Chapter 4: Dark City Blues

“I don't think the sun even... exists... in this place. 'Cause I've been up for hours, and hours, and hours, and the night never ends here.”

From the office of Overgriffin Silvia Swiftwind:

Entry 1, Day 1

By the goddesses it happened. The world ended today. Nearly everywhere got hit. I heard about what happened in Canterlot right before they sealed the Stable. Could the princesses really be gone? Is there any hope without them? They also say that Cloudsdale is less than nothing now. Who knows how many bombs were dropped on the poor bastards. None of us ever stood a chance, not with that much shit flying around. I had a nephew in the flight school there… I remember my sister was overjoyed when little Brighteyes made it in.

Maybe they closed the clouds fast enough to spare the rest of the Pegasus cities. I know they got the Aerie. Stars above will I miss those peaks, watching griffins soar among the silver spires. Some of the city-states might survive if they sheltered with the Pegasi. Damn those featherbrains and their neutrality debates! If only they had listened to the Talon Masters! The griffins, united could have helped tip the scales.

Doesn’t matter now though. In hindsight, no one really won the war. Everybody, pony and zebra, loses if they’re all dead.

Today, I assume duties as Overgriffin of Stable 57. The griffin race will survive. We will survive this horrible war, because that’s all that matters now. Not victory, but survival, because surviving is victory.

Damn the zebras, and damn the ponies for that matter. Damn them all for this senseless war and dragging everyone else into it with them. The griffin people did not deserve this. But really, what did we do to stop them? What did any race really do to stop them?

I would beg for Celestia’s forgiveness, but we killed her too didn’t we?

***

Flick. Click. Flick. Click…

***

Entry 2, Week 4 Day 3

I have to hand it to Stable Tec, when they build something they don’t go halfway. Working at a replenishing output we can comfortably sustain large pony and griffin populations; more than enough to maintain a reasonably diverse gene pool for both parties. They even had the courtesy to provide contraceptives so that we don’t have horny teenagers knocking each other up. Full medical suite for pretty much every injury and illness you can imagine, even recreation and spacious living quarters given the circumstances not to mention the complete complement of water, air, power, and simulation sunlight talismans.

One of the teachers, Miss Harpsichord if I recall, came to me today to tell me about the library-in-a-box, containing Ministry of Image approved material on just about every subject and history you can imagine. It was good to see all the Fillies and hatchlings running and playing. A lot of them are too young to really understand that this is a permanent thing and what that means. Without the indoor flying range I don’t think any of us older griffins could make it. When I think too hard about generations of our youth growing up and never knowing the sky I…

It’s hard sometimes to walk the halls and see everyone trying to adjust. In the first two weeks we had a few suicides, but everyone left seems to be willing to stick it out.

My partner, Overmare Juniper Blossom makes it easier to cope. I can’t imagine doing this all on my own. Sometimes ponies come to me with problems that require a pony understanding. I'm starting to catch on though. The more time I spend among them, the less division I see between us. The mane or the feather don’t matter, our hearts matter. That’s what this Stable is supposed to be about, to see if we can live together without killing each other. Griffins are a proud people, proud in being able to overcome anything, conquer anything. And we will conquer this challenge.

Because we aren’t ponies and griffins, we’re equestrians.

***

I remembered the library-in-a-box fondly; having spent many nights awake accompanied by nothing but the glow of an access terminal to the wonderful device. Ah, Daring-Do, the hours I spent in your adventures.

***

Entry 3, Month 5 Week 2 Day 2

I swear that pompous duke Gilded Scepter sets my teeth on edge every time I have to see him.

He needs to learn his place! Why doesn’t he seem to get that he’s no longer a duke? I had to sit there for an hour listening to his ridiculous demands! Everything that he was duke of is now nothing but a glowing crater and yet he still insists on putting his duties on some other hapless pony more than willing to jump when he says jump because he’s the closest thing we have left to royalty down here. I can only be thankful that no griffin noble got stuck down here with us. The stable would probably already be a battlefield!

The idiot spent half the time complaining about why he had to speak with a griffin and not a proper Overmare. Then when I threatened to toss him out of my office by the tail he spent the rest of the meeting trying to butter me up with bribes of fine wine that he somehow managed to get into the stable. Poor Juniper must have her hooves full with just him let alone the other little disputes that have been creeping up.

Unfortunately I’ve had to implement a time card system for the indoor flight range. Everyone is trying not to think about when they had all the sky to fly in and the med bay is full of air collision injuries. One pair of hotheads actually started fighting mid-air! The idiots damaged one of the minor obstacle courses so everyone has to use the timecards to limit flyers until the damn thing is fixed. I slapped both of them with flight restraint harnesses Stable Tec gave us for training hatchlings and banned them from the flight room for a few weeks until the featherbrains cool their heads.

I hate having to ground any griffin like that but the harnesses have their uses. The muscle strain they generate will keep our flight muscles from deteriorating over the years. We have enough of them for every griffin and then some. Stable-Tec thought of everything. The younger ones complained for a while but they got used to it, they have to because they might need those muscles someday. I didn’t have the heart to force it on anyone who didn’t want to wear one though. Seemed cruel to make any elder griffin work muscles they might never use again.

Time is strange down here without the sun, the real sun. We have day and night cycles but it’s not the same. Already it’s been months since the world ended. Everyone is trying to settle into routine again. The Stable was designed to make the transition easier but sometimes everything feels fake, artificial.

Everything except that damnable duke! He’s just a step too real for my taste.

Entry 4, Month 7 Week 1 Day 4

I’m beginning to worry about Juniper; she’s been spending way too much time around duke pain-in-my-ass. She and I have had a lot of time to talk given our parallel positions and I’ve learned that her husband wasn’t able to make it to the Stable in time as he had been visiting relatives when the megaspells hit. She said it has been hard but that she has a duty to every pony living in the Stable to be strong. I can sympathize with that. And while Gilded Scepter is a stuck up, snobby excuse for a gentlecolt, I can’t begrudge poor Juniper a little companionship with everything that’s happened.

It’s still far too early to tell when or even if the surface will be habitable again but our radiology expert Geiger remains positive. It gives everyone a little bit of comfort every time he makes his report, even though it bores me to tears, he certainly sounds hopeful.

Rumors are floating around that an Iron Talon master made it in. No one is sure who, and the talk is vague and insubstantial but I for one am glad. Traditions matter. Our hatchlings need to learn the old ways, the ways of honor, integrity, kindness, mercy, honesty, loyalty, and discipline.

Virtues are going to insure that the future is in good hands. We fucked up the world, the least we can do is try to teach our children to do better.

Entry 5, Month 11 Week 2 Day 6

The duke has lost his mind! Barely a year we’ve been in this Stable and he’s preaching the dissolution of my position! He proposes that the noble families should rule the Stable, that it is their born right to rule. The Stable Tec mental screening should have picked him out of the lottery for these fucking tendencies! I wonder who he had to suck off to get in.

He’s been preaching that the Overmare position should be filled by a representative of noble blood and that since no griffin nobles are present that my people should defer to his better judgment. Ridiculous! I know why he’s been buttering up Juniper Blossom now. She just looks at him with those big brown eyes smiling and nodding to whatever garbage he spews. He may as well be the Overmare at this point!

He has the ear of the handful of aristocratic ponies and all the ones that follow them. This has to be contained. I’ve spoken with my security head and convinced him to lock up the psychopath on grounds of him threatening to start a riot. Hopefully I can come up with something before his associates leverage for his release. I can’t believe it’s come to this.

I’d throttle him myself if I thought it would do any good, but that would make me no better. Satisfying though.

Entry 6, Year 1 Month 6 week 4 day 2

There was a riot. I shouldn’t be surprised; things have been building towards this for a few months now. I miss the quiet when that lunatic was locked up in security, but now most of security answers to him. How could things have spiraled out of control this quickly? I fear for the safety of my people and those ponies not insane. The aristoponies have griped non-stop about servants this and living conditions that.

It’s a Stable, ponies! The faster they get it through their heads that everyone down here needs to work the better. But it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen anytime soon. His ambition is idiotic and destructive, but so long as I’m Overgriffin he only controls half the decision making. He dare not make a move against me lest he find over a hundred angry griffins ready to tear his face off. It won’t come to that though.

The instigators of the riot can’t be traced back to him but I know it in my heart. Suspicion is not enough to warrant his arrest however. Stable-Tec promised reliable communication, at least to the Stable-Tec headquarters in case of emergency but looks like that worked out about as well as any post apocalypse plan.

Celestia grant me the patience to deal with this fool.

***

There was an audio log attached before the final entry. Through it, my lighter was dark.

“…still show that surface radiation is not expected to drop for some time as well as anomalous…” The sound of a door opening and several sets of hooves on steel rattled.

“Gentlecolts, please remove our esteemed professor Geiger.” The voice was oily, derisive, and spoke in that disgusting nobleman’s accent.

“Scepter! How dare you barge into my office without permission! If I need advice on how to drink soup I’ll send for someone more qualified.” The speaker was female, and likely, Overgriffin Silvia.

“I think you know why I’m here.” Arrogance this time.

“You can’t touch me Scepter. I am the Overgriffin in case you forgot.”

“Not for long.”

“If you want every griffin in here after your blood then go ahead. I’ll be happy to watch you go down, even from the grave.”

“Hold her down.”

“The fuck- You can’t just! Get your hooves off of me! Bastards!” The sounds of a struggle ensue before a hard slam that was likely the Overgriffin being pinned.

“You see, the griffins will accept my rule, proper rule, pony rule, when it is discovered that you killed yourself out of shame. Shame from their behavior and that you can’t handle the mantle of leadership. And that as your final act of Overgriffin you decree that the position has been erased and all Stable residents will answer solely to the Overmare. Like it should be. Your position has that power.”

“You mother fucker! You can’t do this! They’ll know. You can’t hide the truth like this! I will not see you make slaves of my people!”

“I’m afraid it’s no longer up to you.” A lone gunshot broke anything further Silvia may have said. “Clean this up like we discussed, then erase everything. Turn on the martial law function. Make sure none of those… griffins get any smart ideas.” He spoke griffin with a particular loathing, as if he were chewing on something distasteful. “I shall be at the dinner party when the tragic news reaches me. Then have Juniper make the announcement.” The distaste and the casual execution phased the pony not at all.

I felt a mix of emotions. Anger and impotency at what I had just heard. Helplessness too at not being able to visit vengeance on a pony who had been gone for many years now. Around the fourth entry I had gotten up and was now pacing around on my hind paws so I could read my PipBuck.

Outrage boiled deep in my heart of hearts. This Scepter fellow hadn’t just forced the griffins, my kin, into virtual slavery; he had crushed the hopes of unity, of harmony.

When I had been younger, I had asked my father why all the griffins had to do what the ponies said. Soot had told me, with great sadness that they had all done something dishonorable a long time ago. To a griffin, honor is a matter of lifeblood, pride, and redemption was the only vindication they could hope for. That redemption came through service to the pony nobles and the Overmare that ruled the Stable.

What a load of crap, shoveled like the shit it was and buried with the dead. It had made Blazing Glory’s rebellion all the more shocking when it had happened, and why only a few griffins had gone with her.

Cinder moaned and rolled in her sleep. Over the past few hours her fever had slowly gone down and the worrying red lines of infection had withdrawn back to her wounds. Having woken up to rewrap my own wounds and, unable to go back to sleep I had finally gotten around to reading the files I had downloaded from the Overmare’s mainframe.

The room we were sheltering in had started to leak from the light drizzle that pattered down from the heavens and had only the single, ratty mattress, but it was safe. I checked my own injuries and groaned at the stiffness of my muscles, having pretty much fallen asleep in the first position I had laid down in. It felt like somepony had worked me over with a club, or thrown a burning sky carriage at me.

I stretched, testing my tendons and made sure that everything was moving the way it was supposed to. Vertebrae and joints popped in a most satisfying way. Ahh… that felt nice. My chest did not though, and when I stretched out my wings I was nearly strangled by the constriction that gripped my chest. Afterwards I had to take a moment to catch my breath. Definitely wasn’t going to be flying very far without getting some enchanted bandages or some healing potions.

I made sure Cinder was comfortable before I turned a dial on my PipBuck and opened the last entry in the Overgriffin archive, the red light the only illumination in the dark room, aside from the faint green of the desk terminal.

***

Entry ERROR! Please contact technician!

I don’t have much time. I leave this for all the Griffins who come after us wanting freedom. My name is Blazing Glory and I found the truth of what happened in our Stable and have decided to leave with a few others who no longer wish to be servants. Most of them are scared to leave the Stable! It’s almost like they’ve grown comfortable, complacent with how things are. It disgusts me, but the Stable was never meant to be a home forever.

The codes for the Stable door are here in the Overmare terminal, use them and escape. Good luck. I don’t know what we will find outside but I promise to bring back help if I can.

To my mate Soot,

I love you my darling, please care of our children. I know we’ve talked about what we would do if this day ever came, that one of us would escape if the opportunity presented itself. I wish it could have been you my dearest, but our children will be safe until I get back to free us all. Tell Ashes and Cinder that I love them very much, that I will watch over them and that someday they will be free too.

***

Heart heavy, I read my mother’s final message at least three times. After which I slumped back against the wall and stared up into the cracked ceiling. It felt good to know that my parents had had a plan all along, a plan to free every griffin in the Stable. It was not comforting to know it had failed. Nagging, chewing on my logic was an undeniable query.

Why hadn’t she come back in all these years? In her entry, she had promised to bring back help. Had she died, or worse, given up? And where did that leave Cinder and I? A little soul searching found my answer mixed. Sure, I wanted to bring help back, find some secret griffin army and come back, marching like a champion to annex the evil pony overlords. Comic book images and improbable rescues aside, I felt there wasn’t much left to go back to.

My friends… Ruby, Blunt, Master Grimm… Larissa, Kresh, Redemption, Raya… Ireena. If I was to be realistic, fatalistic, nihilistic, they were probably already dead. For every griffin killed, two ponies would undoubtedly fall, but that was without access from either side to guns. Always I could put on a brave face, be optimistic, positive with others around. Left on my own, my mind wandered in dark places.

And my mother Blaze… Had she even survived Ghoul City, even as we her children struggled to do so? The scope of finding her seemed an impossible task. The world was a huge place, and she had been gone for years. How was I supposed to follow a trail so old and cold?

Wait, maybe I did have one last thread to pursue in this tangled weave…

I fished the dead griffin known as Reginald’s PipBuck out of my pack on the floor. Somehow I managed to interface my own PipBuck with the battered thing and extracted a few fragments of personal log. Most of it was just Reginald complaining about working as a butler but among the garbled text I managed to construct a rough picture of what had happened after my mother had brought a group of about two dozen griffins out of Stable 57.

Ghoul City had been just as hostile to them as it had been so far to Cinder and I. Only a few made it out of the city to somewhere not specified. Reginald mentioned something that sounded like a town but didn’t elaborate even which direction it was in.

One little tidbit did stand out during my information inquiry: that the group had camped at first in the Ghoul City Police Station, still marked out in my own PipBuck. Although frustrated at the lack of anything more solid, I at least had one more place to search.

I crawled over to Cinder to and nudged her gently awake, speaking softly.

“Hey there featherbutt, I’m gonna go check something out okay?” She stirred with a groan.

“Mmm… What?”

“I might know where mom made camp in the city. I’m going to go see if there’s anything there that’ll lead us to her. After I get back we’ll get out of here, okay? You think you’ll be all right to go by then?” She rolled and wrapped her good arm tight around my neck and squeezed.

“Thank you for taking care of me brother. Dad would be proud.” Oh sis… How you keep tough… for my sake I’m sure. She was stronger than I. Tears threatened with her so close; she smelled like mom, warm, feathery down. Pushing her back a little, I brushed a stray feather back from her face.

“Thanks, little spark; you just get some rest okay? Oh! Hey, I’m gonna give you this to hang on to alright?” I held out the last dose of antibiotics. “I want you to inject yourself with this in an hour or so, okay? Promise?” Cinder took the syringe and curled back on the mattress.

“I promise. I am really tired though. Is it okay if I go back to sleep for a while?” Her innocence, kindness, made me crack a smile. She was the last good thing in my world.

“Of course you can sleep more, get all the rest you can. Just remember to take it when you wake up. I’ll be back soon though.” She nodded and laid her head back down, breathing easier. I made sure to leave two full canteens of water and a can of cram in easy reach. I had already shoveled down a breakfast of apple preserves and water while reading Silvia Swiftwind’s journal entries.

I had brought a spare Stable jumpsuit in my size but had no real protective clothing after losing my armored barding in the hospital. And as fashionable a statement the gaudy clothing was, it would only make me stick out. It did feel odd though, setting out in nothing but my fur and feathers.

My explosives were depleted, but not gone, bullets limited to shells for my over under scattergun, and my brass knuckles, yet to be properly tested. Wistfully I pinned after a silencer for one of my pistols like out of the spy stories I had enjoyed in youthful days or ammo for them for that matter. It would make moving and neutralizing ghouls without calling down hordes much easier. At least I had my E.F.S. as an early warning.

Thus armed, I set out.

As I jumped out of the building’s open roof however I felt a strange tingling and froze on the ground. Something had my feathers standing on edge. I shook my head to try and dispel the feeling as I slipped through the hazy streets of Ghoul City.

***

After two hours of trekking, I stood before the police station. It hadn’t been easy going; the rain was just heavy enough to turn the layers of ash in the street into a thick, gluey grey sludge. This time at least, the municipal building did not teeter precariously on the edge of a fiery abyss. The wear and decay had not been kind to the station, earth pony engineering aside. According to Reginald’s notes, the group had camped out in the station’s armory on the second floor.

Burnt out automatic carriages both sky and earth bound lay where they had been scattered two hundred years earlier.

It seemed simple enough, but then so had getting medicine from the hospital. I took no chances and advanced cautiously, keeping one eye on the ground for traps, the other on my E.F.S. The usual haze prevented me from seeing much farther than thirty or so feet but once past the rotting doors the air was much clearer.

I tried to shake off as much ash as I could but the consistency of the stuff made it stick to my fur and feathers, making me feel heavy. Ever since emerging from the Stable, I had been moving through the corpse like city, the mark of the ghouls clinging all the way down to my skin. Lion tail flicking, I headed further inside.

The first door on my right was blocked by rubble; the next on my left was where I truly struck gold. It was a room for processing confiscated items and on the counter laid an open crate. Inside of which was four sticks of dynamite, a spool of thin steel cable, and a hoofwritten note.

‘Hey, Baton, found some idiots down where they’re planning on demolishing the old railway station swinging lit dynamite around on a wire! I just took the whole box and wrote them all up for reckless endangerment and handling explosives without a license. Kids these days.’

While the dynamite didn’t pack as much bang as a good frag grenade did, I was pleased by the thought of my trusty lighter contributing to the destruction of my adversaries. Into my spacious pack went the dynamite and wire. Another door was at the back of the room which was labeled ‘Confiscation’ but a quick test told me the lock wasn’t one that could be forced. I continued on.

Passing through various offices, I found little other than some old oat bars and a few bottle caps, scavenging for anything useful. I walked around a corner and found the staircase leading to the second floor; at the top I heard rattling breath and a faint shuffling. A red line stood menacingly in my E.F.S. Quietly; I stepped up and saw a ghoul pony, facing away from me shuffling through the refuse on the floor.

It was not a Burning One, thank the Goddesses.

I had the element of surprise and contemplated the best approach to silently and quickly dispatch the affront to nature.

Both guns and explosives would generate too much noise and I was not certain enough of my abilities to outright snap a full grown equine neck. Nor did I have a knife or the expertise, else throat slitting might be viable, but even that was not a complete guarantee for silence. A screwdriver might work but the last thing I needed was a ghoul howling its lungs out in the middle of Ghoul City. Again.

What I did have though was a length of industrial wire. A quick look at the label on the plastic wheel informed me that the cable was rated for over five hundred pounds of tension, more than enough for my purpose as I pulled it out of my pack.

From my tools I got a clipper and measured out a small length and after a few tries, had a basic noose. Immediately my thoughts went to the steel cutting through my claws and slipping so I secured the loose end through a finger loop of my brass knuckles for a grip.

The ghoul had stayed right where I had left it. I stalked forwards until I was just close enough. With a grunt I pushed off with my back legs and flapped once, landing on the ghoul’s back. With nimble hands I allowed the generous loop to slip over its head and pulled the snare shut. The ghoul let out a strained gurgle and bucked wildly. It tried to paw at its throat but the steel had sunk into its desiccated flesh. I hung on for dear life and pulled all the tighter. In its panic, the pony with its rotten brain stumbled to the edge of the staircase and fell, dragging me with it.

Aw, pony feathers this was going to hurt.

Still grappling, we bounced twice before sprawling out at the bottom. During the tumble, I was jostled loose but had kept my grip on the brass knuckles; forcing the noose closed with such force the ghoul had been nearly decapitated. I felt winded and would definitely be feeling the new bruises later. I groaned, picked myself up, and snipped my knuckle duster free. Disgruntled, I marched back up the steps.

The armory, just past the stairs, was sealed by a mighty steel door with a thin slit for peeping. I sent silent thanks to Celestia when the door opened with no trouble. Inside were countless empty gun racks and several yellow mattresses. On the opposite wall, some griffin had scrawled in white chalk. ‘Rust Town or bust!’ It had to have been left by my mother’s group.

I checked every corner, turning over empty crates, mattresses, even sifted through a pile of empty bottles but found nothing other than the graffiti proclamation.

I huffed in frustration and decided the plan remained the same. Get Cinder and myself out of the city via the quickest route possible and go from there. Tortured and broken, skyward, filled as it was with toxic debris was not really an option, so it would have to be in the more traditional way.

At least the trip to the station had not been a waste. I was now up a few sticks of dynamite and had the name of a city, hopefully not populated by ghouls.

There had to be civilization out there somewhere beyond this dark city.

There was one door that I had not checked. Not expecting to find much, I was pleasantly surprised to enter a locker room, many of them tipped open or over. A few were unopened and only required a little persuasion. In one I found a few boxes of ten and nine millimeter ammo respectively and an old ten millimeter pistol. I took a moment to disassemble it to improve my own two pistols, taking comfort in their solid weight.

Fixing things had always come easily to me. Taking things apart, learning how they worked, improving them and then putting them back together gave me a deep satisfaction. Mechanical devices were simple, black and white. They either worked or they didn’t. Toasters weren’t really all that different from guns and were a particular pleasure I had found. After I finished with the pistols the action felt a little smoother, the firing mechanism more responsive, and into each I slid home a fresh clip with reassuring clicks that promised deadly force.

In another locker I found a lunchbox and wondered faintly if I could substitute the cherry bombs with a stick of dynamite. Another bottle cap mine would add to my meager arsenal, but I needed a spare sensor module. I committed to keep an eye out for one. A poster with a flight of anonymous pegasi asked me to join the Equestrian Aerial Forces today! Yeah, that was likely.

Against one locker a large piece of rubble had fallen and jammed it closed, buckling the door. A peek inside revealed some police body armor. Greed flared in me and I set to work. I huffed, heaved and worked the rusted hinges loose enough to let the slab of concrete slide away with the door. I winced at the clatter and perked my hearing, waiting to see if a horde of flesh hungry ghouls was about to descend upon me.

After a few moments I relaxed.

In the locker was indeed a protective vest, black Kevlar, sleeveless, and was split on the back to accommodate wings. I loosened some of the straps and slid it up over my head, grimacing as my pectorals pulled tight. Some white lettering across the front, faded, was all but gone. While it was only light armor, it was better than walking around in just my feathers. The cool material felt good, and I was now definitely less naked and slightly more ghoul proof.

On the top shelf was a small rectangular box. Expecting to find more ammo, I was intrigued to discover that it was in fact a pack of cigarettes. Giggling like a truant school griffin I pulled one from the pack, set it rebelliously in my beak and lit it with my little silver lighter. Making sure to strike a jaunty pose I took a deep inhale… and promptly coughed my lungs out. Figuratively, of course.

Ack! How did ponies smoke these damn things! Bleh, they tasted like… well, they honestly tasted like smoked fruit, but there was a subtle hint of something else… strawberry? I lit another but didn’t inhale this time, letting the end slowly smolder, allowing the sweet scent to curl around my beak. There was a little mirror on the inside of the locker and I took a second to admire myself, laughing at my own expense. Silly though it may have been, it felt good.

In remarkably higher spirits than when I had arrived, I left the locker room, and armory behind, smoke trailing behind me. At the bottom of the steps, I was just about to turn the corner past the dead ghoul when I heard a noise and took cover against the wall.

Voices? What the blue flying fuck? Ponies! Haha! I never thought I would be happy to actually hear living pony voices!

I walked blissfully around the wall, wearing what I hoped was a winning smile, lit roll of cheap tobacco nonchalantly poking from my beak. Catching sight of them, I faltered. There were three, and they were unlike any ponies I was familiar with. All were festooned with vicious looking armor, patchwork, studded with spikes, chains, and splattered in gore, like they had waded through bodies.

Disconcerting as it may have been, I gave them the benefit of the doubt for their appearance, ghoul fluids having splashed me too. It was the looks they gave me. The way they looked. A lavender mare smiled possessively. One buck glared in hate and greed, while the third fell somewhere in-between. That one leaned to the extra hateful one.

“Told you I saw him come in here Rage,” Lavender took a step towards me.

“C’mere griffin, griffin, we jus’ wanna have a lil’ chat.” Her teeth were yellow and many were broken.

“Shut up, Serrated. You’ll scare him off.” The three of them advanced. Thoroughly freaked out now, I backed up.

The red one named Rage continued. “Oh yeah, he’s gonna fetch a good price.” Wait, price? As in selling me? Holy hornfuckers. My cigarette fell out of my beak, forgotten.

“S-stay back. Who are you ponies?” Rage said nothing, but the one named Serrated drew a pistol with her mouth, cackling around the guard and shot at me, one bullet grazing my arm, another thudding into my chest armor, my world flashed in pain as the kinetic energy bled out against my tortured chest.

What was wrong with these ponies? Wasn’t there enough messed up stuff already? Now we have to kill each other too? There was no love lost, but my reaction still felt slow. I ducked back around the wall, more shots thudding into the woodwork.

You know what? They wanted to play, and I was in no mood. I pulled a pin, and threw the deadly metal apple hard at the wall, letting the angle of reflection bounce the grenade to my target without becoming one myself. Physics are fun.

“Shit, gre-!” Boom! Debris and fiery backwash filled the hallway.

With my shotgun drawn I leaned out. I had hoped to catch all three in the blast but these were not mindless ghouls, thoughtless and irrational, these were living, thinking ponies. All were shaken, yet still up and in the game.

S.A.T.S. let me line up the unnamed pony wounded from shrapnel, with the business end of my shotgun and call up two shots. Even though my chances to hit only registered in the spell matrix as roughly sixty percent, I let loose. It’s not like I would be any better on my own. A double pattern spray of buckshot stripped pony hide and the stallion dropped, his life fluid painting the nearby wall.

The other two returned fire and I had to slip back into cover. Well, that was one down.

More bullets zipped down the hallway, kicking up plumes of dust. I waited for a lull and fired twice more blindly around the wall. Ugh, I did not want to get stuck in a protracted gunfight in some rundown police station!

My talons slipped and one of my precious shells tumbled away. Cursing my clumsiness I went to reach for it but drew back when it was sent spinning away by a near miss on my claw.

“Serrated, get ‘im!” Aw shit! The mare with the messed up teeth had closed the distance of the hall.

Shit! Shit! Shit!

Nice, very articulate, said the cynical part of my brain as the mare came at me with a foot of cold, sharpened steel. As her name suggested, the blade had nasty, flesh rending teeth. Her first strike was foiled by my gun, but what the earth pony lacked in magical finesse; she made up for it with sheer determination. A slash caught a few of my knuckles, shallow, but still painful enough to forcibly disarm me.

She drove me back, step by step, and I drew my brass knuckles. We took a fraction of a moment to regard each other and laid into it. Although her armament was deadlier, mine was faster and allowed much better reach. An earth pony with a mouth-guard melee weapon was restricted in agility and range by their neck, also making it harder to track a target or an opponent’s weapon with your head swinging around.

Back step, jab.

Back step, jab.

Simple, but effective.

After each blow, Serrated slowed a little more, growing dizzy from the repeated punches I inflicted on her face. One more hit, and with a teeth jarring crunch, the mare crumpled to the ground. Panting, heaving, heart racing, and bleeding from numerous cuts, I didn’t notice Rage until he shot me with my own over under twenty-gauge.

Ouch. Yes, sarcasm, that would totally help my situation.

Burned chest coupled with being shot did not mix. So far, it wasn’t fun being shot. It wasn’t noble or heroic to be shot like in my stories, it just hurt. And I was definitely feeling a little betrayed by my shotgun. How dare it work for my enemy! Blasted off my paws by the force, I rolled over with a groan. I heard the bastard step through the rubble until his shadow loomed over me.

“Ha! Now I don’t have to split the sale between those two idiots.” The casual dismissal, even happiness at his compatriot’s deaths mortified me. Feelings of indignity at his disgraceful behavior fought through my pain.

I felt a prod and allowed myself to be rolled over. His expression changed from a smug leer to surprised disbelief as he looked at the pistol that I had secretly drawn while down and now aimed between his eyes.

Bam! Bam! Rage slumped to my left with two new decorations in his cranium. No hesitation, just execution. It was easy because it didn’t require me to think, not really, only act in self-defense. That was how I justified my murder of a sentient pony. A tiny voice in my head tried to needle me with guilt. I smothered it with pragmatism, and buried its remains with self-righteousness.

Sitting up, I gave my Kevlar vest an affectionate pat (good vest, stopping those mean bullets) and tried to dispel the image of the red pony’s final look from memory and succeeded only so much. Stripping the vanquished dead of their gear provided some distraction. The highlight was the wicked knife of the mare for it was quality, unlike the other feeble pistols that were rusted, poorly maintained low-caliber pieces of crap.

After bandaging my fresh wounds and holstering my rebellious shotgun, I slipped away into the gloom, leaving three more pony corpses to rot, and fade into obscurity under a layer of Ghoul City ash.

***

I returned to the Utility Administration building and immediately knew that something was wrong.

The front doors hung wide open, one of them dangling from its hinges precariously from where my mine had detonated. Inside were the remains of a pony, but not a ghoul. The corpse still had fur and was wearing familiar patchwork armor. Closer examination revealed a cutie mark of a spiked collar. I knew all too well the importance of a cutie mark and what it meant about the character of a pony. My own flank felt the phantom of my branding and I realized they must have seen me leave and come to investigate! That explained how the three had found me.

I disregarded stealth and ran up the staircase, finding two more, fresh pony corpses, victims of my carefully placed mines. At the site of the last mine, some unfortunate had tripped and landed directly on it, leaving his or possibly her, (hard to tell at that point) pieces all over the hall. I ran full pelt now and saw that the door to the third floor office had been smashed of its hinges. I burst in, heedless, to find the room in shambles.

“Cinder! Cinder!” I called. But nothing answered back. The corpse outside was still smoking, so my sister could not have been gone long.

I called up my PipBuck map and tried to breathe calmly. There! The tag for Cinder’s PipBuck was moving steadily away from my position.

“Just hold on Cinder, I’m coming.” I backed out of the room and ran towards the open roof; I bounded and spread my wings wide, ignoring the agony in my chest and embracing the sky between the dead city streets and ceiling of smoke and ruin. At nearly every street corner I stopped and checked the progress the tag was making on the map. I quickly found evidence of whoever had taken Cinder in the form of the occasional ghoul shot to hell. These ponies were armed.

I heard gunfire and ducked into a doorway. Frantically checking the tag once more I saw I need only go a little further. The little griffin in my head cautioned against reckless haste. I couldn’t help my sister if I was dead. Assess the situation, plan my attack. I took a few deep breaths, trying to still my racing heart. It was no good; I couldn’t steady myself, talons shaking uncontrollably.

I had to be strong.

With a deep breath I closed my eyes and summoned up memories of all the injustice my sister and I had suffered. The pain throbbing through my breast helped focus me. With anger, tempered with agony, my breath steadied and my heart beat more strongly.

I could do this, for Cinder.

I leapt up to a roof and started to run until my EFS tagged a group of hostiles and one friendly on the street below. I peered over the edge and spotted seven ponies, clad in leathers covered in spikes and other crude decoration. They were armed with a hodgepodge of weapons. Three sported battle saddles, two with rifles, and one with a long tube. The others had pistols or melee weapons. There in the middle was Cinder, wings bound up cruelly at her sides. She had a rope tied around her neck that was attached to the armor of a large yellow unicorn that had the battle saddle with the metal tube.

That’s when I started to feel very nervous indeed, but I turned it to anger. Not a small kind of anger, a big anger, one that I could feel blooming deep in my chest and gut. Soon the anger was rage, and soon that rage blossomed in my head into furious temper. Ire not just at the ponies who had visited more misery upon my family, I was angry at the very city for causing my sister and me such pain. I wished I could dump the whole Celestia damned thing into a giant fire pit, but I had more pressing concerns than venting my wrath.

The ponies were all walking at a casual pace. One of the rear ponies lagged behind, limping severely, his two front legs bound up in fresh bandages. It seemed my mines had caught more than just four. I felt my insides turn sour in vengeful vehemence and considered my options. Shooting would give away my position, and going hand to hand against so many would only accomplish my death or capture. It occurred to me that justice demanded the ponies burn, and I had just the tools to make that happen.

With a mad grin, I pulled one of my personal firebombs, the volatile mix sloshing innocuously. When the lagging pony passed under my position, I slipped into S.A.T.S. and took aim. It was an easy throw and the bottle landed right on target, engulfing the unsuspecting pony so quickly that he lacked even the oxygen to scream as the flame consumed his flesh. The whoosh of the flame was loud but I had chosen my target well and the pony seemed to have spontaneously combusted.

All the ponies turned to stare in horror as their injured companion dropped with a meaty thunk, smoldering against the road. Next, I readied a length of wire. I waited as the large unicorn that had Cinder tied up shouted at the other ponies until they overcame their shock and were moving again. I walked parallel to their path from roof to roof and caught faint words, but nothing discernible. I waited, took a deep breath, then pounced off the building and curved majestically down towards the poor unfortunate who now occupied the rear guard.

The hoop of wire missed on my first pass but looped neatly around the pony’s neck on the second. She was a sickly magenta and her eyes bulged as she was lifted by the throat. I lifted her silently from the group and hauled her up to a rooftop. Before I set down though I flew up and let a little slack in the line, then allowed the mare’s weight to drop down completely on the thin metal cable, snapping her neck. She hung, limp like a marionette with its strings cut.

Guilt of all things flickered again in the depths of my soul at the heartlessness of my execution of the evil mare. Before a few days ago, killing, really killing anypony was an unthinkable act, but out here, in the harshness of the world it was necessary to survive. Then I remembered Cinder and the feelings were extinguished.

She had been one of the battle saddle wielders and I ripped what seemed to be a hunting rifle from her saddle. She had little else of value and only a little ammunition.

“Where did Lashes go? Anyone see her?” I stole a look over the edge at the slavers again to see them milling about in confusion until the big unicorn once again cursed and threatened them back into order.

“Holy shit, she was just behind us.”

“The fuck is going on?”

“Told you this place is cursed.”

“It’s gotta be that big griffin we saw leaving, you fuck heads! Tighten up and watch the sky!” The dull yellow unicorn bellowed. I gritted my teeth as I watched the ponies draw in closer together. I shifted position to another rooftop and lobbed another firebomb. The moment the bottle left my talon I flew to another building and watched. My bomb was aimed true and succeeded in catching another pony alight, who broke and ran screaming down a side street, shedding burning fur as the fire ate their flesh.

If that didn’t bring the ghouls running, I didn’t know what would. And yet, none did. The further we went, the fewer there seemed to be. At that moment I counted it as a boon not having to deal with hordes of flesh hungry zombies.

Four ponies remained. Two with melee weapons, one of the battle saddle ponies, and the unicorn leader. While the others had been watching the streets in fear, the leader had been watching the sky. I peered over the edge and found the piss colored stallion eyeing me. That alone jarred me, but I was especially shocked when the tube turned out to be a missile launcher.

The building beneath me exploded.

I tumbled through fire and shattered masonry down fifteen feet to the street below, stunned and reeling. Bloodied, bruised, and pissed as hell, I lifted myself up and roared at the two ponies galloping at me. One swung a heavy lead pipe at my head. I moved to the side and reared back onto my paws, extending my wings so that I balanced neatly on two feet, talons ready. The pipe wielding pony came at me again and got an elbow to the throat.

His partner thrust at my chest with a spear. But I was a student of the Iron Talon and twisted out of line with the thrust and snapped two pointed kicks into the spear pony’s stomach. Mr. Pipe took advantage of his companion’s misfortune and slammed his weapon into my leg, dropping me to a knee. I slipped my talons into my gifted knuckle dusters and unleashed three skull cracking punches into Mr. Pipe’s noggin. The dull brown earth pony went down hard and would doubtfully ever be getting back up again.

A spear hit me in the chest, barely stopped by my salvaged police armor. The other pony pulled his bladed stick back and slashed at my face. I reached out, caught the haft, and twisted it, jerking the equine’s head around sharply. Rifle rounds flew past me, two clipping my wings sending grey and black griffin feathers flying. With a firm grip still on the spear, I brought the pony into line with the shots, feeling the bullets pounding indifferently into my meat shield. Without time to draw a pistol, I let his first reaction guide me into S.A.T.S.

Although lacking a firearm, I did have one weapon at my disposal. Still in my kneeling stance, I cocked my arm back, feeling my paws slide through the slurry of ash on the road. With the use of my PipBuck time dilating spell, my muscles coiled like a striking snake and I threw the spear clenched in my talon with a shout. The javelin traced a deadly arc through the air and penetrated deeply into the advancing pony’s flesh at the base of the neck above his armor, cutting through muscle and artery. With a bloody gurgle, the equine fell.

Then the world around me exploded once more.

I was lying on the ground, blinking up at the sky of smoke trying to remember how I had gotten there hearing nothing but a faint ringing. I sat up rapidly and nearly doubled over again as dizziness made my head spin. From far away I saw the unicorn magically loading another missile into his launcher and in my mind registered mechanically that I was probably about to die. Distracted, the pony did not notice until too late the little griffin attached to him by rope, plugging the barrel with a rock.

We shared a moment of connection as she met my gaze with conviction and a glint of victory.

“Cinder, no!” I reached vainly towards my baby sister, imploring her not to, somehow trying to will her deed undone.

The unicorn took aim, and this time it was he who exploded.

Adrenaline spiked and flooded my body. I struggled to rise and found my bulk sluggish and unresponsive. Frantically, I fumbled for a healing potion and downed it in one swift gulp. With new strength, I ran to the crater that used to be a unicorn.

“Cinder!” I called into the dust and smoke. A rattling cough escaped my beak as I called again for my sister.

“Ashes…” A weak voice spoke.

Alive!

I scrabbled over to the source of the voice and stopped cold.

I had found my sister, but only her upper half. From the waist down she was nothing. Loops of entrails hung out of her chest cavity. Blood was quickly seeping from what was left of her body.

“By the Goddesses… Cinder…” I grabbed all the healing potions he had left and tipped them down her throat. She was beyond help, beyond anything short of a healing megaspell, but that did not stop me from trying. She coughed weakly and her eyes, ringed in our mother’s red coloring, fluttered up at my crimson eyes, ringed also like Blazing Glory.

“Hey, I saved you.” Tears of blood traced through her feathers.

“Yeah, you saved me.” My voice caught and choked. This couldn’t be happening. My mind refused, denied what was in front of me. She would be alright. Somehow, somehow beyond all logic and reason I would save her.

“I wish I could have seen mother one more time.” She coughed and sputtered, her life giving fluid spilling freely from her beak. I held my dying sister, rocking her back and forth, uncaring of the gore that soaked my fur.

“You can’t leave me, Cinder! You can’t! I need you. Mom needs to see you. What am I supposed to do without you?” Perhaps, most cruelly of all was that I could smell her, that faint scent of apple flowers and feathery down. But now it was mixed with the heavy scent of dirt and blood. She just smiled up at me, her nervous system likely unable to process pain from the shock.

“You gotta find mom.”

“Please… Sis, don’t die,” my voice was just a whisper and tears were making it hard to see. Didn’t she understand that I needed her!

Oh gods, oh Heavenly Sisters have mercy. Please…

“You can’t die! You can’t! It’s not fair!” It wasn’t! It wasn’t right, or just, only cruel. She had escaped! She couldn’t escape our Stable just to die now.

“It’s okay… I’ll be with dad. Won’t that… Be nice. No… More… Pain. And… Free.” No, no, no…

She breathed out her last word with one last smile and the light faded from her eyes.

No, no, no! NO, NO, NO!

I held my sister as tight as I could, cradling her remains, rocking her back and forth, weeping, and wailing my pain to the uncaring sky.

There, in the blood I sat until no more tears would come, then sat some more.

I gazed into Cinder’s empty eyes and eventually set her down reverently. Everything in my world was now dead or gone, but I would be damned if I was remiss in my final duty. Griffins did not bury their dead, would not consign their spirits to an earth-bound tomb. The spirit needed to be allowed to fly free.

Into a pile, I gathered all the wood I could find. From the ground, from walls, refuse piles and abandoned road side stands. Frantically I worked, throwing myself into it, alternating between tears, anger, and soul numbing sorrow. Part way through my task I found her other half and fell apart again.

When the pyre was taller than me, I set both halves of my sister on top of the pile. My stomach was wound too tight, and too empty to relinquish itself to vomiting from grief. I had also found her packs and laid her paints and brushes next to her. She seemed so peaceful, arms crossed, eyes closed, with that phantom smile still gracing her features.

I stepped back and held my last firebomb, the last of the Stable batch. Just throwing it would be crude and disrespectful, so instead I pulled out the rag and poured the flammable contents on the dry wood. I held my lighter in one trembling talon, open and ready. The tiny flame flickered worshipfully in the stillness. Ever so slowly, I touched the sliver lighter to the wood. Piece by piece, the cleansing flame, orange and pure, lit the pyre.

Numb, I stood, letting the crackle fill my head, unable to find the will to even light a cigarette as the heat caressed my face. Silhouetted against the skyline like a phantom, I tilted back my head and watched the roiling smoke drift upwards, joining that of a dozen others raging through Ghoul City. A bright orange cinder from the fire drifted on invisible thermal currents and landed on the tip of my beak. It burned brightly before it was smothered. In a few minutes the blaze burned high and the pyre collapsed, sending a cascade of cinders skyward.

I watched the tiny lights fly up into the layer of smoke and imagined them going all the way up to the stars.

Then I heard voices. Pony voices, searching for their companions no doubt. I ached, body and soul, having used all my healing potions and painkillers. I summoned the will to produce a pair of huge hypodermic syringes from my pack and read the labels again. The information registered in a distant part of my consciousness that was still working on keeping me alive. I injected one dose of Stampede, then the other.

My gaze drank in the vision of the pyre and felt one more pang of heartache before my mind was consumed in the throes of chem induced frenzy.

***

A pair of earth ponies trudged through the haze where they thought they had heard the sound of their leader’s missile launcher. One nudged the other and pointed a hoof at something coming towards them from down the street. It resolved into a creature of nightmare. Caked in blood and with the fires of hell burning in its eyes, a griffin stalked towards them. It roared like a lion and launched forward. The ponies did what any sane living creature would do. They broke and ran.

A tiny voice, detached, informed me of this, but that voice wasn’t even the ghost of a whisper.

They deserved to die.

With my mind filled with roiling hate, limbs fuelled by a massive dose of combat enhancing drug, I tore after the pair.

They all deserved to die.

I followed the ponies all the way back to their camp. It was a crude collection of tents set near the edge of one of the city fire pits. Another pair stood sentry as the two ponies shot past as if pursed by the devil pony himself. I flew straight down on top one, the force of my aerial impact breaking the back of the unfortunate pony.

They would all fucking die!

The other blasted at me with a shotgun but in my state I did not feel a single pellet of buckshot and tore into the gunner with a berserk strength, rending flesh and breaking bone with each strike, first the sternum, then a leg, then jaw, then brow. The unfortunate blue buck fell to the ground and tried to crawl away. I reared up and brought a heel down against the equine skull, crushing it like an egg against the ground.

The stink of death and fear permeated the air, and I drank it in like a fine wine.

I tossed lit sticks of dynamite into the tents I passed, watching the few ponies left in the camp scatter. The pair that had fled from me originally ran onto a jutting walkway that went into the fire. The motion caught my attention and I let my lion half through, roared with all my might and pursued. I crossed the gap in a flash, the heat infernal above the pit, and through an open door one pony was trying to close.

The door slammed shut, brushing the end of my tail as I shot through the portal into the building.

Had I been in a clearer state of mind I would have observed that the location was marked on my PipBuck as the Ministry of Arcane Science.

Level up.
Perk Gained: With One Stone - +50% range and velocity of all thrown weapons.