

“The inn is all part of the grand plan, the town is almost ready for the next step and after that it is only a matter of one or two years before the town is ready!” she seemed joyful.

“Plan?” Manie interjected, “What plan?”

“Why, Celestia's Grand Plan of course! Don’t you know?” The receptionist seemed perplexed.

“No... We are not from around here, would you mind filling us in?” Manie asked.

“Well, Captain Sun Topaz keeps us on a need to know basis about it to prevent leakage to Equestria (‘says that Celestia wants it to be a surprise) but essentially we have been building all these settlements and towns in preparation of a migrant wave from the mainland.”

“Each town follows a ‘Stable-Tec Colony Development Plan’ tailored specially for each town depending on location, surroundings and resources, Helsinghoof was built specializing on the timber industry.”

“The first step of the plan is to secure and found a town on a designated site, this is done by our military who defend the site from hostile natives and the hard work is done by slave working force composed of Equestrias worst criminals.”

“The second step involves the foundation of perimiter defenses and a basic industry based on its specialization.”

“Third step is self sustaining in case of mainland isolation.”

“The fourth step introduces basic necessities and commodities, the bar, which came before the inn itself is one of these, in the 4th step the slave workers are ‘paroled’ (but prohibited from leaving or quitting their jobs) and given a modest weekly pay.”

“Fifth step is what we are in now, the construction of infrastructure, networking of roads in the surrounding territory and construction of proper plumbing, sewers and electric grid.”

“The sixth step I don’t know much about, we get our briefings and instructions as we go, but it is believed by many of us, due to the planned arrival of a Mayor to replace Captain Sun Topaz as the town leader, that step six is the independence of Helsinghoof as a self sustainable town of the Equestrian Kingdom!” she finished explaining.

“Queen Celestia has great plans for this place.” she added gleefully.

"What is all this aiming for?"

"Pardon?"

"Why would they go through all that? Why not keep everyone as slaves?"

The receptionist saddened, as if she had been offended by Manie's questions.

"Because eventually these towns are going to be opened to public, the long term goal of the plan is to open the frontier to the general populace of Equestria and allow free immigration, Celestia is aiming to turn the frontier into an official part of Equestria."

"Everyone who helped in achieving all this will be pardoned for their past crimes and given a second chance..."

"That can't be right, Celestia is evil, rotten to the very core, she would never do anything like that."

"Manie." I berated, "Be nice."

She looked at me angrily but didn't say anything in response.

I gave the receptionist a smile which seemed to make her seem uncomfortable, presumably due to how my expressions are twisted and changed by the scramble suit.

“I apologize for my companion.”

“If the rooms are only 5 bits each then I’d like to rent seven rooms for one night please.”

“Seven rooms? But there are only two of you?” the receptionist seemed confused.

“We are traveling in a group, the other five are currently roaming around town.”

“Oh, okay."

"Names?"

"I am Sweet Heavens, this is Manie Manie."

"The others are, Swirly Star, Strawberry Feather, Brook Cotton, Blizzard Candy and Rainbow Sea."

She wrote this down.

"That'll be 35 bits please.”

I gave her the 35 bits, I still had about 60 to spare.

I was hoping that there would be money included with the supplies from command or I'd have to try and pawn some of our gear.

Manie and I were then guided up to ou- my room on the second floor, room 201.

There were ten rooms per floor and there were five floors, all seven rooms I had rented were on the second floor, it didn’t seem like anyone else was staying at the inn.

My room seemed pretty nice, it wasn’t as overly extravagant as the lobby hall but it was still very nicely furnished with a set of neat wooden furniture, queen sized bed and broadloom carpet.

The room had, like the lobby hall, warm and inviting colors and lightning.

The receptionist (who apparently was one of three employees at the inn) bid us goodbye and told us to inform her if we needed anything else.

We were now alone.

An awkward silence befell the room.

It wasn't every day you got to be alone in a room as nice as this with a beautiful young mare, and to think that if I had taken her up on her offer we would have been here under a different circumstance... part of me damned myself for not taking the offer and part of me praised me for not taking advantage of her.

It felt nice having control of myself like that, it gave me the feeling that I hadn't broken and fallen to the evils of the world yet, that I was still 'good' despite everything I had done and seen.

But we weren't here to contemplate where I was on the morality scale, we were here for something entirely different, it was time to learn about the motive behind her crime.

“Well...” I began, “Start explaining.”

“Why did you destroy that helicopter platoon?”

Manie slowly moved to my bed, sitting down and letting out a deep sigh.

“As you know... when I was in the army I was working with Research and Development with the creation of a weapon capable of bypassing any countermeasures...” she paused.

"You... do know about that, right?"

"Uh, I know that you helped design a system capable of marking targets for laser guided precision strikes."

"Helped? Is that what they say now?"

"I did more than help, I built the entire system on my own."

“But I wasn’t the only one trying to design a weapon like that. There were others, my rivals.”

“In the lab I worked in we had always been sort of joking around in a friendly way as ‘rivals’, there was always a great deal of friendly competition going on between us while working on the various projects we were assigned to."

"It had all been fun and games back then, and our projects were mostly small stuff, modifications and minor changing of existing military system and whatnot, but then something big came up, something really big."

"Army command came one day promising a reward for the pony that could come up with a laser designation system that would fulfill their specifications, it was to be easy to use, mobile (capable to be carried by a soldier), have a range of at least 4 kilometers and be immune to any known countermeasure, be it magical or mechanical..."

"Immune how? I thought countermeasures affected the guided weapons themselves."

"They do. The new system was intended to bypass that by marking targets in a way so that the 'smart' weapons such as missiles and guided bombs would ignore the countermeasures and fly straight towards the mark. They wanted something that would completely ignore smoke and flares."

"Okay..."

"So this reward, it was big."

"How big?"

"Just... really big, we are talking millions of bits here."

"Wow."

"It was a tall order, it was like nothing we had ever been asked to do before, so we decided to set away our childish rivalry and set about to work on the project together, intent on splitting the reward evenly."

"But as the first few months passed the difference in experience with military hardware and systems between me and the others made themselves clear, you see I had the best knowledge of military systems in the group and felt that it was more of a hindrance to work together with the others than it was of help, that it was I who did all the thinking and that I was carrying the project on my own."

"So after a disagreement with the others, the R&D department split into two ‘groups’, me alone in one group and the 29 other engineers in the other, working together.”

“Their system was naturally finished quicker than mine, almost by a full year and it was called the ‘SOFLAM’ (which stands for Special Operations Forces Laser Marker as it had been intended to be used by specialists trained in its usage)."

"How did that go?"

"Their system didn’t work as intended and didn't meet the specifications required by army command."

"While a significant improvement over previous laser guidance systems, countermeasures would still interfere with the guided weapons making the weapons guided by its marker go haywire and fly way off course. They never managed to work the system out and their work came to a standstill.”

“I on the other hand had used the reports and data logs from their SOFLAM field tests to improve my own system, in fact, one year later I released a considerably more advanced system, which used an entirely different method to mark targets than the previous laser designation systems.”

"Different how?"

"Early systems used a 'laser' to 'paint' a target by emitting a series of coded 'pulses' at the target, these signal pulses then bounce of the marked target and up into the sky where they are detected by the guided weapons which then go towards the marked target."

"But, the early systems required the user to constantly keep track of the target until the weapon hits, something which becomes problematic if the target is moving or if there are obstacles in the way."

"The R&D's SOFLAM system improved the effectiveness of the previous system, bringing in features such as automatic tracking (you plant the SOFLAM in the ground and begin lazing a target and the SOFLAM will follow it automatically) and clearer signal pulses (which vastly improved the accuracy of guided weapons on target). But it didn't fix the problem of countermeasures affecting weapons and it would still lose track of the target if obstacles came in the way."

"What my does however is use a sort of 'grid' to keep track of targets in sight, the target data is then sent to a shared 'battlenet' used by all of my laser designator systems."

"Uh." I was beginning to lose her, I wasn't very familiar with military systems, what little I knew I had heard through documentaries and drunk soldiers on leave, I had followed her up til now, I knew sort of what a laser guidance system was, but I had heard nothing about any 'grids' and 'battlenets'.

"Are you still with me?"

"I... uh, no."

"What does this have to do with the helicopter platoon?"

"I will get to that in a moment, do you want to know how my system worked or is it alright if we just skip that part?"

"I guess you can explain it if you want to..."

"Very well."

"So basically when one of my system marks a target it keeps track of target size, speed and altitude to calculate where the target is headed for, it is incredibly precise when keeping track of it, so precise that it knows exactly if the target is decelerating and preparing to stop behind an obstacle or if it is only slowing down."

"So what does it do with the data and how does it prevent countermeasures from affecting the weapons?"

"Right, so, the system sends the telemetry to the 'battlenet' which is a type of map or 'grid' if you will which keeps track of all marked targets, it lists marked targets as a blip on the grid which can be targeted by a guided weapon that is compatible with my system (since my system no longer uses the coded pulses of old and is completely electronic)."

"Aside from being capable of tracking targets who move behind obstacles (mostly, it works better with airborne targets than with ground targets, especially if the ground target is on uneven and rocky terrain) with a minimal margin of failure it also allows the user of the guided weapons in question to select the target he wants to attack (as opposed to the weapon dumbly following the closest and clearest signal pulse like before) so the weapon can attack more specific targets."

"And not just that, ANY target in the line of sight of the system is hit with 100% accuracy 100% of the time AND the weapons guided by it ignore all known countermeasures!"

She seemed really enthusiastic about this weapon of hers, system, whatever.

I didn't quite understand all of it, but I got the general gist of how it worked.

"So I take it army command liked the results?"

"Did they ever, they gave me the full reward as soon as the tests completed and my system was soon integrated into all branches of the army, I was commissioned to work on a modified system compatible with main battle tanks, and that was the last work I did before... things began to happen so to speak."

"So what happened?"

"The other engineers found out that I had used the data from their own tests to work on my system and began to accuse me of 'stealing' their research, claiming that they should have been credited for the system."

"I proved time and time again that my system was entirely different from theirs and that they had absolutely no part in it's design, I explained that the data I had used from their tests was simply to work out the flaws of old systems before I even began to work on the actual system and that none of it was used in it's creation, but they wouldn't hear any of it."

"It didn't help either that I hadn't come up with a name for my system, technically it is no longer a 'laser designation' system, even though I've formally always addressed it as such, but since 'laser designation system' was too long of a name the army and those who had used the system began to refer to it as the 'SOFLAM PLUS'..."

"Oh..."

"As you would expect this pissed the other engineers off to no end."

"After some time and several fights and arguments the engineers, my rivals, began to threaten me."

"At first it was just minor, nothing to be too taken by, but then they became more serious, they would leave notes or bluntly come up to me and threaten to kill or hurt me if I didn't share my reward with them, then they began to sabotage my work in the labs, forcing me to work elsewhere and then... well... they began to push me around, sometimes going as far as beating me up, abusing me..."

"Did they ever..."

She blinked at me, just staring at me questioning for a few moments.

Then she blushed angrily at me.

"T-that's a bit too personal!"

"Sorry, sorry."

"But, um... no, I uh, still haven't... I mean! Then the engineers began involving others!"

"They brought in their friends from Air Force..."

"Why didn't you ask for help?"

"I did, several times, but they did nothing about it."

"Why not?"

"We all worked in the R&D department, of the army, everything we did, even the smallest and most insignificant thing was top secret, we were all kept close and discouraged from quitting to prevent leakage, not that any of us dared to quit, we had all heard rumors of engineers and higher ranked officers quitting the army only to end up 'disappearing'."

"They simply told me that it was 'just harmless bullying' and that I should deal with it myself, they didn't even care that I was attacked by them or that they sabotaged my work."

"So what made you do it?"

"A couple of days before a scheduled field test using the latest version of my system, the one designed for tanks, five of the pilots from the helicopter platoon that was to partake in the field test (as a sort of combined operation) approached me, they threatened me yet again about the reward but did now also demand that I sabotage my own system, I refused, and they nearly beat the life out of me. They threatened to kill me through a, quote in quote, 'unfortunate friendly fire accident' if I didn't do as they demanded."

“Wait. So you...”

“Yes, Sweet Heavens. I wiped out the entire helicopter platoon to protect myself and my crew."

"I didn’t know which five helicopters were going to target me.”

“I am really sorry for what I did and for the grief I have caused, but I regret nothing.”

“I... I had to, it was the only way... it was them or me... I...” she began to break up in tears.

Ashamed and saddened she simply stared down at her hooves as a few heavy tears ran down her cheeks, falling down on her lap.

“W-what happens now...?” she asked, nervously.

She wasn’t sure what my reaction would be.

I stood there blankly staring at her.

This changed everything, she had done it to protect herself from the jealousy and evils of others, as an act of self defense.

She had been in a situation where she had to choose from her own death or the death of innocents, and no matter how morally extreme the choice had been she had saved herself.

Did this make her a bad pony? Or a survivalist?

Would anypony else have done differently?

I walked up to her, she looked away from me, I sat down besides her and wrapped my right foreleg around her, she seemed surprised and slightly shocked.

“Manie...” I began, talking as smoothly as the suit allowed me, “You did what you had to do in self defense... I... would have done the same thing in your situation...” I consoled her. “I can't blame you for your choice."

“Not everypony thinks of it that way... Rainbow Sea...”

“I will talk to Rainbow Sea.”

"No..."

"He knows, I told him everything about it."

"He feels that I should have submitted to what was coming for me."

There WAS a choice, your life isn't worth that of 58 fucking ponies Manie, you should have accepted what was coming to you!

So that's what it really meant.

“He wants to KILL me for what I did.”

“Tomorrow we will confront Rainbow Sea about this and try to get things sorted out."

"If he doesn’t take it well then perhaps it is better if he stays here in Helsinghoof, I could try and work something out with the local commander to get Rainbow Sea transferred here.”

I was really really leaning on that possibility.

“Thanks Sweet...” she gave me a weak smile.

I let go of her and stood up.

“I am going to go speak to the Captain, you should try and go and find the others. Stay safe Manie.”

“I will. See you later.” she said meekly.

I left the room and went outside the inn.

Outside I bumped into Brook Cotton and Blizzard Candy.

“Hey there Sweet Heavens.” Brook greeted me.

“Hey guys.”

“The rates at the inn were pretty cheap, so I got all of you guys a room for the night. Just go to the receptionist and tell them I sent you and she should give you the keys to your rooms.” I informed them.

They looked at each other in mild surprise.

“Whoa, thanks Sweet Heavens!” they both said.

“No problem, you have to sleep somewhere, so this is the least I can do.”

“Where is Nurse Swirly and Strawberry Feather?” I asked.

“We last saw ‘em on the main street, looking at store windows.”

“Okay. Look, if you bump into Manie Manie in the inn could you do me a favor and keep an eye on her? Things don’t seem to look very good between her and Rainbow Sea, I spoke to her about that and we’ll clear things up tomorrow.”

“Uh... okay, sure.” Brook Cotton said.

I glanced at the large clock on the facade of the town hall. 6:09 AM, it was still early.

“I am going to go talk to the local commander, I'll see you later.”

We split up and I went to ask a nearby soldier about the whereabouts of his commanding officer.

He directed me to the town hall just down the central plaza we were on.

The town hall had the same boring gray cement exterior as the rest of the town, on the inside the building seemed more like an office than anything else, there wasn’t an excessive amount of guards, military ordinance or defenses inside, it didn’t look much like the command center to me.

The Captain didn’t have any appointments or duties this early so I was allowed into the mayor's office to see him almost immediately.

It was a very luxurious looking office, wooden paneling, desk made of solid oak, clean red carpet covering the floor.

Captain Sun Topaz, a charcoal coated pony with blonde mane, tail and yellow eyes not unlike my own was sitting on a large leather chair behind the desk, there was a large floor-to-ceiling window looking over the town plaza behind him.

He caught me silently looking at the window when stepping inside.

“You are thinking about the window aren't you?” he asked. It was a rhetorical question.

I didn’t say anything, the Captain stood up, revealing his winged shield cutiemark, and knocked on the window to show that it was reinforced.

“Bulletproof reinforced magical glass. The unicorns invented it, crafty bastards.”

He smiled and reached out a hoof at me, I shook it.

“Captain Sun Topaz, commander of the Helsinghoof company detachment of the Overwatch.“

“And you are...?”

“Tombs. Civil Protection officer Captain Tombs.”

“Indeed? What brings Civil Protection to this little piece of heaven?” Sun Topaz asked, jokingly.

He signaled for me to have a seat on one of the two leather chairs in front of the desk, which I did.

“Special assignment from CP command.”

"I'd tell you more, but all they have told me is that I am to escort six ponies past the border of the frontier."

“Beyond the border? You mean beyond the area currently being secured by Overwatch?” his reaction was the same as that of the guard I had meet by the gate.

“Yes...”

“But that’s insane! The whole frontier border is a hellish battlefield, the wildlings are attacking en masse, you’ll never get past there!”

Wild-lings?

"What's a 'wildling'?" I asked.

"Uh, 'wildling' is the nickname we have given to the bipedal hairless monkey's that live on this continent."

"We don't know what they are, but they have shown to be very aggressive, tribalistic and primitive, they live in the wilderness in simple primitive conditions, hence the name 'wildling'."

"What else can you tell me about them?"

"Not much, what I know is limited by what I saw them do when we drove them out of the area four years ago."

"Which was what?"

"Like I said, they are essentially smart and cunning hairless monkeys that walk upright."

"They are very aggressive and incredibly bold, going as far as attacking in full force in broad daylight."

"What they lack in size and bulk they make up with agility and thumbs."

"Thumbs?"

"They have hands, which have fingers and thumbs?"

"I'm hoping that you know what a 'hand' is, it's kinda awkward to explain to someone who has never seen one before."

"I do. But how does that give them an advantage?"

"Their hands allow them to get a better grip on things than we can, their hands are quicker and more agile than unicorn magic, so they can swing and stab way faster than any of us."

"Also, since they don't have to craft special gear suited for use by hoof and mouth they can attack with whatever they have at hand... no pun intended."

"A favorite of theirs was rocks and throwing spears, they also often use bows and blowguns to deadly effect..."

"The wildlings in this area would often come charging into battle wearing nothing but loincloths and pelts, many of them would compliment this with tribal tattoos and the bones of their slain, usually those of their own kin (leading us to believe that they are also cannibalistic in nature)."

"A rare few would sometimes show up with the scavenged and retrofitted armor and weapons of lost soldiers, this would often include the bones, skulls, tails and scalps of the soldiers they belonged to..."

"That... sounds... pretty grim."

"Yeah... shit, tell me about it."

"They would charge wearing the colorful tails and manes on their heads or wrapped around them like a scarf as a sickening reminder to us of what happened to those they killed."

"It was very demoralizing at the time."

I think I have an idea what they look like now, no need to dwell any further in it, I wasn't sure if my stomach would be able to handle it...

"I think I've heard enough... thanks for filling me in."

"Thankful is hardly the right word, you'll soon wish you never heard about them."

He drearily looked at his desk.

"I sure do..."

Sun Topaz went strangely silent for a while before giving a spontaneous and almost cheerful "Oh well!"

"I bet you didn't come here to ask about the wildlings, so what can I do for you?"

"CP command told me that there would be supplies waiting for me here, transferred from Shellbeach Prison."

"Right, right, there are, there are..."

"They came in and airdropped a whole wagon full of gear and supplies by helicopter late at night yesterday, they said that it was pretty urgent, come with me and I'll show you to it."

He rose up from his chair but I raised a hoof to stop him.

"Actually wait, there was another thing I wanted to ask you first."

"Oh?" he sat down again.

"And what would that be?"

"I was wondering about the possibility of transferring some of the ponies assigned to me to Helsinghoof."

"Hmm."

"You can put them to work however you want, they don't need any special treatment or anything."

"I suppose that can be arranged..."

"Is there any particular reason for it though?"

"Two reasons."

"The first is that I want the mission to run as smoothly as possible, and seeing as I am the only officer assigned to watch over this group of mine I need them to trust me and follow me on their own accord, if they don't then they are going to risk me and the others and jeopardize the entire mission. I feel that it would be pretty pointless to try and bring them anywhere and have them do things against their will if all they are going to be focused on is escaping. So I have given them the element of choice, stay with me and proceed with the mission or get transferred elsewhere."

"Do they know where you are going?"

"Yes."

"And they know of the dangers that lie beyond the border?"

"Vaguely, but yes."

"So wont they all ask for a transfer?"

"We have been through some... conflicts... already, I have given them reason to trust me, so most of them have agreed on staying with me despite the dangers."

"Or ignorance. If I was them, I'd be asking for a transfer immediately, no offense."

"None taken." Not that there was any to be taken anyway.

"So if they are all staying why do you come to me about it?"

"Because there is this one guy in our group, an earth pony stallion named Rainbow Sea, who has formed a serious grudge against another pony in the group, Manie Manie. And he is trying to go as far as attempting to kill her."

"We have had to keep her close to us to prevent the two from meeting each other on their own, she is currently out roaming about the town with the others."

"Sounds pretty serious..." he appeared thoughtful for a moment.

"So... this Manie Manie... Why is he trying to kill her?"

"Do you know of the incident that happened between Armor and Air Force during a training exercise in the mainland a few years ago?"

Sun Topaz expression turned grim.

"I've heard about it, there was some sort of misunderstanding that resulted in a horrific friendly fire accident, a whole platoon of helicopters were destroyed killing 58 pilots..."

"Manie Manie was... shall we say... involved... in this accident. Rainbow Sea's brother and sister were among the pilots killed.

"Involved how exactly?"

"She... uh... was the one responsible for the friendly fire accident occurring in the first place."

"Hmmm... so it really is her..." Sun Topaz leaned back in his chair and clopped his hooves together in a state of deep thought.

"What?"

"Truth is Tombs..."

"I know more about the 'accident' than I let on."

"You do?"

"Major Manie Manie is fully responsible for targeting Air Force's own helicopters with the SOFLAM+ system she herself designed."

"She is actually being sought after by Air Force officials who have offered a reward for her live capture."

"They want to bring her in for interrogation."

"Okay..."

"What... kind of reward are they offering?"

"A million bits."

Holy shit!

A MILLION BITS?!

I almost burst out, but managed to contain my shock.

"Hmm. Okay..."

"And... the thing is... the weatherponies of our town are members of Air Force... if they were to know..."

Aw shit...

I could see where this was going...

"Are you... blackmailing me?"

He brought down his hooves and leaned forward slightly.

"You are misunderstanding my intentions."

"You are not after the reward...?"

"No."

"Relations between Air Force and Overwatch aren't very good at the moment, we have no intention of agreeing to any of their demands or requests, no matter how insane this reward of theirs is."

"So why are you telling me about this?"

"To warn you."

"But... eh actually... I am afraid I am going to have to ask you to leave as soon as possible."

"When were you planning on leaving?"

"Tomorrow morning."

"Alright good, good..."

"Not everyone knows about the reward and only a select few should know what she looks like, so as long as you don't go announcing her presence to the entire town she should be safe."

"Now about Rainbow Sea..."

"Yes?"

"I'll take him if you want, but I doubt I'll be able to offer you a replacement. So you'll be down one man."

"Replace? I wasn't really going to ask for a replacement... the thought never really crossed my mind."

"So you are fine with it?"

"Yeah, yeah..."

"Alright, was that all? I need to get going soon, got duties to attend to."

"Well, there was another question, but it's not really important."

"Show me to the wagon and I'll leave you to it."

"We can take it on the way if you want, the wagon is parked in the garage by the guard barracks on the other side of town."

"Okay."

The two of us got up and left the office.

"So the inn receptionist mentioned something about 'Celestia's Grand Plan to me'."

"Did she now."

"I am pretty sure that I didn't authorize any leakage to those not involved with the plan, perhaps I should sit down and have a talk with her."

Shit, did I just put that nice receptionist into some sort of trouble now?

“Oh no no, don’t do that. I was the one who pushed her for answers, if anything I am the one at fault here.” I lied.

I hadn't really said anything about it, Manie had done the questioning and the receptionist had just enthusiastically spilled the beans.

"I suppose."

"I am surprised you didn't know about it already, with you being a CP officer and all."

So was I, I had been with CP for years and I hadn’t heard about any ‘Grand Plan’, I kinda knew that there was something going on abroad, but this thing about turning the colonies into an official part of Equestria was completely new to me.

Up til today I had always thought that the colonies were strictly there for resources.

We went downstairs.

"Why is that surprising?" I asked anyway.

"You are the folks who have been sending us the manpower and resources needed for the colonization efforts."

"Well yeah, the convicts..."

"If you can even call them that..."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing, just my own opinion, I just don't think that they are all as crooked as you guys say they are. We do have some bad apples living in town, survivors from the early days of Helsinghoof, but most pones living here are honest folks as far as I can tell."

"As if they aren't all criminals and murderers..."

"Yeah, exactly."

"I've been thinking the same thing, maybe they aren't all crooks, maybe we have been arresting the wrong people."

Sun Topaz seemed tensed up a bit when we stepped out.

"I wouldn't know about that, just giving you my thoughts about it, I could be wrong."

"I am sure you CP guys in the mainland have had your reasons for arresting them, not saying that you are doing a bad job or anything."

He thought I was testing his loyalty to the kingdom.

"Relax captain, it's okay to disagree and have opinions against Civil Protection."

He looked at me questioning.

"I am not a big fan of CP myself, I've heard and seen a lot of bad things about them as of lately, I am considering quitting my job once I get back home. If I make it back home..."

"I see..."

The conversation seemed to end there, and like I had told him it wasn't really all that important so I didn't try to continue and push for answers, we crossed most of the town in silence.

All around the town ponies, both soldiers and workers alike, were going to their jobs, stores began opening, construction resumed, everyone had somewhere to go and something to do.

Once we began drawing near to the barracks Sun Topaz spontaneously resumed the talk.

It was confusing and a bit awry, but it hardly felt appropriate to say anything about it.

"So the receptionist... What did she tell you?"

"She... uh... told me that the towns were built to become part of official Equestrian territory and that they were eventually going to be opened to public.”

“That is correct. One day the secured territory of the frontier will become part of Equestria, and opened for immigration."

"But we are years away from that.”

“She mentioned that all towns and outposts followed a certain step-by-step plan designed by Stable-Tec for the quick settlement and establishment of industries and infrastructure on the frontier.”

“They do, they do... and I guess you want to know more about that?” he aptly concluded.

“If you don’t mind... yes.”

“Technically I shouldn't be telling you, but out here everyone knows about it so you are bound to hear about it sooner or later anyway.”

“So basically, like the receptionist told you the Overwatch branch of the Equestrian army is in collaboration with Civil Protection attempting to secure a vast territory on the continent for the settlement and establishment of industries to support the mainland and try to spread out the population of Equestria a bit more.”

"Spread out the population?"

“Why?” I wondered.

“Simply put. Megaspells.”

“Megaspells?”

“Yes. The apocalypse in the form of tiny glowing boxes and insanely powerful covens of spellcasters capable of unquantified levels of mayhem and destruction. Today it is thought that a dozen well placed megaspells could wipe out all of mainland Equestria. 12 megaspells. Do you know how many ponies live in Equestria, Tombs?”

“Eehh... Wild guess, 40 million?”

“More. Many many more. Today over 100 million ponies live on the mainland, of which the vast majority lives in the megacities, Manehatten, Baltimare, Vanhoover, Ponyville, Fillydelphia and so on."

"Millions would die just like that, in the blink of an eye, if war ever broke out with the Zebra Empire."

"Celestia is, contrary to what many ponies think, attempting to minimize casualties and save as many ponies as possible in the case of war.”

We arrived to the barracks, we stopped just outside the side entrance leading into the garage connected to the barracks.

“So all this about making Equestria a better place is just a bunch of bullshit?”

“Eeeeah.... both yes and no.” Sun Topaz seemed uncertain.

“The Grand Plan is intended to solve many of Equestrias current problems, such as the need for resources for our industries."

"But the top priority and main goal is to spread the population out, the extra resources and decreasing of crime in Equestria are 'extras', think of those as positive ‘byproducts’ of the plan if you will, the Grand Plan has many unintentional and indirect benefits tied to the real goal.”

“So the plan carries has no negative effects or penalties?”

“I didn’t say that."

"I said that it had many unintentional and indirect benefits, not that it was without penalties."

"One of the penalties for instance would be how incredibly hostile this place is and how hard it is proving to be to carve out the territory and space we need."

"And it's not just the wildlings who pose a threat, there is also the wildlife and monsters who live in the caves and ancient ruins scattered across the continent, on top of that we have unknown diseases, parasites and more."

"Wait... what did you say?"

"Diseases and parasites?"

"No, the part about the ruins."

"I thought we were the first to colonize the continent."

"Turns out we aren't."

"Scattered throughout the continent and the secured frontier we have found a number of ancient looking ruins partly overgrown by the fauna."

"What kind of ruins are we talking about? Temples? Primitive remains?"

"Oh no, these aren't the kind of cozy little temple ruins you read about in the Daring Do books, these are ruins of actual cities and installations, remains of an ancient civilization who judging by the architecture was well technologically developed."

"Are they connected to the wildlings?"

"Doubtful."

"Why is that?"

"They are savages, and the ruins are hundreds of years old at least, there is no way they could have built them."

Sun Topaz opened the door and we both stepped inside.

The garage was dark and had no windows, Topaz flicked on the light switch, turning on a series of bright white lights across the room revealing the considerable size and emptiness of the garage.

There was room for at least eight vehicles inside, but aside from the old scrawny looking wooden wagon and a jet black APC the garage was completely empty, the other APC's and Overwatch vehicles were most likely out elsewhere.

Going up to the wagon Sun Topaz said,

"This is the wagon they flew in yesterday."

"We haven't touched any of the contents, but by the looks of it you are going to go build something somewhere."

"They flew this thing in? By helicopter?"

"Yup."

"How? It's barely holding together!"

"It's tougher than it looks." Topaz knocked on the side of the wagon, it sounded sturdier than I had expected it to sound like.

I went up to the back of the wagon and looked inside.

The wagon was filled with all kinds of gear, all kinds.

It appeared to contain a number of construction tools, as well as a red Super Tool Kit, an impressive kit by a hardware company known as 'Snap-Off', but there appeared to be little in the way of construction materiel.

There was also a pickaxe, five shovels, five axes, lengths of rope, a crutch, six ammo boxes, five WH MLP's (pistols) and three assault rifles which I had never seen before, two of which had basic scopes and one that appeared to have some sort of advanced looking electronic scope on it.

In the way of supplies there was a modern sealed footlocker containing medical supplies (which came with a medical handbook about military field medicine) and a bag of bits, two large crates of canned food, eight sacks of seeds and two barrels marked 'strawberry wine'.

Another last item of interest was the black case containing a motorized chain axe which looked completely unwieldable by hoof.

"Hmm." I said picking up the axe, it was held comfortably in my mouth, it didn't feel obtrusive and still gave room for my tongue to move around.

"Something wrong?"

I turned around holding the axe in my mouth, Sun Topaz eyes widened with impression.

"Wow. They gave you a chain axe?"

"Looks like it."

"That's advanced gear, the kind they issue to Infantry."

"What am I supposed to do with it?"

"I don't know."

I put the axe back in it's case.

"Look, I've got to go now. I got things to do."

"It was nice uh, making your acquaintance and all. Come see me again tomorrow morning regarding the transferring and I'll sort it out, alright?"

"Alright."

"But hey, before you go... thanks for filling me in on things and warning me about Air Force."

"I appreciate your... discretion."

"I am glad I could be of help."

Sun Topaz left the garage, leaving me alone with my wagon.

Right... right...

I sat down and yawned deeply.

It's been a long and eventful day, woke up in prison, found myself in a fight, watched somepony get his head ripped off followed by a filly getting murdered, walked all night in the rain and got yelled at, a lot.

So maybe it wasn't all that strange that I felt so tired.

But before I went back to the inn to catch some sleep I needed to think a bit, I need to recap what I had heard real quick and take a moment to process is all.

So... judging by this gear I have received... mission command wants me to go beyond the border and... settle down somewhere?

Well that's suicidal, and stupid.

If there is anything that screams 'THIS IS A PHONY MISSION AND YOU ARE GOING TO DIE' this would be it.

But now they were beginning to back the mission up with all this stuff, a lot of which is highly valuable, so maaaaaybe it wasn't a phony suicide mission after all?

But what was I supposed to do against the wildlings?

Assuming that I by some incredible feat manage to pull through and past the border, in the middle of a wildling siege, and to wherever it was they would have me go.

What would I do once I got there?

How long would it take before the wildlings would find us and kill us all?

I don't know what goes through command's heads, but I don't think five pistols, three rifles and one axe is going to be enough to drive off a hundred savages.

"Shit."

I looked back at the supplies.

Yeah...

I hope mission command knows what they are doing.

I opened my satchel and brought out one of the bottles.

Everfree Dandenlion Vodka, 90%.

'DISTILLED FROM 100% SELECTED FLOWERS!'

Yeah right, they probably just mashed the shit in some grinder or something.

But I guess one drink wouldn't be so bad right now, I could certainly use the pick-me-up.

I unscrewed the cork and took a deep gulp of the strong beverage.

"Puah!"

It was some really strong shit, it tasted awful.

I put the bottle down next to me, I wasn't going to drink more of that shit, it's... it's... undrinkable.

Alright, straighten up, I need to do things, important things.

I need to get ahold of Manie and let her know about the bounty and Rainbow Sea's transfer.

I would do this now.

In a second.

...

Okay so maybe I'll take another sip from it, but just a little one.

I took a deep gulp.

I wondered what would happen back at the prison now that we were gone.

What would Cydia and the Brothers do now that her daughter was dead? Killed right in front of her?

What happened to Floyd? What the hell is Floyd?

I was beginning to feel really bad for leaving them all like that, but... but it wasn't my fight, I had nothing to do with it and there was probably nothing I could do about it, not after what happened to... uh... Rita Gumdrops, was it?

...

Maybe if I take another gulp I'll feel less guilty about it.

"To Rita Gumdrops." I said for myself.

Gulp.

Nope.

Still felt really bad.

Hmm...

Two more and I'll be going, it's probably best if I let Manie know as soon as possible, wouldn't want things to get out of control.

I liked having control of... of what I was supposed to be in control of. Uh.

I mean, not that I had much control to begin with, my life was currently running on rails, on a train heading for hell.

Literally.

Hmm...

I took another gulp, and another for good measure.

This reward though, one million bits for Manie's live capture.

It was... it sounded... interesting.

One million bits, for that one pony.

Not that I would consider it, but still. The possibilities I'd have with all that money.

Maybe I could use it to bribe CP and Overwatch into letting me back to the mainland, they could always have someone else do the mission right?

I could go home, quit Civil Protection and... I don't know... get a normal job? Maybe downtown?

And I could go to those parties they have every night, just forget about the state of Equestria, if for the moment.

Deep gulp.

The taste wasn't so bad now, it was actually pretty alright, it gave me a sense of warmth and optimism.

Maybe I could save myself, maybe I could just hand her in and use the reward to get home.

That could work, everything could turn out alright after all.

But should I really?

I took one last gulp of the dandelion vodka, this would be the last one, I could always drink the rest later.

I was disappointed to find that there was barely any left, the bottle was empty.

I dropped it on the floor, the bottle shattered sending shards of glass in all directions.

You know what?

I think I'll turn her in.

I don't want to go past the border, I don't even want to be here, on the frontier.

I just want to go home, and forget that any of this ever happened.

I hopped off the wagon, but everything was spinning and in my drunken stupor I fell flat on the floor.

I stumbled back up and made for the exit, after that, everything turned black.

My head... feels so heavy.

"Guys! Ah found him!"

I felt someone grab me by my forelegs.

"Sweet Heavens!"

"Are ya alright?"

I recognized that voice, was that... Brook?

I opened my eyes and was met by the blurry visage of the grayscale farmer and his orange eyes.

"Brook...?" I said weakly.

He looked away.

"He's awake."

"Where... am... I?"

Things cleared up slighty.

I saw that we were in an alley of sorts, it was dark, but we were outside, night had fallen, or at least evening.

"You're in an alley." someone said from the side, it was Strawberry Feather.

"By a bunch of garbage dumpsters."

"About that? Can we get him out of there? It kinda smells in here." Swirly said.

"Yeah, sure thing. Candy, help me out will ya?" Brook said, getting behind me.

"You take his rear legs."

Blizzard Candy showed up before me and grabbed my rear legs, I didn't like ponies grabbing my rear legs, I don't think anypony does, but I was too weak and confused to struggle.

The two carried me out on the street, putting me down on a bench, it was brighter out here and the moon and night sky were clearly visible from where I lay. It was odd, but the shapes on the moon almost looked like they formed an image of princess Luna's face, she looked sad, but maybe it was just the alcohol playing tricks on me.

The bench was sticky.

"Good job guys. You put him down on a freshly painted bench." Swirly said.

"Whoops."

"Can't you read the sign?"

"What sign?"

"The sign you laid him down on that said 'FRESH PAINT'?"

"Well whatever, he oughta take a shower anyway before we take him anywhere."

Brook came into view.

"Hey lad. How many hooves am ah holding up?" he asked me.

What a stupid question, ponies only have one hoof per leg, and we need at least one forehoof to stand up.

So one hoof.

"Three hooves." I answered, unintentionally sounding really smug about it.

Wait, what, why?

Somepone trotted up to me, Brook moved out of view, it was Manie.

“Sweet Heavens!” Manie Manie called out, her muzzle puckered as she drew near.

"Have... have you been drinking?" she asked.

"N-no..." I replied slowly.

"Then why do you have this wrapped around your ear?"

She reached for my left ear and pulled off something, something that felt like paper.

"I don't..."

She showed me a label.

"Everfree Dandelion Vodka, 90%." she read out loud.

"Uh..."

"Made with 100% selected flowers." she added.

"Sweet Heavens."

"What happened to the rest of the bottle?" she sternly asked.

"What... are you... my wife?"

"She might as well be." Blizzard snickered.

She looked away angrily and pointed a hoof somewhere.

"Shut up."

She looked back at me, still angry but now with a bit of compassion.

"I was worried about you, we have been searching for you all day."

"How... long... was I out?"

"I don't know, you tell me."

Good point.

I couldn't remember anything.

"What... time is it?"

"Around 8:40 PM."

It was late... last time I checked the clock it was 6... something... AM.

"What happened?"

"How... should I know?"

My head felt like a watermelon, ready to explode at any second now.

"You don't know? Or you don't remember?"

"I don't... remember?"

"So what is the last thing you remember then?"

"Uhm..."

I thought about it.

What did I remember?

I remember speaking to Captain Sun Topaz, the commander of the Helsinghoof Overwatch forces.

Then there is something about Air Force, transfers, supplies and of a bounty.

Oh right, the bounty.

"You have a bounty on your head." I said.

"I... what?"

"Air Force is offering a biiiig reward for your safe capture."

"So, uh, don't tell anyone your name or anything."

She facehoofed and muttered something below voice.

"And you are telling me this NOW?"

"Sweet Heavens you IDIOT!"

"Hey, that's uncalled for."

"No! It isn't!"

"I've been around town all day! It would have been fucking good to know before I gave my name to anyone!"

"Well..." I tried, but I had nothing.

"Why didn't you tell me this sooner!?"

"Well, uhm..."

What was I supposed to tell her?

I had made a bad call, I wasn't sure where or how 'drink a whole bottle of vodka' managed to come before 'tell Manie about bounty and Air Force on her head' in my mental list of priorities.

"Well what!?"

"I... did... a mistake."

"Eh, break it up you two." Brook said.

"What's done is done, right now we need to get him off the street."

"And get him cleaned up." Swirly suggested.

They had taken off my satchels and coat and thrown them on my bed, the back of my coat was smeared with red paint.

Brook and Blizzard had helped me stand up in the shower (even though I had insisted that I could do it on my own, despite falling over four times on the way there) and soon I was as good as new.

Or at least, as new as a half-drunk half-hungover thirty year old stallion could be.

The three of us stepped out of the bathroom, and found the others were arrayed around my room, Manie was sitting on my bed going through my stuff. Again.

"Don't touch that, stop going through my stuff."

"Oh hey, you no longer smell like a hobo." she said, ignoring me.

"How are you holding up?"

"I'm fine."

"You don't sound fine."

"You sound terrible actually."

"You sound terrible."

"Don't be a child."

"I'm hungry."

"So are we." Blizzard said.

"Manie wanted to find you first before going to eat."

The cogs in my brain took a moment to process what I heard.

"What were you planning on eating, with no money?"

"There was money in the wagon." Manie explained.

Actually no, she didn't explain. That didn't explain anything.

"Who told you about the wagon?"

"Sun Topaz."

"How did Sun Topaz recognize you?"

"I don't know, I thought you had told us about him?"

"I... don't think I did?"

"That's strange." Manie looked puzzled, it was the very same expression she had done back in the holding cell over at the mainland, but in a different context.

I was under the impression that she was hiding something from me, but I wasn't in the mood to argue about it right now.

"So... where do we go? To eat?"

"The inn has a restaurant, remember?"

"Right..."

We all went downstairs and into the restaurant.

The inn restaurant was incredibly crowded, there were easily over seventy ponies in there.

But it kinda looked more like a darkly lit nightclub than a restaurant.

Actually wait, it WAS a nightclub and the nightclub had a restaurant surrounding the dance floor in the middle of the room.

The whole room was a confusing mess of dancing ponies, colored smoke, loud music and flashing lights, despite this the ponies sitting around the crowded tables didn’t seem to mind and were chatting, drinking and eating just fine.

We managed to hail a waitress, a gentle mare about my age I thought, couldn’t really tell what she looked like in this mess of colors and darkness but she seemed nice enough to direct us to an empty table for six in a corner of the room.

It was one of those nice alcoves with a large round table surrounded by a comfortable couch, the table was kinda sticky from spilt drinks and food but shortly after we seated a stallion wearing an apron swept by and cleaned it all up, turning the table sparkling clean. It was so clean that it looked safe to lick (not that I felt like licking a random table in a nightclub/restaurant...).

As he rushed off I caught sight of his bucket and soap cutiemark. His talent was cleaning. Nice.

After fifteen minutes or so the waitress from before swung by.

“May I take your order?”

“Order? We ain’t even got no menu yet!” Brook Cotton said.

“Oh we don’t have menus here, we have to serve many customers a night so there isn’t really time for them to sit down and choose.”

What. Really?

“Aeeh, ok if you say so. What do ya have?” Brook Cotton asked.

“Well, there is egg and bacon, egg sausage and bacon, egg sausage bacon and spam, egg bacon and spam, spam bacon sausage and spam, spam egg spam spam bacon and spam, spam spam bac-”

“Do you have anything with less spam in it?” Brook Cotton wondered.

“Do you have anything vegetarian?” Nurse Swirly spoke up.

“Well, there is spam egg and spam.” the waitress said.

“I don’t want spam.”

Brook Cotton grinned, he was onto something that the rest of us were missing.

“Well, you could have egg sausage bacon and spam, that ain’t got much spam in it.”

“But it still has spam, plus there is meat in it!” Nurse Swirly protested.

“Not as much as egg sausage, bacon spam and spam.”

“Can’t I have just egg without the spam?” Nurse Swirly said.

“Eww!” the waitress responded mockingly in a tone of disgust.

“What do you mean ‘Eww’? I don’t like spam!”

The ponies in the tables nearby began chanting “SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM”, the waitress began to laugh and the ponies soon joined in.

“Ahahah, you should see the look on yer faces.” the waitress said as she caught her breath.

“What just happened?” Blizzard Candy asked confused.

“Ah we do that to every newcomer, it’s funny, we love to joke around here.” the waitress explained.

“Well anyway, I am Table Turner, and I’ll be your waitress for the evening, I’ll be right back with the menus.” she winked at us and then rushed off into the crowd.

“She seems... nice.” Manie Manie hesitantly said.

“Remember what the receptionist said?” I reminded her.

“Uh... yeah, yeah I know. Everyone parties as if it’s their last day on earth...”

The waitress returned with the menus and informed us that she’d be back in about ten minutes.

I picked up one of the menus, it was written in the same symbolic language the ponies on the mainland used, the menu really just consisted of a whole bunch of squiggles, symbols and shapes with numbers representing the cost of the dish in golden bits.

It’s not as if we didn’t have actual letters and that we couldn’t read them, but for some reason most ponies and businesses insisted on using the old Equestrian language for writing instead of the relatively new letters (that had been around since my grandfathers time), I wasn't sure if this was because of some kind of love for the kingdom proper or if they just liked the squiggles more than actual letters.

I shook it off and just read the menu, the prices seemed strangely cheap.

I felt damn hungry just looking at it, this restaurant had everything from pizzas to soups to southern, eastern and northern Equestrian specific dishes and more, Nurse Swirly looked really excited about reading the menu, I bet she was happy to see that it wasn’t all egg bacon sausage and spam. Heh.

I decided on a margherita pizza and a glass of foamy beer.

When the waitress Table Turner showed up we were all ready to give her our orders.

I was first.

“I'll have a margherita pizza and a glass of beer.” she nodded and was about to write it down when Manie Manie interrupted her.

Manie? Where the heck was Manie at anyway?

I looked to my left, there she was, sitting next to me, I hadn’t noticed her sitting there, goddamn brain freeze.

She would have blended in almost perfectly with the darkness if it wasn’t for that white outline of hers.

My drunken mind followed the white outlines of her dark body, they made it seem like it was almost natural for a pony to sit down. She noticed and blushed slightly, like she had done before, this time she just ignored me instead of calling out on me.

I looked away, remembering what she had said about it.

“No.” she said abruptly, “No more alcohol for you.”

Fuck you Manie.

“He’ll have a glass of carrot juice.”

“And you?” Table Turner asked Manie Manie.

“I’d like some vegetable soup and strawberry juice.”

Then Brook Cotton.

“A vesuvio pizza an a glass of the coldest an foamiest beer ya got.”

That's what I wanted. Damn him to hell.

“What’ll the nurse have then?” she asked Swirly.

“I’d love to have some egg rolls and grilled vegetables, I'll have apple juice with that.”

“Strawberry Feather will have a plate of potato chips and a bottle of sparkle cola.” she added.

The waitress gave her a look.

“Can’t the boy speak for himself?”

“Strawberry Feather is... timid.” Nurse Swirly explained.¨

Strawberry Feather said nothing, he avoided eye contact with everypony, he had been strangely quiet, but then, he usually didn't say much anyway.

“Alright... chips and cola...” she finished writing, “And how about you sweetheart?” she said winking at Blizzard Candy, he blushed.

“I.. uh.. I’ll..” he stammered.

"We don't have any 'uh's' and 'I'lls'. Sorry." she quipped, putting him at ease.

"Hardy har."

“I’ll have a steak, medium well and river spirits.”

Table Turner nodded at him, surprised.

“Didn’t figure you for a steak boy.”

“I am not a boy.” he replied.

“Aw sugar, I’m like twice your age. You are a boy to me.” she winked at him again.

“That all?” we confirmed a yes, “OK, I’ll be back with your orders shortly lickety split.”

Everyone were silent for a while.

I listened closely to the music that was being played, just to pass the time a bit.

It was a track I recognized, I think I remember it being named 'My Destiny is a Rock' or something, made by an artist just known as 'Voodoopony', it was alright, I had heard it before in the mainland while out drinking with my squad.

I had heard some of his other tracks, they were pretty good, but most of them weren't really fit for raving nightclubs so I was a bit surprised to hear it here.

Still, pretty neat.

“So what's with the steak, Candy? Trying to impress the waitress?" Brook prompted.

"I think it worked.” Manie Manie teased.

“What? No. I’m hungry, thats all.”

“You do know that ponies are vegetarians by nature, right?” Nurse Swirly said.

“Not anymore we ain’t.” Brook Cotton responded, “Haven’t been since the end of the Golden Age. Ain’t enough apple orchards an farms in the entire kingdom te feed millions of ponies ya know.”

“I bet they could grow miles and miles of apple orchards here.” Nurse Swirly said dreamily.

She was vegetarian through and through, clearly.

"Ah bet they could."

"At least, if the pegasi kept the skies clear."

Table Turner returned with a really big tray holding several plates of food and glasses, she gently put the tray down on our table. I found it impressive that she managed to carry the whole tray and everything on it by mouth, that took skill, grace and strong teeth, I imagined her having really good toothpaste at home.

“Margherita for the blurry drunk,”

“Hey.” I protested. “I am not that blurry.”

I began to devour the pizza as soon as I got it, I didn't even cut it, I just folded the whole thing like a burrito.

She stared at me questioningly before shaking her head.

“...vegetable soup for the mystery mare,”

“I'm no-" Manie sighed. "I know I know, black coat, magical outline, right?"

“You saw that one coming didn't you?"

“No offense dear, but mister shapeshifter here would fit in more in a crowd than you would.”

Manie Manie shook her head as she began to drink her soup.

“Vesuvio for the gentlecolt,”

“Thank you kindly, ma’am.”

“Egg rolls, grilled vegetables and potato chips for the nurse and her son...”

Nurse Swirly looked slightly offended.

“My son? I’d have to be 13 years old when giving birth for him to be my son."

So wait, how old was she?

Strawberry Feather was... uh... around six years old, I think, and if she had to be thirteen to be his mother then she must be nineteen years old.

So she had a husband before the age of eighteen. That's unusual.

“O-oh. Sorry, I just assumed... you know with the dark and... um...”

“Forget about it.” Nurse Swirly assured her.

“Uhm, and a medium well steak for Candy.”

“BLIZZARD Candy.” Blizzard Candy said irritably.

“Whoops. Sorry. I only heard them refer to you as Candy so I assumed that...”

“You assume too much.” Blizzard Candy said, beginning to munch on his steak.

Table Turner patiently retrieved the tray and held it before her, but she didn't leave, she was waiting, looking lovingly at the eating Blizzard Candy. “It’s my job to assume.” she smiled, “I’m a waitress as you know.”

“Didn’t know assuming things about ponies was in the list of waitresses duties.”

“I like him,” she said, “Is he always this grumpy and rude or...?”

“Oh not at all, he is just trying to cover up his embarrassment by seeming tough and distant.”

Manie Manie teased.

“Go to hell Manie!” Blizzard Candy snapped at her between chomps.

“Hey, that's were we're all going,” I spoke up, everypony looked at me “it's our destination.”

A sudden headache burst through my head, I clutched my head instinctively, as if it would somehow lessen the pain.

“What does he mean?” Table Turner wondered, “Or is it just drunken rambling?”

"Not exactly..." Manie said slowly.

“Truth is ma’am... we are traveling beyond the frontier border.” Brook Cotton explained.

“He isn’t very convinced that we’ll make it out of there alive...” he added grimly.

Table Turner’s expression twisted into shock.

“That’s horrible!” she turned to a pony in the background, another waiter, “Did you hear that Peppermint Heart? These ponies are going beyond the border!”

We didn’t hear very clearly what he responded, but it sounded shocked.

Soon the ponies in the nearby tables became alarmed and began talking about it, one rugged looking pony from one of the nearby tables stood up and walked up to our table.

He looked weary, had a dirty brown coat and dull gray mane and tail, his cutiemark appeared to be a pick or an axe of some kind, he had rugged facial hair, something unusual for ponies and looked at us all with sad dreary eyes

Then he placed a bag of bits on the table.

”I was goin to spend et all on drink an fun,” he spoke with a burly voice, “but I herd ya were goin ‘cross the border... ahm really sorry for ya, ah think ya need dis mor than I. Best o luck.”

Before anypony could protest or say anything he simply took and left, disappearing into the crowd.

“What a gentlecolt.” Nurse Swirly said, shortly after losing sight of our benefactor.

“Aye...” Brook Cotton threw in, looking thoughtful and concerned.

He understood now that things looked bad were we were going, and that everypony in the frontier knew that.

Table Turner was still here, she was just standing by the eating Blizzard Candy waiting for something.

“So, um...” she began, “You wanna hang out later, Blizzard Candy?”

"Hang out?" he said in between munches.

Table Turner blushed and smiled at him.

“You know. GO OUT? With ME?”

*COUGH SPLURT PFFFT* Blizzard Candy spit out bits of steak onto his plate.

“What??!?” he reacted, blushing of a deep red.

"Gee, how blunt do I have to be?"

"Do you want to go out with me later or not? On a date?"

“Wh-what?!”

“‘What’ ain’t no place I ever heard of, do they speak equine in ‘what’?”

“Wh-”

“Look, you seem cute and it may very well be your last week alive...”

We all gave her a look of dismay.

"I know I know, it sounds horrible. Didn't mean to put it that way. But still... you know..."

“So what do you say, Candy?"

He eased down a bit.

"..."

"I don't know..."

"Aw common, what's the worst thing that could happen?"

"Eh..."

"You might get lucky~"

“...”

“I... I’ll think about it...” Blizzard Candy said nervously.

“Great, I’ll pick you up at 10:30.”

“Room 204 right?” she gave him a wide smile and rushed off elsewhere.

Blizzard turned as red as a tomato out of embarrassment.

We all laughed, she had had her eyes on him since before he met her!

“HEY! HOW DO YO- Wait! I said I’ll- oh fuck...” he tried to call after her.

“Well well well...” Manie Manie reveled. “Looks like Candy got a date for the night.”

“SHUT UP MANIE” Blizzard growled at her.

“Ha ha ha, good luck on your date. Maybe you will get ‘lucky’, heh heh.”

Blizzard glared angrily at her.

“You better keep it quiet, some of us will be trying to get some sleep...” Manie said in a more serious tone.

She seemed to have have left it at that, the rest of us continued to eat, but that wasn't all she had to say.

“...I meant you of course, she will make you squeal like a pig. HA HA HA!” she was taking great delight in screwing with Blizzard Candy.

“FFFFFFFFUCKING S-SHUT UP” Blizzard yelled at her with a shaky voice.

D'aw, poor boy was nervous.

“Alright alright I’m done teasing you. Finish your steak big boy, me and Brook are going to get ‘the blur’ into bed, he looks like a gust of wind could push him over.”

What, no!

"Heeey hey hey, I'm okay, I want to stay here and listen to Voodoopony."

"They are playing 'Zecora' and everything!"

"Voodoowho?" Swirly wondered.

"What is he talking about?"

Manie shook her head in disapproval.

"You are not fine, you need a good nights sleep, we all do."

"Stop pretending to know what I-" I blacked out and fell into Manie's warm embrace.

So warm. So tired.

She was right, I should probably get some sleep, some real sleep.

Hmm... soft soft pillow.

Where is Manie Manie?

Where am I? What happened?

Where are the others?

What time is it?

I opened my eyes.

I knew this room, this was my room at the inn.

Did Manie Manie and Brook Cotton take me here?

I tilted my head and looked at the watch on the small wooden nightstand next to my bed.

08:49, AM. Eh, that's alright. Another ten minutes wont kill me.

The strain of trying to read the numbers hurt me, I as still hungover from yesterday, I really didn't take a full bottle of 90% alcohol very well.

*KNOCK KNOCK*

Someone is knocking on my door, guess I have to get up after all.

I stood up, my head feeling like a ripe watermelon ready to split open any second now, a feeling I remembered having yesterday evening.

I slowly began walking up to the door.

*THUNK THUNK THUNK*

“I’m coming, I’m coming, jeez.” I called.

“Sweet Heavens! Ya need to get yer ass out here NOW!” Brook Cotton called back.

"Yeah yeah, what's the rush!"

“It’s Manie Manie! She is gone, her room has been forced open from the outside!”

Rainbow Sea.

Oh no.

I pulled open my door with unnecessary force, making it slam against the wall.

“Rainbow Sea!”

"Rainbow Sea?"

"It must have been him!"

"Any idea where he is?"

“No, we haven't seen him since we came to Helsinghoof.”

“Shit."

"We need to contact the Captain and organize a search, it’s a small town, so they can’t have gone far.”

As I began to move a grinding pain pulsed through my skull.

“FUCKING FUCK THE PAIN” I knelt down.

Nurse Swirly came galloping down the hallway.

“What are you guys doing!? We need to find Manie!” she yelled at us alarmingly.

“Sweet Heavens is still hungover from last night.” Brook explained to her.

“There is no time for that!” she ran up to me.

“This is going to hurt a bit.” she warned.

She used her magic horn on my head, the pain was agonizing, it felt like someone was drilling into my skull and damn near sounded like it, at least in my head it did. I saw red and was almost about to pass out, then it all stopped.

The pain was gone, I felt perfectly fine.

“All good? I am not very good at curing headaches.”

“It was one of the most agonizingly painful experiences I’ve ever had... but thank you. It worked.”

“Lets go find the Captain, we need to find Manie quick, before Rainbow Sea does something funny.”

I was hoping that we weren’t too late...

There was some commotion in the plaza in front of the town hall, a small crowd had gathered that was currently contained by a squad of soldiers. It was hard to make out what they were angry about but I heard mentions of “her” and “justice” as we passed by on to the town hall itself.

I was stopped by a soldier when inside.

“*Oh... its YOU...*”

“Yes?” I wondered.

“*You are that damn CP officer... well, what do you want?*” the guard wasn’t happy to see me, and I didn't even know why.

“I need to speak to the Captain, one of ours has been kidnapped.” I said.

“*Shit happens. The Captain speaks to no one.*” the soldier replied. “*Now back off.*”

“We ain’t got time for this!” Brook Cotton warned me, “We need to look for Manie Manie!”

No fucking shit, what the hell do you think I am trying to do you dumb farmer yoke?

Ask for cupcakes?

“*Did you say Manie Manie? As in MAJOR Manie Manie of the Equestrian Armor branch?*”

“What’s that to you?” I asked with suspicion.

“*I am not talking to you!*” The soldier looked back at Brook Cotton.

Expecting an answer.

“Aeeeeh... dunno about the 'major' part, but... yeah?”

The soldier pointed his rifle at Brook Cotton, the other soldiers in the room did the same, his eyes widened as he found himself staring down the barrel of a shotgun.

“*You are under arrest for involvement with the traitor and deserter Major Manie Manie, the Captain will want to see you.*” the soldier announced.

"What about us?"

"*You are ALL under arrest. All three of you.*"

Great, first he doesn’t want to let us in to talk with the Captain, now he puts us into arrest and forces us to talk to the Captain. What a dick.

“So what is this about involvement with Manie Manie?” I asked one of the soldiers.

My only response was a “*Shut up.*” from the nearest soldier.

We were pushed into the Captain’s office, he was sitting at his desk looking out over the plaza, he spun around surprised by the sudden unannounced intrusion.

Then he saw me and became furious.

“Captain Tombs,” the Captain greeted angrily.

“*These ponies claim to have been involved with the traitor Major Manie Manie.*” one of the soldiers informed.

"Uhuh, thank you."

"You are dismissed.

Everypony except for the soldier who had arrested us left the room.

“*But... sir*” he tried. “*They are SCUM.*”

"And I want to talk to these 'scum'."

“*But...*”

“Are you questioning orders, private?” the Captain said with irritation clear in his voice.

“*N-no o-of course not! It is just t-*” the soldier nervously stuttered.

"It's just that what?"

"*...*"

"*Nothing sir. Excuse me, sir.*"

“Fucking kids, no respect for their superior officers.” the Captain said, shaking his head slowly.

“Now on to business.” he said in a very direct tone.

"Tombs..."

"Yes."

"You remember me warning you about Manie yesterday, right?"

"Yes."

"So... maybe you can explain to me why there is a fucking crowd outside demanding her arrest?"

"How did they find out about her?"

"I don't know." I lied.

I wasn't very keen on telling him that I had gotten drunk after he left and passed out before warning her, I don't know why, but I was certain that he wouldn't take it very well.

"Right, you don't know." he nodded slowly, then shoved a lamp off his desk, sending it flying into an adjacent wall.

"You treat ponies fairly and with respect, and THIS is the kind of shit you get!" he yelled at me.

He calmed down and leaned back again.

"So this is what's going on."

"Half the fucking town *SOMEHOW* found out about Manie AND the reward are now searching high and low for her."

"Before sundown the entire damn town is going to know."

"Luckily for you, she has not been found, so you did a really good job hiding her."

"So I need you to get her quickly and get you out of the town immediately before things spiral even further out of control."

“That’s uh... the problem, that is why we are here.” I said slowly.

"What?"

“Manie Manie is missing. We suspect Rainbow Sea, the pony I was considering for transferring to Helsinghoof has kidnapped her.”

“Ah. Of course. I see.” he seemed to take the news very well, then he snapped and smashed his hoof on the desk, denting it. “YOU FUCKING IDIOT, GO OUT THERE AND FIND HER. NOW!”

"I came to ask for help in searching for her."

"And who the fuck do you suggest I send to help you?"

"You heard the kid who questioned my order! That's more than half my men right there! Just like him!"

"Do you REALLY think I can fucking trust them with discreetly finding and taking in one of the most sought after criminals in all of Equestria?! They are gold diggers for fucking sake! The only reason most of them are here anyway is for the money you get serving abroad!"

"Uh."

"You need to find her on your own!"

"How?"

"I don't fucking know! That's your problem!"

"Now get the fuck out of my office!"

We left the room, but were stopped by the soldier from before.

“*Captain...?!*” he wondered hesitantly.

“They are cleared to go, they are escorting the bitch, they weren’t involved in her betrayal.” The Captain said dismissively, I wasn’t sure how he really felt about Manie or this whole thing in general, but I don’t think he would any qualms with killing her of just handing her to Air Force if it would keep the order in Helsinghoof.

Well outside the town hall the crowd had grown slightly, there was an extra squad of soldiers keeping them at bay.

The clock said 9:42. Almost an hour had passed since I woke up, another hour in which Manie Manie was in danger.

“Uuuuurgghhh....”  I moaned, rubbing my forehead with my right forehoof. This was stressful.

Manie Manie could be anywhere for all all I knew.

The town was small, but it was still had a million hiding places.

“Are you still hungover? Should I cast the spell again?” Nurse Swirly asked me. Concerned.

I remembered the agonizing pain her spell had put me through.

“NO! I mean... no, I’m fine. Just stress.”

Hungover, right, I had passed out yesterday night.

What DID happen after I passed out anyway?

I only remember passing out in Manie Manie’s warm embrace, then I figured that she and Brook dragged me up to my room and tucked me in my bed.

Where did she go after that? Did she return to the nightclub or did she go to sleep?

Maybe Brook knew.

“Brook...” I asked our farmer, “What happened after you and Manie took me to my room?”

“Well, the two of us returned down to the nightclub only to find that Blizzard Candy had left”

Yeah I bet, he had a date.

“Manie and Swirly ate dessert using some of the bits left by the rough edged worker and Nurse Swirly took Strawberry Feather to his room, poor boy was feeling tired. I remained with Manie in the nightclub for about an hour after that then she decided to call it a night and go to her room, then I had a few drinks at the bar and went to sleep.”

“Hmm...” nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but then, Brook had mentioned that Manie’s room had been forced open...

“You said that the room was forced open.”

“How is it that none of you noticed that in the middle of the night?”

The two ponies blushed and looked hesitant.

“Well... Blizzard Candy was out with the waitress as you know... Strawberry Feather was asleep alone in his room, I was still out drinking at the bar...”

“I had gone to the infirmary...” Nurse Swirly said.

“What? In the middle of the night? To do what exactly?

She opened her right medical box, it was filled to the brim.

“WHAT!? You went to an infirmary in a frontier town in the middle of the night to steal medical supplies?!” I said in a hushed voice.

“Well yeah... I figured we needed them more than they did... besides no one suspected anything, everypony thought I worked there.”

The thought that our caring nurse was a kleptomaniac was pretty funny, but totally irrelevant to our search.

I didn’t comment any further on what she’d done.

“I guess that leaves Strawberry Feather and Blizzard Candy as our witnesses.” I said thoughtfully.

“Strawberry Feather is still in his room. Not sure about Blizzard Candy.” Nurse Swirly said.

We went back to the inn, the lonely receptionist was reading a book when we showed up.

“Oh, hey!” she greeted us.

“Hello”

“Has Blizzard Candy checked back in? Young buck, about 18 years old, icy blue coat...” I described.

“Oh I know of him.”

“Yeah he checked in at around 2 AM last night, he seemed a bit rough around the edges. You guys must have partied pretty hard last night, you all came back fairly late.” she smiled.

I nodded slowly.

“...especially that green pony, he said he was with you so I gave him a key like instructed and then he went upstairs.”

I froze.

Rainbow Sea had checked in?

“What? Has he checked out?” I asked with worry.

“Don’t think so, his key isn’t here and I don’t recall him coming down.” the receptionist said.

“Guys, quick lets go, Rainbow Sea could still be up there!”

“Uh thanks for the info.” I fleetingly said to the receptionist as we ran off.

We stormed into the second floor of the inn, passing the forced door of Manie Manie’s room up to Rainbow Sea’s room.

The door was locked.

Brook Cotton bucked the door open and we all barged in.

There was no one here, everything was neat and tidy, as if the room had been untouched.

“Rainbow Sea was never here...” I deduced, “In his room that is.”

“If he was here he certainly didn’t bring Manie Manie out up front through the lobby, he must have taken a back exit.”

“The roof?” Nurse Swirly suggested.

“Too tall, this building has 5 floors, the adjacent buildings have 2. And its incredibly difficult for a pony to climb stairs when carrying anything. I’m thinking the back entrance, or possibly the basement tunnels. The receptionist mentioned that the town was building sewers, so the basement is likely connected to the network.”

“Lets ask the two boys about their angle on this.” Brook Cotton said.

We knocked on Strawberry Feathers door.

A few seconds passed and the tired looking purple buck opened the door timidly.

“Y-yes?” then he saw who we were and opened the door fully, “Oh hey guys.”

“Manie Manie is missing.” I said.

“Oh, that's not good.” he responded in a low voice.

“Her door has been forced open, after you went to sleep.”

“We were wondering if you had heard anything odd during the night?”

“I heard Blizzard Candy sing in the room next door late at night... that was sort of odd.”

We smiled, guess the buck had gotten ‘lucky’ after all. Good for him.

“No Strawberry, I mean, did you hear anyone forcing any doors?”

“Seems like a hard thing to miss.”

“Yeah... I heard someone kick a door open down the hallway, then I heard muffled screaming as someone galloped past my door...”

“Why didn’t you tell us this earlier?” Nurse Swirly wondered.

“I was honestly hoping you’d come here sooner, I want to help search for her.” Strawberry Feather said.

“No, you should stay here. It’s not safe out there right now.” I said.

“That is not fair. I can handle myself!” Strawberry Feather protested.

“I am going to be perfectly blunt with you Strawberry, and I am really sorry if this offends you but we really don’t have the time to argue about this. You are 6 years old, you have a very meager frame. You look as if a strong kick could break every bone in your body and that puts you at risk with the angry crowds forming outside. I personally think that it is safer if you stay here, and I hope you understand my concern for you.”

He didn’t argue about it.

“Fine. I’ll stay here. But find Manie, she was nice.”

“We will, we will.” I assured him.

He then shut and locked the door.

We moved on to Blizzard Candy’s room and knocked.

“Blizzard Candy, ya in there?” Brook Cotton called for him.

Within moments the ice blue buck swung open the door, he looked like he had been through hell, his mane and tail were uncombed and he looked roughened up. He was smirking.

“Heeey guys. Everything alright?” he groggily asked us.

“No."

"Manie Manie has been kidnapped by Rainbow S...” I trailed off, I had to say something.

“Boy, you look happy, so I take it you got lucky yesterday?”

Blizzard Candy blushed slightly.

“I guess you can say that...” he turned more serious and stopped smirking.

“So, uhm. Any idea her of their whereabouts?”

“No. But we know that he forced his way into her room."

"I am honestly surprised that none of you noticed the smashed door on your way back from your nightly excursions...”

They all looked ashamed.

“Sorry...”

“It’s fine, but we really need to find her.”

“We think that they may have gone through either the back door or the basement...”

“This building doesn’t have a back door.” Blizzard Candy said.

We all stared at him.

“How do you know?”

“I... uh... tried to sneak into the back, but couldn’t really find any back entrances in the alleys behind the building...”

“Uh... why were you trying to sneak in? And how were you intending to get the key?” I wondered.

“Didn’t want anypony to see me...I was going to wait hidden in the lobby until the receptionist went on break...” he seemed a bit embarrassed. “Yeah I know, it wasn’t a very well thought out plan.”

“That only leaves the basement and sewers then... lets get down there.”

“I am going to look for her in town. I’ll ask... Table Turner for help...” Blizzard Candy said.

We went down to the basement of the inn, which was more of a skeleton/maintenance area and wasn’t remotely as nice as the building above.

Dim gray lights scarcely lit the corridors below, it seemed evident that with only three employees to maintain the inn the basement was rarely traveled and was thus quite empty and dusty.

We reached a maintenance door leading to the sewers, just as we had expected the door was unlocked and left ajar.

The sewer itself stunk like, well, a sewer.

Brown greenish water flew freely in the center of the tunnels with cement maintenance walkways on the sides, the sewer spanned out in both directions connecting to intersections leading to more sewer tunnels, it would take some time to search the entire sewer I figured.

“I know this sounds incredibly stupid, but we need to split up.”

“Split up?" Nurse Swirly said.

"First off, we don’t know if Rainbow Sea is IN the sewers, he could be hiding in any building in town."

"Second if either of us actually happens to FIND Rainbow Sea we wouldn’t be able to call or find the others...”

“Look, this isn’t debatable, you will go with Brook Cotton, that way you’ll stand a better chance against Rainbow Sea. I’ll take my chances on my own.”

“But-”

“There is no time! If you don’t find Manie Manie within an hour we’ll meet back at the wagon, OK?”

“Eh... okay, if you say so.”

We then split up, I galloped down the sewer going right from the maintenance access and they went left.

I stopped at every door and access point only to find them all locked.

Either Rainbow Sea hadn’t wasn’t able to pass by here or he had locked the doors behind him (which I hoped he hadn’t).

I galloped down sewer after sewer and a good fifteen minutes passed, I began to feel cold sweat and panic, there was no sign of their passing anywhere! This was exactly like when I had looked for them in New Prospect!

Then I spotted it.

A crowbar on the walkway I was running down in the distance.

It was a spark of hope if anything that the access point it laid by had been forced open by Rainbow Sea.

'MAINTENANCE EXIT E-42' I read as I approached the access point.

Had it been forced open? It had! NO! FUCK! IT HAD BEEN CLOSED!

I helplessly tried to pull it open with my hooves, then I tried to buck the door to no result.

The crowbar. Right.

I wedged the crowbar between the door and the frame.

The crowbar snapped in two. AAAAAAH!!

I began running back to the inn maintenance exit (everything else was locked!!!!) and it took me a good damned 10 minutes to find it again, I didn’t come across the others either so I had to rush to action on my own.

I galloped back up to the lobby hall, the receptionist was startled by my sudden appearance.

“Sweet Heavens? Is everyth-” her muzzle puckered as I approached, she put a hoof over her nose,

“Eeew! Whas taht smell?! Have you been in the shewers?!”

“Yes I have! There is no time to explain, to which building does Maintenance Exit E-42 lead to!?” I demanded to know.

“I don’th know. Ashk the thown  mhaster engineer, he has the construction plhans for everything.”

“Thanks...” I... I didn’t know her name? Had we never learned her name? Bah! There was no time for this! “...where can I find the master engineer?”

“Augh, he should beh at the town hall.”

“Great, thanks... uh...”

“Ochean Rhuby, my nhame is Ochean Rhuby! Now get a bhath dammit!” she said.

“Thanks Ocean Ruby” I said as I rushed off towards the town hall.

The crowd outside had grown considerably, there must have been a good 500 ponies getting mad over Manie Manie now. Small groups within the crowd had begun fighting between each other, I didn’t know why.

After much pushing and squeezing through the crowd I managed to reach the town hall, which was under lockdown.

“I need to talk to the town master engineer!” I shouted at one of the guards.

“*The master engineer? He ain’t in here.*” a guard called back.

“WHAT!? WELL WHERE IS HE!?”

“*I think he’s having breakfast at one of the cafe's.*"

"*That guy sure draws out on his coffee breaks, I think its because of the waitress there. Heh heh heh.*”

“*SHIT, RIOT! RIOT! FORM UP AT THE TOWN HALL!!*” one of the guards yelled.

The whole crowd went crazy, everypony began attacking the guards and each other in a huge confusing brawl, then some groups of guards began fighting amongst each other!

I tried to get around the crowd but only ended up being pulled in by the mass of ponies running to join the crowd, either for the sake of fighting or to try and calm the others down, all it did was add more fuel to the fire.

A few shoves and jabs later I was lying on my back in the middle of an angry mob, being kicked at and stampeded over, I couldn’t get up, I was repeatedly knocked over by the mob.

Then I felt a searing jab of pain on my right side. I screamed out in pain, then I felt an extremely intensive rush of adrenaline and rage flow through my veins, the world became distant and gray only to intensify and speed up seconds later.

One of the Psycho chem needles had somehow gotten out of it's case and stabbed me through the satchel on accident.

I became enraged and felt stronger than ever, I rose up knocking seven ponies off me and began to punch, buck and jab my way out of the crowd with bloodshot furious determination.

Once out of the crowd I ran down the main road towards one of the cafe’s, the sign said ‘Java’.

Inside I saw a brown stallion with a black mane chat to the waitress, a pretty young pink mare that looked slightly older than Strawberry Feather.

The stallion had a wrench cutiemark, that had to be him! That had to be the master engineer!

It HAD to be.

“You there!” I barged into the coffee shop.

The stallion wearily turned to look at me.

“Who? Me?”

“Are you the town master engineer!!?” I shouted uncontrollably at him, an effect of the Psycho chem.

“Y-yes... why?” he responded hesitantly.

“TO WHICH BUILDING DOES MAINTENANCE EXIT E-42 DOWN IN THE SEWERS LEAD TO!?”

“Uh.... um... hm... let me... think...” the engineer struggled to remember.

“QUICKLY DAMNIT, THERE IS NO TIME TO LOSE!!”

“For fucking sake! I am trying to remember alright!? Urrrgh, E-42... E-42...”

“Ah know which buildin’ it is...” the young waitress said timidly.

“Huh? You do?” the engineer said.

“WHERE!?!?!”

“E-42 is that big ‘ol abandoned warehouse at the edge o town... right down the main road from ere, take a turn to the right at Hardwares and Supplies store an keep goin down the street there. It should be the big cement building with the large cracked windows...”

“FUCK, THANKS.” I rushed off before anypony said anything else.

Damn I was PISSED, I galloped down the man road as she directed and took a right at the hardware store, I could see the building down the street, there as nopony else down this street save for me.

Not even a single guard.

When I came up to the building I heard a dampened scream for inside, Manie!

This was the building!

But both the front doors and emergency exit in the back were blocked! Damnit!

I had to find another way in.

I had noticed a smashed open window in the back, and there were wooden boxes lining the entire alley. With much effort I managed to push and stack the boxes into an unstable pile to climb on.

The last box was unstable and broke under my weight just as I grabbed the edge of the window with my hooves making the entire stack of boxes dwindle and fall over, the broken glass cut into my skin under the pressure of my weight.

But if I let go I would break my legs, or worse, my spine.

Through superpony effort I managed to pull myself up, my front legs bleeding profusely, I barely felt the pain due to the Psycho chem, but I knew that I had to take care of the wounds soon, or I’d likely end up bleeding out.

The interior floors were all wooden and dusty, the floor boards had been torn up here and there and there were wooden boxes stacked everywhere.

I slowly moved through the rooms, I couldn’t hear her anywhere but I KNEW she was in here. Somewhere.

I heard a weak THUMP followed by the distant sound of breaking glass.

“It’s useless Manie, no one is coming for you. You are FINISHED!”

Where was the voice coming from? I heard a scream from below followed by the sound of a stack of boxes being pushed over and crashing onto the floor. They were right below me.

“NOHOO! RAINBOW SEA STOP! PLEASE! I SAID I WAS SORRY!!!!”

“BEING SORRY ISN’T GOING TO BRING THEM BACK!”

“PLEASE NO! UHUHU! STOP! I BEG OF YOU!!”

“BEG ALL YOU WANT WHORE!”

“I AM GOING TO MAKE YOU SUFFER FOR WHAT YOU DID! THEN I AM GOING TO SLOWLY BLEED YOU OUT!!”

I heard Rainbow Sea grunt loudly followed by Manie’s whimpering and pained irregular panting.

“OH GOD YOU ARE TIGHT!!”

OH

FUCK

WHAT!?

I screamed in rage and stomped the floor below me as hard as I could possibly gather strength to do, it gave under the force and I crashed down into the room below in a cloud of dust and wooden splinters.

I landed right on top of Rainbow Sea and Manie Manie, Rainbow Sea was knocked over from the weight and debris and blinded by the cloud of dust, while he recovered coughing I stumbled up seemingly unscathed and managed to place a well aimed rear kick at the back of his head.

Rainbow Sea was knocked out, and began to bleed from a gash that formed in the back of his head.

Manie Manie laid under the pile of debris and under a layer of dust coughing violently.

I ran up to her and pulled off the worst of it off her, when she managed to regain eyesight she saw me and called out for me.

“SWEET HEAVENS!!!” she cried, deeply humiliated and hurt, “Thank the goddesses you are here!”

“Rainbow Sea, he, he...” I embraced her.

“It’s ok, I am here now, you are safe...” I calmed her.

“Can you walk?”

"N-no! It hurts."

“I am sore...!” she said, sobbing.

Sore?

...

Oh... oh no.

“I’m sorry Manie.”

“We need to get you out of here.”

“Here,” I pulled out a Psycho chem from my satchel, “Take this chem, it should help a bit.”

After she experienced the same mind numbing reaction as I had barely fifteen minutes ago she stood up shakingly.

I noticed the blood on her inner thighs...

“Lets go.”

“NOT SO FAST MY LITTLE PONIES!!” Rainbow Sea howled at us.

Rainbow Sea had recovered, despite taking severe blunt trauma to his head.

He brandished the experimental chainaxe we had brought with us on the wagon.

He had somehow learned about the wagon and broken into the garage.

It was clenched in his teeth, it revved up and gave off a fearsome sound that implied painful hacking death.

We’d never be able to outrun him, not with my wounded forelegs and not in Manie's current state.

“Rainbow Sea.” I growled.

“Yes, ME. You fucking shapeshifting cunt. Did you really expect me to follow you on a suicide mission beyond the border? My life has been RUINED since you CP assholes arrested me for goddamn nothing!"

"I am not going just going to sit around and get pushed around by that bitch Celestia, I am not a fucking puppet for her to control and do as she wishes with!”

“Why did you rape her?”, I was furious over what he had done to Manie.

“Why not? I figured I’d have some fun with her before killing her, I can see why you like the mare.” Rainbow Sea snickered.

“You motherfucker! You are dead Rainbow! DEAD!”

“Am I now! I'm afraid that YOU are the one who is dying here!” Rainbow Sea taunted back, revving his chain axe as a warning.

“First,” he began, walking very slowly towards us “I am going to tear you limb from limb, officer scum. Then, I am going to finish what I started.” He gave Manie a dirty look who squirmed in my embrace. “And th-”

BLAM!

Half of Rainbow Sea’s head exploded into an eyeball strewn shower of gore, bits of skull and gray matter.

Leaving a gaping hole that had ripped straight through his skull.

Manie and I were sprayed with the blood of our attacker, fucking disgusting.

As his lifeless husk of a corpse fell over, axe still clenched to what remained of his mouth, we saw the shooter and our savior.

A pegasus stallion with a pale green, borderline gray coat and dark and light green shifting short mane and tail, his cutiemark appeared to be a dark rain cloud with red twist symbol on it.

"CLOUD TUMBLE!?" Manie said in surprise.

His blue eyes glimmered briefly in the low light of the alley before he let go of the revolver, took several steps back and laid down on his belly, laying out his hooves before him.

He had flown in from outside to save our lives and he knew what would happen next, the loud sound of the gunshot had attracted a squad of guardsmen who within moments breached the building and stormed the room.

“*GEEEET DOWN!! GEEEET THE FUUUCK DOWN!!*”

“*ON YOUR BELLY, HOOVES FOWARD!!*” the guards ordered screaming.

We did like they said, soon all three of us were apprehended and brought to the Helsinghoof barracks.

The three of us were put in separate cells, small cramped sterile cement rooms with a single bed in them and nothing else.

A combat medic had tended to my wounds and a nurse had examined Manie, gave her something for the pain, no mare deserves being deflowered forcibly like that.

The nurse had commented on missing medical supplies...

A couple of hours after our arrest Captain Sun Topaz showed up, and I was released.

“It appears you were successful in your search. Good for you.”

"Shame about Rainbow Sea."

"Not really."

"The guy was an asshole."

The two of us went to the interrogation observation room, which wasn’t unlike the room I had been in with Lieutenant Bob when briefed on the group.

They were interrogating the pegasus that had saved us.

The pegasus and the Overwatch soldier interrogating him were sitting by the fixed steel table of the room, the soldier was looking through a green map with some papers in it on the desk in perfect silence, he was casually seated back tilting his head and occasionally flipping a page, the pegasus stared nervously at the papers, trying to lean forward to see what they said about him.

The soldier lifted the first few pages of the file, looking at the pages below...

Then I noticed.

The pages were blank.

The entire file was blank.

The soldier pushed the map aside.

Cloud Tumble looked dumbstruck.

“*Mr Cloud Tumble.*” the soldier began, speaking slowly and formally.

“*I understand that you have... murdered... another pony. With an Overwatch issued firearm no less.*”

“*Tell me, Mr Cloud Tumble. What’s your angle on this? What were you doing in that warehouse? Where did you get that firearm?*”

The pegasus Cloud Tumble looked blankly at the table. Silent.

Several moments passed in silence.

The officer let out a deep sigh.

“*Help us understand what happened in there, Mr Cloud Tumble.*”

“What is there to understand... I flew in and shot the green earth pony that was threatening to kill the other two. Then I submitted and waited for you to show up and arrest me.”

“*Where did you get the gun, Mr Cloud Tumble?*”

“I found it.” Cloud Tumble answered.

“*Where.*”

“Holstered in one of the guards holsters...”

"*Hmm. Hmm.*" the soldier nodded.

“*So you stole an Overwatch issued firearm to save two ponies in a random warehouse?*”

“*Your story doesn’t add up.*”

Cloud Tumble shrugged.

"Why not?"

"*Motive.*"

“*Why did you do it?*”

“To save a damsel in distress and rid the world of a rotten apple.”

“*No.*”

“*Why did you steal the pistol? To what end were you going to use it?*”

Cloud Ruler remained quiet and dismissive.

The soldier looked away, towards the glass, holding his hoof up to his helmet.

“*Uh, yeah he isn’t collaborating.*”

"*I tried sir, but he wont talk.*"

"*So that's it? We are just going to kill him?*"

The soldier looked back at Cloud Tumble.

"*I was going to suggest torturing him...*" he said darkly.

Captain Sun Topaz shook his head at me, signaling that the soldier was faking the call.

Cloud Tumble leaned forward on the fixed steel table.

“Okay okay, you win,” he began lowering his voice, “I stole that revolver looking for a way to escape from here, I was going to use the confusion sparked by the rumor of Major Manie Manie being in town when I heard a mare let out a scream inside the abandoned warehouse down the street” he looked down at the table and paused for a bit.

“I flew inside and snuck around the building, then I saw her, Manie Manie, being assaulted by a sickly green earth pony stallion. I tried to take aim but the stallion was grabbing and pushing her around, getting her in the line of fire. When she was finally overpowered by him they had dropped down behind a crate, I was forced to listen to her getting violated.” Cloud Tumble looked grim.

“So I switched positions... I snuck around until I had a clear view from one of the doorways.”

“But then as I took aim, some strange pony shaped... THING... with shifting coat and features crashed screaming through the ceiling, landing on top of the two. It rapidly recovered from the fall and bucked the green pony in the back of his head, knocking him out, but still out of the line of sight.”

“The shapeshifter seemed benign and appeared to be deeply concerned about the mare, it gave her some sort of drug and she stood up. As they were about to go, the green pony stood up holding some sort of chain axe in his teeth. This time around he was standing with his back turned to me and I had a clear shot at the back of his head.”

“*Why save the mare?*” the soldier said impartially, “*You could have escaped.*”

“What would you have done in my situation?”

The soldier didn’t say anything.

“I believe that there is still some good in us...”

The soldier slowly looked at the mirrored glass we were behind.

“*There you have it sir. My work here is done.*”

Then stood up and left the room.

The Captain turned to me.

“Stay here and come inside when I call for you.”

I wasn’t sure where this was going but I stayed put, the Captain went inside the room and sat down.

“Hello Captain” Cloud Tumble greeted him.

“So you know why you are here and you have confessed to your crime.”

“Yes.”

“What do you suppose we do to you?” the Captain asked.

“I know the frontier law, tooth for tooth, eye for eye. I guess you’ll have me executed then.”

The Captain leaned back and scratched his jaw with his hoof.

“Hmm... usually that would have been the case... but you see... the circumstances have changed.”

“What do you mean?”

“I am not too keen on senselessly killing ponies to be honest, especially not ponies who chose to save another rather than fend for himself. But I can’t let you go without punishment.”

“Where are you going with this, Captain?”

“There is a small group of ponies in town, they are traveling to beyond the frontier border...”

“Oh gods...” Cloud Tumble reacted with a trembling voice. “You aren’t-”

“Yes. Yes I am. I am sending you with these ponies on a mission of absolution... if you survive, you will be cleared of any crimes you have committed...”

Cloud Tumble was trembling with terror, his eyes were narrow and dilated in fear.

“I would rather DIE than be sent to beyond the frontier!”

“Oh? I thought you would have a different disposition towards this. After all, YOU saved them.”

“What?”

The Captain looked at me and signaled with his hoof for me to come in.

As I stepped inside Cloud Tumble looked at me with shock.

“T-the shapeshifter!”

“No.” I said calmly. ”I am wearing a scramble suit. I am a pony, just like you and the Captain.”

“Thank you... for saving us.” I bowed my head.

“It’s alright if I send this chap with you on your mission is it not?” the Captain asked me.

I gave it some thought.

Rainbow Sea had just betrayed us, we were one pony short, not that it would even matter in the end...

“What are his options?”

The Captain waved a hoof and turned to look at him.

“Well. His options are, capital punishment by a firing line tomorrow at noon ooooor... going with you.”

“I see.”

“So I guess it will be up for him to decide. Not a choice many ponies get in these circumstances.“

“He is just lucky like that I guess.” the Captain added.

There was a moment of silence, Cloud Tumble was clearly thinking, his look of terror still prevalent in his eyes.

“So what will it be, Cloud Tumble,” the Captain asked him, “Death or a slim chance of survival?”

He focused and looked at us.

“What happened to the mare?” he asked.

“Hmm...” The Captain reached for his right ear with his hoof.

“Bring her in. Yes, now.”

A moment passed and the door opened, two soldiers came in pulling Manie Manie who seemed agitated and angry, she had all the right to be that after what had happened to her earlier today.

“Let go of me!” she hissed at the soldiers. They let go of her and left the room.

She turned to look at us.

“What’s going on here? Why are we here?” she exclaimed.

Then she noticed the pegasus.

“Cloud Tumble!”

"Major Manie!"

Sun Topaz looked at me questioningly, I returned the look.

"I... take it the two of you know each other?" he asked.

"I served under the major back when we were in Armor, she was a tank commander, I was her gunner." Cloud Tumble said.

"He helped me test the laser designation system I designed."

"We... drifted apart after she... you know."

"Why are you here?" she asked him.

"I... You... don't know?"

"Know what?"

"After you disappeared, Air Force was left empty hoofed. So the investigation continued, and they ended up demanding that all the tank gunners and commanders that participated in the training exercise to be arrested."

"Some ran, others, like me, stayed and faced the consequences..."

"I'm sorry..."

"It's not your fault. You told me about it, and what would follow. You gave me a choice, to participate in the training exercise or find an excuse to stay out of it. I stayed, and fired the cannon, knowing that the targets I was gunning for were friendly."

"I followed you. I ended up here on my own accord. This is my fault, my responsibility."

Manie looked at the captain.

"I... uh... I guess you know who I am then."

"Indeed I do."

Manie stared at the captain, she appeared to tense nervously before relaxing in resignation.

"This is it then. No more running."

"I am in the custody of a branch of the equestrian army that has close ties to Air Force and Civil Protection."

“Air Force doesn’t know you are here.” Sun Topaz said.

"They... don't?"

"No."

"Why... not?"

"Overwatch doesn't like Air Force. Reward or not and despite the trouble you have caused me and Helsinghoof, I still think that Air Force can go fuck itself."

"You are however, still, technically a criminal, charged with treason and desertion of the army."

"I have already been arrested, that is why I am here."

"Your charges are different, Air Force has... other plans in mind for you, a more severe punishment."

"They don't care that CP has already taken you in. They are still after you."

"So..."

"So nothing really, I can't let your crime go unpunished, but you are already being punished so there is nothing I can do."

"I’d offer you the same deal I offered Cloud Tumble here, but you have already accepted it.”

"What deal? What have I accepted?"

“Come with us or die by an Overwatch firing line.”

"So wait, you'll kill her if she doesn't continue on with me?" I asked.

"Yes."

I looked to Manie.

"Sorry Manie, I guess the offer I gave you yesterday doesn't apply to you."

"Yeah, absolutely not." Sun Topaz said.

"You'll kill HIM if he doesn't come with us?" Manie asked, referring to Cloud Tumble.

"Yes." Sun Topaz responded again.

Manie's eyes widened as she looked to Cloud Tumble.

"You HAVE to come with us!"

She looked back to me.

"Sweet Heavens! We HAVE to take him with us! We can't just leave him here!"

The Captain looked at me with a smug expression.

“Sweet Heavens? Really? That was the best name you could come up with for them?” he said, jeering.

“What? What does he mean?” Manie Manie asked (but it was really more of a demand if anything).

“Before I decide on anything, can I at least know who you are?” Cloud Tumble interjected.

“Sweet Heavens” I said.

“Captain Tombs” the Captain said.

Awkward.

“Sweet Heavens...” Manie said quietly, “Is your name a false?”

How was I going to put this. Yes?

My name is fake because I don’t want to give away my real name to a bunch of strangers while still in the employ of CP?

Because it didn’t matter?

Because I can’t prove that my real name is my real name?

“Sweet Heavens is my real name.” I decided, I was lying, but they couldn’t know that and it was easier to simply lie to them about my name than make a big mess of it. "Tombs is my nickname."

"I know that 'Tombs' is a nickname. I am just doubting that Sweet Heavens is your real name." Sun Topaz said.

"It's my real name alright. It was easier to just give them that rather than trying to make one up."

Manie Manie looked relieved.

“If you say so.” Sun Topaz said, nodding.

“Well Cloud Tumble, have you made your decision yet? Time is ticking and we need to get these ponies out of here before the whole town goes crazy and obsessed with claiming the reward on Manie Manie.”

“Okay.” Cloud Tumble said.

“I will go with them.”

“Smart pony.” the Captain said.

“Lets go then. I have a squad still loyal to their duty and commander waiting outside to escort you to the gates. We have already gotten ahold of the rest of your group, they are waiting along with the wagon at the western gate.”

Manie Manie was tucked in and recovering in the wagon and our newest addition to the group examined what gear we had brought along, taking Rainbow Sea’s black firepony’s coat.

The waitress Table Turner was also here, she seemed saddened about us leaving town, or more specifically, that her plaything was leaving. She didn't look bad in the light, she had a bright gray coat and a mane that shifted in different shades of blue, considering her statement of being twice the age of Blizzard Candy she really carried her age well.

The Captain gave me a map, an item which hadn't been included with the supplies and gear that we had recieved.

“Well then, Tombs.”

“It’s a shame things had to go like this and that I have to send you away the way you are.”

We had came into the town to rest and had left it with three of us smelling like a sewer, me having both my forelegs cut open and bandaged, Manie Manie having been forcibly robbed of her virginity and with one of our group having his brains splattered all over us, which speaking of, both me and Manie were still covered in.

On the plus side we had extra medical supplies and one of us got laid, which... really doesn’t help us at all.

“Yeah well, we have a long road ahead.” I said. I paused briefly, remembering something.

“Whatever happened to the chain axe Rainbow Sea stole and used against us?”

“Ah, right.” Sun Topaz said. He waved at the squad that had escorted us.

An uniformed and masked mare walked up to us holding the axe in one hoof, she left it by my hooves and returned back in line without saying a word.

“Thanks.”

“It was nice meeting you and seeing your nice little town.”

“If ya don’t count the rape, murder and angry mob...” Brook Cotton interjected.

“Yeah... And speaking of, I should probably get back to the town hall now, I need to calm ponies down and tell them that Manie Manie was nowhere to be found.”

“But you are all welcome back whenever you wish, if you now happen to survive your mission.”

“But, uh, let me know when you bring in a pony that is on a military organizations MOST WANTED LIST beforehand, ok? I don’t neccesarily need to ban her from visiting Helsinghoof again, quite frankly, most ponies here don’t even know what Manie Manie looks like, Air Force was evidently not smart enough to give out a description beyond ‘SHE HAS A LASER DESIGNATOR CUTIEMARK, SHE IS CONSIDERED EXTREMELY DANGEROUS AND MEOW MEOW MEOW’, so you know, just disguise her and nopony here will know the difference...”

“Wishful thinking” I said bitterly.

“HOPEFUL thinking.” Table Turner interjected. I hadn’t put much mind to her being here, I thought she would cling onto Blizzard Candy until we left. looked at her and gave her my attention.

“I really want you guys to come back here one day, especially Candy.” she waved at Blizzard Candy. “So don’t lose hope out there and don’t die. You are going to make it, I know you will.”

I am, as a realist, immune to such bullshit.

The odds were a million to one that we’d survive if what Captain Sun Topaz said was true.

He was in fact looking at us with a grim expression, very convinced that this was the last he’d see of us, he knew it would be bad, he had fought the wildlings before.

But the others didn't know, they had heard, but they didn't know, not what Sun Topaz and I knew.

The rest of the group cheered up a bit and had some faith restored in our mission, everypony except for Cloud Tumble smiled weakly.

I suppose this was good, it would be moments like these that would help group morale, keep them close, happy and loyal.

“Goodbye Captain Tombs.” Sun Topaz and I shook a hooves, “Or if things don’t turn out well... farwell.”

“You are a good pony, Captain.” ...and a partial asshole...

We began walking down the road, this time with a little more than the clothes on our back.

The next town on the map was 100 kilometers inland, the border was another 350.

450 km of walking awaited, just to get to the border, long trip, but on the bright side it would be a while before we actually got there and if things went on smoothly from here on out the trip to the border probably wont be that bad.

I doubted that we'd make 100 kilometers in one afternoon, that was impossible, it would take at least one full day with the wagon burdening us.

But luckily there was an outpost not too far from Helsinghoof, a place marked 'Checkpoint Berry 2', hopefully we'd be able to stop by there for the night and proceed in the morning.

“So.” Brook Cotton began, “Would ya’ll mind telling us what the hay just happened in there?”

‘Hay’. That’s cute.

“And who is this guy?” Blizzard Candy asked.

I sighed.

"We'll tell you all about it on the way."

"All of it?"

"All of it."