Chapter 6: Luna’s Anvil

“We are always on the anvil; for by trials the Goddesses shape us for higher things."

Gunfire.

I cracked open an eye and looked across the grey gravel roof, my consciousness dredging up from the depths of a tortured dreamscape. Skies raked with emotional lightning opened to a firmament wrought with the death of a world. The air was still, hanging like a funeral curtain bearing witness to the mourners, waiting for the deluge of tears.

Tears from heaven.

Quiet was unnerving after several days spent in Ghoul City. The moaning denizens and hazardous unnatural landmarks had provided constant background static. Perhaps unnerving was inaccurate, it was disturbing. Crackling from the great fires was absent even, a welcome but strange turn.

With a groan I rolled onto my back to take some of the pressure off my chest. The sky was so like that in my dreams I wasn’t sure if I was even awake. My pack of cigarettes had gathered condensation from the cold in the facility and was now ruined but for one stubborn crooked stick. Fortunately my lighter was waterproof. Clumsily my claws tried to work it and after a few flicks a little ember glowed in my vision.

The past few days weighed on me. My limbs were heavy to lift, my marrow filled with lead and my feathers made of stone. Within the shell of the armored vest my ribcage rose and fell in a slow rhythm. A rock had worked its way into one of my footpads and nagged at me in annoyance, but my disillusionment was greater than the irritation.

Perhaps the rain would feel good, the cool kiss possibly cleansing my flesh and soul. Grime and grit perforated me. It stuck to my fur, hide, and felt crunchy in my beak. Eventually I would have to get up, but that was future Ashes’ problem.

Gunfire, closer.

It was probably just more ponies killing each other, or perhaps some hapless bystander, or maybe ghouls. The sound was not yet close enough to make me want to get up and I hoped it would stay that way. Sleep had been pursued, and I felt just as tired. Morning had always been my least favorite time. Sleeping on what amounted to a pile of rocks in full gear didn’t help.

Ponies were shooting and shouting within earshot now. The noise was bringing my aching head back into perspective.

A floating black orb entered my vision. I got the distinct feeling it was looking at me.

“Aren’t you going to see what’s going on?”

“Watcher, right? Shit, I thought you were a hallucination. And no, not really.”

“What if they need help?” I liked this Watcher better when I thought he was a figment.

“And? Why would I help a pony?” Even flat and emotionless, Watcher’s voice conveyed the challenge enough to sharpen my wits.

“I thought griffins were supposed to be honorable.” The words stabbed into my heart.

“What did you say to me?”

“Just what I’ve heard.” Honor. What was I without my honor in this hell, this place of death and lawlessness? I gave this Watcher credit; he sure knew how to galvanize someone.

“Never question my integrity.” Now I let indignation carry me to my feet. “Never doubt that I am a griffin of honor.” I snapped in a vindictive tone.

“So, being a griffin of honor would you help the pure? Help the still honest ponies struggling to survive out here in the wasteland?”

Honor meant something different to everyone. Griffin and pony alike all understood it in their own way. To me, it was a code of ethics, of principles that I lived by. My honor commanded that I defend the weak, those who could not protect themselves. It required me to do the right thing. Bring retribution upon the wicked; to not stand by idly while injustice ruled. Act with chivalry, stand by my vows, and conduct myself in a dignified way. This and more defined my actions. It was my anchor, the moral compass that pointed me in the right direction when at a crossroad.

“Alright Watcher, I’ll help.” Honor called me to do so.

“Thank you, Ghost.”

“You know, that isn’t my name.” I heard the voice chuckle in monotone.

“We are what we are, Ghost.” There was a static filled pop and the strange sprite-bot inhabiting hacker faded once again.

Inwardly trying to brace myself for battle I flicked my last cigarette away and crawled to the edge of the roof. There was a low wall that I crouched behind and used as a firing ledge for my hunting rifle. It was a long gun, heavy wooden stock, and bolt action. I only had maybe four clips worth of ammo for it so I would have to be conservative.

Lying prone, I propped the rifle into a gap where the brick had crumbled away long ago and sighted in the direction of the reports.

The veritable moat of flame that had surrounded the MAS research center had been extinguished, even smoke no longer rose.

Could I have done this? With my freeing of the spirit had the fires finally gone out? More shots rang out and my attention was drawn to the firefight going on in the remains of the camp I had gone through. Sure enough, several of the ponies with vicious armor, spiked hair, and insane voices were attacking a lone blue unicorn. His mane was tied back in a simpler manner and he huddled behind a slab of rubble. I saw the pony peek out only to duck pack as a staccato of bullets struck his cover.

By the looks of him, I could guess that at least he wasn’t affiliated with the ponies who had killed Cinder. He wore a set of tan leather barding and had a simple pack strapped to the top of his armor. He fired blindly over his cover a few times with a pistol

From my vantage, I watched the unicorn put away his gun and float out what looked like a sledge hammer. He launched it at the closest of his attackers. The weapon struck the concrete barrier next to his foe and pulverized it in a cloud of powder.

Luna’s frozen teats!

Wow, I gave him a ten for power, but a three for aim. At least the display kept the unicorn’s opponents at a distance. Quickly pulling his glowing sledge back, the white haired stallion whipped his head and struck again with more success. He caught his target in the chest with an audible whump and sent the raider flying like a ragdoll.

The distraction had allowed one of the spikey ponies to sneak around to a flanking position and take aim.

Now it was my turn. Engaging SATS I was frustrated when the spell registered only a ten percent chance to hit. Looks like I would be doing this the traditional way.

With the advantage of elevation and firing angle on the unsuspecting body, I lined up my iron sights. Nothing fancy like a head shot (that would be nice though) I aimed for center mass and squeezed the trigger.

Sounding like a miniature cannon, the rifle boomed. My PipBuck displayed the ammo as being .308, much heavier than anything I had used before. It entered the flanker’s left shoulder and exited his belly. I watched the pony shriek and fall, holding his wounded gut.

The butt of the gun kicked like a mule into my cradling joint. Sonuvahornfucker! Jamming the rifle tighter against my body to better absorb the recoil I pulled the bolt back, ejecting the smoking case and chambering a fresh round with satisfying click-chack.

I turned to the next unsuspecting bastard and shot again. Cursing vilely when I missed, the pony turned and shot up at me. Click-chack!

Shit! I ducked down as supersonic lead whizzed by wildly. Taking aim again I caught the trigger happy mare in the leg. She dropped with a yell but kept shooting. Three more times I missed, inwardly screaming at myself to do better, I reloaded.

Resolved to be patient, I lined up my shot with more imperturbability even as one of the others caught on to my attack and added his gun to the fusillade as well. This time the bullet caught my adversary in the snout, blowing off her lower jaw in a spray of gristle.

Click-chack!

There was a gravelly sound as something landed next to me; something looked suspiciously like a grenade.

I had three options: Move, try to toss the grenade back over, or pray.

Not knowing how much time the fuse had left I just followed through with the first one and dove over the edge of the roof, beating my wings furiously despite the pain that flared in my sternum. Stone showered me as the explosive went off, and the shockwave nearly sent me into a dangerous spin by its proximity. Flung out into the open the gun toting ponies saw me as a better target. Hot lead streaked up at me, catching my right wing and left leg.

Short of breath, I managed to shunt myself forward and let gravity take over to come to earth swiftly. Ugh, why did the ground have to be so hard? Before I could recover there was a pony standing over me, bringing a pistol to bear. Somehow I had kept hold of my rifle, but the gun was too long for me to swing up in time to avert my fate.

An object travelling at blurring speed impacted the pony’s head like a freight train. With a whoosh then a crack the raider was sent spinning with a spray of blood and a pulped head. I looked in the direction the huge projectile had originated and made eye contact with the white-haired unicorn. He gave me a brief nod of acknowledgement and turned to face the remaining raiders.

I tried to shoot again with the bolt action rifle, but my aim was truly lousy on the move and after wasting another few shots, I switched over to my pistols and stood my ground. With battle cries the last two ponies charged me. There was no time for second thoughts, no time for remorse, regret, or fear. They were coming to kill me, and I gunned them down. First one, then the other I laid out to bleed their life away in the dirt.

Warily, I didn’t lower my guard until the last echoes of battle faded away into the city.

“Woo! Yeah, kick some ass!” The pale blue stallion trotted over to me, pleased as pie with his hammer over one shoulder. A balefire bomb couldn’t dampen this one’s spirit. He was tall for a pony, but being a griffin, I still had to tilt my head down to meet his look.

“Wow! A griffin!” He held out his hoof with a wide grin.

This was weird.

My experience with unicorns either had them expecting me to grovel or more recently, trying to kill me. After a moment I took his hoof suspiciously and he proceeded to shake my claw with enough enthusiasm to make my bags rattle.

“The name’s Hammer Horn! ‘Preciate the save. Why’d you help me out?” His cutie mark sure enough was a hammer with a magic contrail.

“Because uhh…” because a robot voice told me to. “Because I saw you needed help.” I shrugged.

“Thanks, might not have made it out of that one. What’s your name?” Genuine was not was I was expecting, and it was disarming for sure.

“It’s…” I hesitated, and then came to a decision. “Ghost. My name is Ghost.”

“Cool!” His magenta eyes glinted in exuberance. “So, are you with the Talon Mercenaries?”

“What? No, what are the Talon Mercenaries?” Hammer gave me a strange look as my brow furrowed in consternation.

“You’re not? But you are available right? I’d like to hire you.” Affronted, I turned away. My services were not bought like some trick pony! The nerve of some individuals.

“Wait! I’ll pay caps! You can split the reward with me.” Yeah, fat chance of that. I kept walking. My sense of duty was satisfied in saving him. That didn’t mean I had to keep helping.

At least the unicorn had confirmed my niggling suspicion that bottle caps were indeed used as a currency in this hell. I went to the closest dead and came up with four switchblades and a bottle of cheap liquor. What pony needed four switchblades? Although, it did give me an idea…

Taking a minute, I disassembled the spring loaded daggers and fetched my brass knuckles. What wonderglue was made of I did not know, but it was equal to the finest cold weld and after negligible effort I had affixed the four blades to the first two rings of my knuckle dusters. Guilt nagged at me, making me hope that Master Grimm would understand the necessity of my modification.

I resumed my plundering.

Hammer Horn cantered to follow me as I looted the camp. All in all, I collected two new nine millimeter pistols, another hunting rifle, and a large double action revolver with no bullets. After fixing the weapons I had, I munched thoughtfully on a spongy snack cake, imagining the preservatives pickling my insides. In one tent not blown up by dynamite there was an ammo container with a few clips of ammo for an assault weapon that I dearly wished for.

The inventory management system in my PipBuck displayed the various weapons I had collected, from guns, knives, an axe, my last grenade, worryingly low ammo, little food, and no healing potions or bandages. Just great.

“Come on, please?” He asked.

“Not interested.” I turned away to head out of the encampment.

“You haven’t even heard what it is yet!” Persistently, Hammer galloped around in front of me. “The mayor of Rust Town herself asked me to do this. Her si…”

My thoughts snapped like whipcord and lassoed his words.

“Wait, did you say Rust Town?” I interrupted, suddenly much more attentive.

“Yeah, her sister was ponynapped. She suspected it was Ragtag, so she sent me here to where she heard some of his thugs had taken her.”

That changed things.

“If I help you, will you take me to Rust Town?” Here it was: a chance to get to the city my mother had gone. If anyplace in this goddess forsaken wasteland held answers, than mayhap this place did. And maybe… maybe if I rescued someone else’s sister, I might begin to repent in Cinder’s eyes.

Perhaps his offer had merit after all.

“No problem! That’s where we gotta get her back to anyway.” Hammer was going to say something further but I held up a talon to forestall him. It took me a moment to realize why I had done that.

Something… familiar? But what was it?

A strange dread set my feathers tingling. Slowly, my wings opened with the instinctive desire to flee.

There! Oh sweet Celestia… no.

A howl comparable to a whisper teased my hearing. Like the wail of the damned, the noise made my hide crawl. My expression must have reflected my terror because Hammer soon had a look of worry.

In the distance the cry was answered.

“We need to find someplace to hide.” The image of several ponies dead in the ash surrounded by a makeshift barricade of cars sprung to mind in concert with a raise in pitch from the howling. Ghouls all around took up the carrion call.

“Now!” I set off at a run, the sound of hooves confirming that Hammer was following. They would home in on the noise and we needed to get as much distance between us and the raider camp as possible. The idea of being trapped on the roof of the MAS building was not appealing in the least. Not after what I had gone through in those dark depths.

From my observations it seemed like the normal ghouls had avoided the Burning Ones, and with the knot that were once below now gone, the zone of safety was lost. It was the only rational explanation for their absence around the facility up to that point.

Now that the fires around the city had gone out, the rain of ash had subsided somewhat. Striding through the streets kicked up a fair bit in our wake from what still remained and I still had no idea whether it was day or night from the haze. Fearfully, I watched the side streets we passed, alert for signs of zombie ponies. Soon the camp was far behind us, but our troubles were only beginning.

All around loomed the spiteful emptiness of the city and the ghouls emerged like maggots from a corpse.

“Don’t stop, keep running!” I called back to Hammer. Using a derelict metal wagon as a step, I jumped into the air, wanting to be out of reach of the ghouls and flew by the galloping buck. He tripped over a skeletal appendage in his run and stumbled with a yell. The ghoul wasted no time and leapt on top of Hammer with gnashing teeth. The unicorn struggled and kicked free with his prodigious strength.

By the time he had untangled himself though, two others were already clamoring to bring him back down. I dove and my spiked knuckles found one’s head, the thin blades cracking through its skull with a crunch. Hammer had taken care of the other one by the time I turned. Both of us were panting in exertion already and I knew that an unknown number of flesh hungry monsters were still bearing down on us.

Desperately I cast out for anything, any escape. It was possible for me to jump up to a roof, although that would leave my newfound companion to the mercy of the ghouls. I might have been strong enough to lift him in another circumstance, but not with me barely able to fly as it was.

Shit, what to do! My first thought was to get off the street. So to the nearest door I ran, ramming into it with all the force I could muster. It was no good though; the portal refused to give. Hammer had followed me and I turned to him.

“No good, it’s locked.” He wore a determined expression.

“Out of the way,” he said not unkindly. I sidestepped as he lifted his sledge in a telekinetic glow and slammed it into the reluctant entry. The door wasn’t just opened; it was torn off its hinges. Wood splinters crashed back into the building. We hurried inside.

It was almost black as pitch so I flicked on my PipBuck light. Hammer and I found ourselves in what I’m sure was once a very nice flat. Pushing my back to the wall by the door I motioned for the white haired stallion to do the same. He held his blunt instrument at the ready.

Quietly we waited, listening to the ghouls braying for our blood. After a few minutes, a snuffling sound came from just beyond the gaping entry and a pale pony quested inside. With a flap I leapt onto its back and plunged my affixed blades into the back of its neck and wrapped one foreleg under its jaw. After a mighty tug and a firm sawing motion I wrenched the thing’s head completely off.

I dropped the head with disgust and dismounted the slumped torso. There was gore coating me to the elbows, thick and ichor like. Another charged from outside and met the business end of a flying sledgehammer. Fragile equine bones were splintered under the force and the mutated thing let out a strangled squeal as its chest caved in.

There was a lull and I considered our options.

I could always set fire to the building. That was certainly appealing.

Lacking any accelerants however meant it would take time. Light from my PipBuck illuminated a staircase but my hopes were dashed as I saw it was collapsed and blocked. For the moment we were hidden and even that was tenuous. We needed someplace more secure to hide like Cinder and I once had.

Despair paralyzed me for a moment at the thought of my dead sibling.

Oh Cinder… Why couldn’t I have saved you? Why had I failed? Fuck, you weren’t supposed to die! Guilt crushed me, dragging my mind deep into dark places. Spaces full of razor sharp regrets and empty promises.

Reality rudely asserted itself with another abomination in my face. Punching it repeatedly with five inch blades vented my feelings nicely. Steel slid between ribs with little resistance, puncturing things that were vital even for monster ponies.

I let the ghoul fall off my knives and took cover again.

“Psst… Hammer.” I caught his attention. “Do you know any place we can go?”

“What’s wrong with here?” I looked at the broken door and gestured. “What?” I face-palmed.

“Just trust me.” He scratched his chin thoughtfully with a hoof.

“Well, I did pass an old church on my way here, seemed mostly intact.”

“Which way?”

“Just a few streets more if we keep going.”

That was just vague enough to work.

So far we had been lucky with the three that had wandered in. Outside, the ghouls still howled in the distance and now was as good a time as any. Soundlessly, I crept back into the open. Moving as quickly as caution allowed I couldn’t help but wince at the clop of Hammer’s hooves against the street.

Every time I saw movement I froze. Luckily the unicorn had the wit to mirror my actions. Haltingly we made our way in the direction he had indicated. Just as I began to hold out the hope that we might yet escape being ripped limb from limb, I stopped too quick with Hammer too close. He walked into me hard enough to knock me off balance. Stumbling, I managed to catch myself against an overturned metal wagon.

Before I could even glare at the stallion the ancient husk of a motor vehicle started blaring a siren!

WEEOOWEEOOWEEOO!

It was as if the wagon was a great metal sheep bleating that the wolves were coming. I clamped my claws over my head, grimacing in pain. Hammer’s ears lay flat as he winced. The air practically vibrated with the sound, drowning out the grating howls.

Celestia fuck my brain with a branding iron! The noise penetrated my skull like a drill bit. I tried to shout at Hammer but my words were whisked away.

Every ghoul within a hundred miles was surely converging.

The blue unicorn was pointing a hoof and trying to speak as well. I looked and saw the indistinct outline of a huge building close by and could only assume it was the church he had spoken of.

Didn’t have to tell me twice.

With a powerful leap I soared once more, quickly outstripping my earth bound companion. The wind whistled in my talons and streaked through my fur and feathers. Dashing the fifty yards was taxing, my eyes burning from the thick air. When I landed at the steps of the great edifice I distantly registered its size and majesty, taking in the important features. It was made of huge, interlocked stones and the double door looked large enough to admit a dragon.

Pushing with all my might, one of the massive, iron studded gates swung open. The noise of the siren still throbbed and I spotted Hammer about half way behind, galloping full tilt towards the open church, pursued by a veritable tide of slavering zombie ponies. Torn for a moment by the sight, my mind was unable to form thoughts, unable to understand or comprehend. There had to be two hundred or more.

Above the sea of writhing flesh there were a few pegasus ghouls as well, their featherless wings giving me chills of unnatural discomfort.

Pushed by a ceaseless hunger, a void of bodies, ready to strip muscle from bone lay behind Hammer. Desire for a heavy machine gun flickered briefly through my mind before I settled on using my last grenade. In the temporal grip of SATS I could see the determined stride of my unicorn companion, his bound mane and short tail flying, and could practically count the number of soulless stares in his wake.

I aimed for the center and toggled yes over and over in my display. Heaving with all my might into the red sea presented by my EFS I almost overshot. The metal sphere bounced once and came to a rest by the still blaring metal wagon.

A hole was blasted in their ranks that was quickly swallowed up. Willing Hammer to run faster, I paid no attention to the cessation of the alarm, nor the fact that the housing unit for the wagon’s engine block had caught fire.

Running unfettered as they were, the hideous mob closed the distance. One of their number broke ahead and latched itself to Hammer’s tail. With a yelp he turned his weapon in a magic grip and swept his assailant away but that slowed him enough.

Seeing the inevitable, I sprinted to his aid using all six of my limbs to lend speed to my dash. As he and I reached he struggled to escape the clutch of mouths and scores of flailing hooves threatening to drag him down. Into the throng I plunged, the horde soon to encircle us completely.

There hadn’t been time to think about the consequences. The idea of leaving Hammer to die, shutting the doors and selfishly saving myself had never occurred to me. Even though I barely knew the pale blue stallion, I would not abandon him. Not when it would directly result in his death.

Just as I grasped his reaching hoof, there was a thunderous explosion. The metal wagon’s powerful internal battery detonated with the might of two dozen grenades, obliterating everything in the immediate radius. Concussive force from the blast flattened or stunned every living thing caught in the open.

Half blind and deaf, I pulled Hammer free. Together we stumbled to the still open doors of the church and fell rather ungracefully inside. In unspoken agreement he helped me push the door closed and we slid a thick, rather archaic wooden beam into metal brackets. Unless the ghouls somehow gained the ability to reason and access to high yield ordnance, the entrance was secure.

Panting, blood throbbing behind my eyes, and legs shaking like jelly, I sat on the cool floor. Hammer slumped down beside me. His mane had come loose and was plastered to his face with sweat. Bite marks and scratches marred his flank and back legs. Looking at Hammer made me aware of my own numerous afflictions. A particularly nasty gash on my left arm was bleeding freely.

Groaning as I twisted, I grabbed my spare Stable 57 jumpsuit and cut strips from the faded blue fabric. I tossed the parts not shredded to Hammer so he could use it too.

Fuck, I remembered there were still bullets in me from who knew how long ago. I knew that it would hurt worse the longer I waited to dig them out, but I didn’t have the nerve just then.

“Hooleeee Sheeeeit! I owe you Ghost, you saved my fuckin’ hide. You were like whoosh! Swish!” Beaming, he bound up his gashes. A little embarrassed I tried to play it off.

“Don’t mention it.” Anyone else with half a conscience would have done the same.

“BLASPHEMERS!” A voice decried. Upon an indigo carpet set between rows of dark pews, a pony marched aggressively toward us. My EFS tagged it… yellow? It seemed to be a Burning one but… dissimilar. And here I was, thinking I had seen all the crazy shit this city had to offer.

Silly me.

The aberration was dressed in long, patched together robes. Its skin was paler than most of the others, but most striking was the glow. Luminescent spots shined through holes in the dark garment, and its eyes were shimmering lighthouses. What threw me off though, was the color, not red, but green.

Like Balefire. Or what I imagined Balefire to be.

“Begone ye unholy creatures! I will not have you profaning this sacred-! Oh!” He, for the voice was definitively male, stopped in front of us, his expression softening markedly.

“Why hello, children. It has been too long since I’ve had proper visitors. Please forgive my outburst; I assumed you were some of those wretched looters.” He opened his front legs in welcome. “Come, come! Let Anvil Church offer you sanctuary in these dark times. Luna’s blessing upon you both.”

Wait, how did he know we weren’t looters?

“Ghost…” Hammer’s tone conveyed what I was feeling at the moment as well.

“Just go with it.” Better to play to the thing’s madness than try and contradict it.

“This is weird though right?”

“Just a little,” Suppressing the urge to step away, the ghoul grabbed Hammer and I around the shoulders and guided us down the aisle.

Personal space!

Oh that was just... ugh! He was squishy.

“See how the fair lady rewards my vigil! Oh, what a wonder it is to have pilgrims in the church once more. It has been too long since I held a proper sermon. You have kind hearts lads for listening to this old preacher. Excuse my ramblings; few and far between are the opportunities I can hold conversation with anyone other than the cursed dead and bandits.”

“It’s alright mister…?” I ventured.

“Reverie, Reverend Radiant Reverie if it please ya.” Somehow, he struck me as a benevolent soul who had been lost in the dark of the city and had kept his faith, had remained loyal to his murdered goddess. Even after the end of the world he never stopped believing. Maybe he had a few loose screws, but I could respect that.

The screws and the religion.

“What are your names boys?”

“Hammer Horn, sir.”

“Uh, Ghost, sir.”

“Hammer and Ghost! Ghost Hammer!” He cackled in mirth and continued to drag us down the long, stained carpet.

As we walked I took a moment to marvel at my surrounding.

Anvil Church was an example of architecture I had only read about. Fluted stone columns and flying buttresses of beautiful speckled stone supported a vaulted ceiling that inspired awe. Regal ribbed arches held up the roof of the imposing cathedral. Dark stained pews neatly led the way to a pulpit and altar.

The ghoulish clergypony had maintained his domain admirably.

It was the window, a mosaic of stained glass that garnered my attention; more than the murals, more than the marble statues, more than all the rest. Luna, or rather, a representation made of many indigo glass panes stood over a great anvil, dozens of stars surrounding her with a down turned crescent moon presiding over the whole piece.

A few candles were lit on the altar, casting their flickering illumination upon the glass.

Reverie sat us in the front row with a warm smile and took his place upon the raised dais. “I see you’ve noticed my pride and joy. Anvil Church was built a few years before the war to celebrate Luna’s return to the throne.” He touched a hoof worshipfully to the base of the work. “This tells the story of how in the beginning of the reign of the two sisters, when Celestia commanded mighty Sol, and Luna, sacred Moon, the nocturnal lady sought to enrich her night.”

Moving behind his lectern, he began to orate.

“She saw the boundless blank dark, and thought to create the stars. In the great plains, far from any city where the light would spoil her work, Luna erected a great anvil. Using all her might, she struck the anvil, shattering it into uncountable pieces and flung them into the heavens! Using those little points of light of so many colors, she painted the great tapestry of the sky for all beholders of the night.”

“And how her subjects marveled, creating names for the brightest, crafting telescopes to better view her wondrous work, and following the paths of the constellations. It is said that from that anvil sprung not only the stars, but dreams as well, that even in sleep Her subjects may revel in the wonder and mysticism of Her domain. From the night and Her dreams came the muses, which inspired such artistry and beauty unlike any seen before.”

“Praise the Goddess Luna in Her light! Her undying contribution to the sky!” Reverend Reverie put his hooves together and bowed his head in prayer.

”Oh sacred lady, though we are cut off from your holy sight, we are ever your faithful. Watch over your children who need watching dear lady; shelter them from all the evils of this world. Please, keep the souls of our departed close to your bosom that they find may succor in the next life.” The glowing ghoul in his strange, priestly garb looked up at Hammer and I, grinning.

To me, the pony faith in their dead rulers had always simply been a matter of course. Growing up with it, I didn’t consider it my own but my speech still reflected their curses and sayings. Maybe Luna and Celestia were more than just ponies, but to me they had never been gods. Sadness was the only feeling the thought of benevolent dead watching from on high ever elicited.

There was a loud crash at the door, rattling the bar in its brackets. Perhaps I had overestimated the strength of the church doors. It sounded like the ghouls were throwing themselves against it by the cacophony. Reverie had a strangely remorseful look on his hairless visage.

“Oh my poor flock. What few of my congregation who still have their senses do their best to reign in the feral ones and guide them away from travelers.” He sighed. “Though many are slain, I begrudge nopony the right to defend themselves. Perhaps it would be different if there were some promised land I could lead Luna’s lost children, but alas she has not deemed me worthy of her holy vision.”

Crash!

I exchanged a worried glance with Hammer. No place was safe, not really. Not in Ghoul City.

“Mr. Reverie, is there anything you can do to send them away or something?” Come on crazy preacher thing can’t you speak ghoul?!

“Luna damn those accused demons! Them and their red flame! Their unholy conflagration has led so many of the faithful away!” The earth pony ranted as if I hadn’t spoken. I thought it best not to interrupt. He continued his tirade, denouncing the ‘demons’ and their corrupting influence.

Huffing with indignation, he seemed to notice our presence once more.

“What was that sonny?”

“I said, can you do anything about…” Crash! “… that?”

“Oh! Why didn’t you say so? Of course, a good tongue-lashing will teach them not to violate the church.” Abruptly, some clarity seemed to return to the ancient pony’s demeanor. He seemed to drift between two worlds, one where he still held his post and vigil like before the war, and one rooted in reality.

“I warn you, young griffin, I cannot turn them all away. Some have been lost on the path of damnation for too long to hear my words. Those, you will have to contend with. Though I am loathe asking this, in absence of any alternative, you must free their souls from this earthly torment. Will you do this for me, Ghost and Hammer?

Hey, it was either that or be eaten. I didn’t see what else we could do, so I agreed. Hammer had been quiet through Reverie’s sermon, looking around himself in awe, but piped in his ascent as well.

“I do have something here that may help.” He ducked out of sight rummaging behind his lectern. “Aha!” In triumph he came back up with the neck of a bottle clenched in his teeth. With a flick he tossed it to me. “Marauder Brew. I was a battlefield chaplain back in the day, used to give this to troops to put a fire in their bellies that words sometimes couldn’t. It’s a secret recipe that I whip up myself in big casks below the church.” He said with a wink.

The label was of a massive red stallion with unshorn fetlocks rearing back. I unstopped the decanter and took a healthy swig. Pow! The liquid hit my mouth like a brick! The potent concoction singed my taste buds and scoured my throat with its unique kick.

Crash!

Soon, strength flowed back into my limbs, my fatigue washing away. I knocked back another hit of the drink and handed the half-empty container to Hammer.

“Do you have any more of this stuff Reverend?” Said the stallion, smacking his lips.

“Oh no, come back in a week, the fungus from the latest batch should have fermented by then.” I blanched and looked at the empty bottle feeling just a little queasy as I heard the white haired unicorn gag.

“Free these blighted creatures from their maddened state, lads and you’ll have earned it. Let their souls return to Luna.” Reverie said, stepping down from the dais.

The pale blue unicorn and I followed the sentient ghoul, practically giddy as the effects of the drink throbbed in our systems. Reverie trotted confidently to the great doors of his church, the wooden beam visibly bending in the middle with the force of the ponies outside throwing themselves against it.

Hammer shoved some of the pews out of the way to make a clear space for us to do battle and held his weapon at the ready. Reverend Reverie stood defiantly before the barred entrance as the beam gave way. A wave of crazed ghouls fell inward, many crushed to death by the weight of those behind. Before the horde could take another step, the lone earth pony spoke with a voice that cut through even their clamor.

“HALT! In the name of Luna, I command you halt!” His internal glow seemed to swell and shined like a stoked forge. And many of the ghouls did, staring at him with vacant eyes and slack jaws.

But some did not.

A few struggled past their frozen fellows. They ignored Reverie, dismissing his quasi dead state in favor of Hammer and I.

“Remember my faithful! Do not succumb to the depravities that have so consumed you.”

A dozen ghouls or more, maddened beyond the call of reason, charged me. With a burning wrath, I counter-charged and activated SATS. Under the influence of the Marauder Brew, I was somehow able to stretch the spell capacity of my PipBuck matrix and targeted five separate enemies.

With zeal unknown to me until then, I smote my opponents with knuckle blade and lion paw. In the span of a blink, aided by unicorn magic, I tore out a throat, ripped off three limbs, and kicked in a ribcage. There was no time to do any fancy maneuvers, so I relied on muscle memory and placed my blows as accurately I could, backed by Brew boosted power. The five I had targeted dropped off my EFS as threats.

“The madness does not control you so long as you choose not to let it! Fight the voices of the Demons!” Reverie was a rock in the storm, refusing to crumble before the raging sea.

Some of the ghouls actually began to get strange looks, as if in inner conflict. Some though were too far gone, and pushed by the mob into the church.

It seemed the ones who ignored Reverie’s passionate oration were also the ones who had decayed the most. Their limbs and hide were fragile and disturbingly pliable. My knife punches parted flesh like it was rotten meat.

“Hey, Ghost, I’ve got two already!” I turned to Hammer in disbelief, watching as he pulled his sledge from a slain zombie-pony.

Was he really starting a kill competition with me? The… sheer morbidity!

Good thing I was already in the lead.

“I’m at five!” Surrounded by death, by chaos, and my own demise tenuously held at bay, somehow I was grinning. I unholstered my shotgun and pulled the trigger twice. Buckshot dropped another of my foes.

“Six!” Popping the catch, I jumped into the air and hovered beyond hoof reach to reload.

Bam! Bam! Seven.

“Luna’s light still holds sway so long as Anvil Church stands! I ask you now brothers and sisters will you stand in Her sight and hold yourselves proudly?” Perhaps some deep rooted part of their rotten brains recognized the old preacher from old repetition, or perhaps his words really did carry the weight of a goddess behind them. In either case the ghouls, some at least, started to turn away and shuffle away back into the city.

A ghoulish pegasus with its featherless wings flew towards me in a berserk determination. I just held out my knuckle knives and waited for the mindless thing to ram itself upon them as it charged. The thing gurgled with ten accumulative inches of steel penetrating its lungs.

Eight.

Another flying effrontery slammed into me from the side, hurling me into one of the fluted stone pillars. Air rushed from my beak as the impact winded me even through the armored vest. The ghoul clamped down on my neck and I immediately grabbed its head to prevent it from ripping out anything vital. Panicking, I slammed my right fist repeatedly into every piece of anatomy in reach. Wings flapping futilely, I tore open the bullet wound in my right appendage.

Nine.

Growling, groaning, and huffing, slowly the thing went limp and I could breathe again. I shoved the dead weight off. Nearby, Hammer was barely keeping his foes at bay with wide sweeps of his sledge.

Breathless, my adrenaline blotted out the pain. All sense of time had been lost to me, since awakening to Watcher asking for me to care, to help, to the impossibility of my current circumstances. If I stopped and tried to think of the scope of my experiences leading to that point, the weight of it all would have stalled me.

I chose to accept the strange things as they came, and in that choice I rejected disbelief. Barreling through monster ponies, I stood beside a unicorn who I had just met, and together we killed.

As Hammer struck and pulped one about to jump on my back, I whipped past him and eviscerated a ghoul about to bite him on the ass. The stallion may have been able to hit harder, but I was much faster, gutting two more by the time he had slain another. One remained, and Hammer reared back, ready to smear it across the stone floor. I shot it with a SATS guided burst of pellets, blasting off its face.

He gave me an indignant look and nickered. “That one was mine!” Still short of breath I could only give him a grin that said ‘too slow’. “Well, I got seven.” I flashed all eight of my digits then five more. The look on his face was one I would treasure dearly.

“Go now my little ponies! Stray not into the abyss of your sins. All will be forgiven by our merciful ladies!” The last of the crowd of ghouls drifted away like lost sheep, their vacant gazes were saddening. They had once been thinking, reasoning creatures, and some dim ember of conscious self was rekindled by Reverend Reverie.

If only for a moment.

He turned from the gaping doorway, cast a mournful look at the lifeless vessels at my feet and Hammer’s hooves, and smiled at us. The smugness I had felt at outscoring the unicorn drained away as I remembered that Reverie had probably personally known some of the ghouls we had killed.

“I’m glad to see you two survived. Once more, I must apologize for the behavior of my charges, they get unruly at times.” The preacher seemed to drift for a moment before coming back to earth. “I shall see to it they are buried properly in the church graveyard with dignity.”

“Do you need any help?” I asked.

“Oh no, kind of you to offer, but that is my task. You two pilgrims are more than welcome to rest here for the night.” Somewhat relived, and somewhat guilty at feeling relieved, I cast a rather uneasy glance at Hammer at the prospect of sleeping in the old church that my companion seemed to share.

“Thank you, sir, but we really should be going.”

“Youth, so impatient to be off. Before you set off, I would have you perform a service for me now.” Did everypony in the wasteland have some task they couldn’t perform on their own? “I have this old memory orb here, and darn it all I cannot for the life of me recall what’s in it! It’s the darnedest thing really, having a memory and not being able to remember what it is. I do know it’s important though, something that shouldn’t be forgotten.” Reverie dipped his head into a deep pocket in the side of his robes and pulled out a small, crystal sphere. He spat it at Hammer, who promptly fumbled the object trying to catch it with his hooves.

I rolled my eyes and picked up the tiny thing. Ah, the convenience of opposable thumbs.

“So these are… what again?” I turned it over to better examine the palm sized item. There was a strange little spark between the sphere and my talons.

“It’s a memory orb. You just touch it to your horn and-“

Hmm… I was a pony.

Celestia fuck my ass and call me a griffin popsicle, I WAS A PONY!

Let me list all the wrong in this situation:

There was a soft, frighteningly fleshy muzzle where my beak should have been. My prehensile lion tail was dismayingly absent along with the stability it provided. Don’t get me started on the fucking difference between hooves, paws, and talons! It’s huge!

Don’t panic. Just stay calm I must be in a memory.

Wings… oh my wings… panicking, panicking!

Just stay calm. Deep breathing. Can’t control host.

… Fuckberries.

Being inside the crystal was much less disconcerting interestingly enough. There was a marked difference between being semi-bodiless, and being a fucking stallion. They were two very separate apples!

Even the stallion part was… weird. As a well-read individual I knew full well the… ahem… anatomical comparison between the species. The experience was certainly enlightening in an academic sense. Yet I couldn’t help but feel the lesson was neither wanted nor needed.

Woo, okay walking on hooves was equally disconcerting.

“So what can I help you with, filly and gentlecolts?” Articulating with lips… if I had the faculties to shudder, I would. My host, whom I dearly hoped and assumed, was Reverend Reverie moved to stand behind his pulpit. Judging by the feeling of fur, I guessed this was prior to his ghoulification.

From the raised perch, through Reverie’s eyes I saw Anvil Church and its three occupants in the light.

Sunlight… real rays poured through the colored glass I knew to be at my back. Celestia’s grace refracted and glowed, catching motes of floating dust turning them to specks of gold. Oh please Reverend, turn your head just a little! Let me see it, let me see the life giving face of a goddess. A glimpse, all my possessions for a snatch of that sight I have only read or head tell of.

My mind conjured clear blue skies with the sun above it all, yearning and craving after that ideal.

But Reverie did not turn his head. He didn’t need to affirm a fact he had taken for granted since the day he had been born. No, my host’s attention was solely fixed on the threesome standing at the base of the dais.

A deep blue stallion and a soft pink mare flanked their apparent leader; a tan nag with a greying mane. All were unicorns, and all wore very serious expressions. Having grown up with ponies, I deduced that their cutie marks had something to do with magic, all having sparkles, stars, or other mystical symbols.

The principal pony spoke first, the other two seeming to defer to him.

“Are you First Chaplain Radiant Reverie?” The voice was akin to a pair of boulders grinding against one another.

“That I am. Although, it has been a while since I retired from the field.”

“We are here inquiring about one of your congregation, a mare by the name of Synthesis?”

“What business do you have with the filly?” Reverie’s tone was tinged with suspicion, as would have been my own. The tan unicorn produced a rather official looking badge with a trinity of brightly colored balloons.

“I assure you sir; we are Ministry of Morale agents. We just want to ask a few questions.”

“I’m sure you do, inquisitor.” The speaker was taken aback for a moment and my host used the opening to continue. “Aye, I recognize the badge of that office so I’ll ask again for it is privileged information you seek and inquisitors are not in the habit of pursuing casual knowledge. What business do you have with a filly in my charge?”

The ‘inquisitor’ had a brief, muttered conversation with one of his subordinates. Then his horn lit up abruptly and all feeling fled as the body I inhabited went numb and slumped to the floor. Unable to speak or move, the preacher darted his eyes in fear between the three.

And I was along for the ride.

“Why are we bothering with this recalcitrant old fool?” Sniffed the blue colt.

“Because, Dazzle, a pony will confide things in their preacher. Things they wish kept in confidence.” Chided the leader. “Rosedust!” he snapped.

“Yes, sir!” The pink mare piped up.

“Let’s see what the good Reverend knows.” Horn glowing, the one identified as Rosedust touched the radiant tip to my/his head. I knew what was coming but lacking the actual memories being pilfered all I felt was a very distinctive discomfort. After only a moment or two she pulled away and tapped her magical extremity first against her superior’s horn, then to Dazzle’s.

Fascinating! She must have shared the hijacked recollections with the other two.

“Synthesis has made much more progress than we have anticipated.” contemplated the old stallion.

“Shall I pass it along to the ministry?”

“No, the information is too delicate at this stage. Twilight Sparkle is scheduled to have an inspection of the facility in a few days. Let her get the gears in motion. The rest of the ministries will be after the research like sharks with the scent of blood.”

“But, the ramifications for Morale! Besides, Pinkie is sure to suspect something if our report doesn’t match her predictions.” chipped in Rosedust.

The tan inquisitor shook his head. “Our good scientist needs more time. Let me deal with the Ministry Mare.”

“Hmm, once the proper channels are informed everypony will want a piece of this pie. I imagine even the OIA will have a say in its dissemination.”

“While the advancement Synthesis has achieved is certainly beyond what we expected, it is not beyond our capacity to control. After the visit, we shall plant the seeds of dissent among her staff. Once she’s reported for possible mental instability she will be under our direct administration.”

“Shall I pass word along to Luna’s-“ Started Dazzle, only to have his superior cut him off.

“Do not speak the name! Even the whisper of a rumor of them is hunted down and sourced.”

That wasn’t strangely menacing at all.

“Apologies, my inquisitor.”

“Patience, Dazzle. I’d be surprised if they didn’t already know. All that’s left for us is cleanup.”

“What do we do with the preacher?” asked Rosedust with a flip of soft lilac mane.

“Pull out our visit, give the orb to him, and wipe the rest. Tell him that it’s a matter of national security that he safeguards it. If he has half the patriotism he seems to, he’ll keep it secret.

“Are you sure that’s wise? I mean, he’s only an earth pony, but still.”

“You two still have much to learn about memory. If we wipe all of it, there’s still a chance somepony good enough can snag an edge and drag the rest of it out. Put it in an orb, make Reverie think it’s vital, and he’ll lay down his life for it. It’s simple pony nature. We can’t have any evidence on ourselves. I don’t want a paper trail of any sort for this operation.” He looked to the mare.

“Make us disappear Rose.”

“Yes, my inquisitor.” Her horn lit once more and the memory melted away.

My eyes opened to the sight of Anvil Church’s ceiling, no longer lit with Celestia’s glow. Radiant Reverie and Hammer Horn stood over me with concerned expressions.

“You alright, Ghost? You touched the memory orb and fell over! You’ve been out for a few minutes.” Spoke Hammer. I lifted my claw into view and saw the small crystal still clenched in my fist and dropped it like a piece of red hot metal. Sitting up, I used a piece of cloth to grab the innocuous looking sphere and handed it back to the glowing ghoul.

“I saw…” wow was this going to sound crazy. “I saw your memories Reverend.” The pale blue unicorn looked thunderstruck.

“That’s not possible. Only unicorns can look at memory orbs.” There was nothing I could respond with to that. No rational explanation came to mind. Radiant Reverie ignored my blatant violation of magical law while Hammer looked on the verge of an aneurism.

“So what was on it? It’s been so long, all I remember is that it was important for some reason.” Whinnied the black robed clergypony. I fiddled with my lighter nervously, flicking the tiny flame off and on, considering what to tell the old nag.

“Do you remember a mare named Synthesis?”

“Of course! Bright young filly, always going on so excitedly about some research she was working on. Sweet as could be she was.” He said fondly. “What about her?”

“Well,” I supposed no real harm could come from the truth. There was a certain lack of contextual details that made the memory a strange conspiracy with dead threads. Only fragments of what had been said made sense and even then only after my digging and experience with the spirit down below the MAS facility. I stuck only to the memory however, withholding my own input.

Radiant contemplated the story I told him for a moment. “Oh dear, an inquisitor you say? I do hope Synthesis wasn’t in any sort of trouble. That clears up that mystery at least. I had a few dealings with Morale officers, always a strange lot. Very uppity if you ask me.”

At that point I felt Hammer and I had lingered entirely too long and wanted more time to digest the web of intrigue and the ramifications of the revelations.

“Thank you very much for your, um, hospitality but we really should get going.”

“Of course, my child.” I motioned for Hammer to follow and we walked to the door, being careful to step around the dismembered ghouls and pools of blood. Reverie escorted us to the steps outside.

“The doors of Anvil Church shall always be open to you both.” Ambivalent cheer bloomed in my chest at Radiant’s words. Here was a genuinely gentle pony among all the death and decay, unwavering in his dedication telling me it was okay to come back. He held a hoof towards us and closed his luminescent eyes.

“Sacred Lady, watch over these travelers as they walk or fly. Turn away those who would do them harm. Shine your light on their path in these grim times. Though the grace of your heavens has been stolen from us, we know it shall someday return.” Both Hammer and I thanked the glowing pony one more time and set out once more.

***

“So then he says, ‘I want to talk about something else.’ And then, looks at me with a perfectly straight face and says, ‘I have to go now.’ And just walks off!” It hurt my chest to laugh, but damn if I didn’t chuckle a little at Hammer Horn’s story.

“So Hammer, you’re a unicorn, what’s the deal with these memory orb things?” I wanted suspicion deflected away from my apparent ability to touch the innocent looking things and be sucked into another’s memory, but there was no helping it. There were two more resting in my bags and I dared not experiment without getting a little more information first.

“Er well, it’s simple enough really. A unicorn that knows the right spell can put any memory from themselves or another into an orb, and then a unicorn just has to touch it with their magic and they can relive the memories over and over. A lot of times you find ‘em and they’re from way back during the war.”

“Are they dangerous at all?”

“Not unless you find one that’s damaged, or has a password. May as well put your brain in a blender with those, but those are really rare. The biggest thing you gotta worry ‘bout is that you’re pretty much a dead fish for the duration.” My mind neatly dissected the tidbits Hammer had fed me and filed them away for later.

Since leaving Anvil Church I hadn’t spotted a single sign of the city’s undead denizens so on we walked.

***

“Let’s camp for the night.” My companion had no objections. We had been plodding through the empty streets for a few hours. His hooves and my feet were really starting to drag after making our way in the direction the unicorn had said the missing mare was supposed to be in.

After a little scouting, I found a gutted building with four standing walls so we could have a fire and not attract attention. I guided my unicorn companion to it and set about breaking up the decrepit furniture sticking out of the rubble.

No red bars had appeared on my EFS so it seemed harmless enough.

In a short time I had kindled a modest flame. To my surprise Hammer Horn set up a pot on a little folding stand above the blaze and began cooking. He unwrapped some meat I couldn’t identify and tossed it in. Soon enough, the roasting smell floated on the air, teasing my nostrils and making my mouth water.

“Ya know, I’ve always wondered something.” I gave Hammer a questioning look. “How come some griffins are different? Like, how come your talons aren’t yellow? And your feathers, what’s up with that?” I wanted to retort with something witty about pastel ponies but just rolled my eyes.

If I had a bit for every time I heard that one…

“Ugh, isn’t it obvious?” The unicorn shook his head. Groaning, I explained. “It all has to do with the bird. Eagles, ravens, hawks, and falcons and other hunting birds make up the breed. My mother was mostly red-tail and my father pretty much all raven. Most griffins you see have at least a little eagle, hence the yellow talons.” I waggled my grey claws and Hammer gave a knowing ‘Ahhh’.

Humph, damn specist ponies.

“So where are we headed exactly?”

“Well, I thought they were keeping Ravelin near the MAS facility,” Fear spike through me as I considered the possibility I had killed an innocent in my drug induced rage. “But there was no sign of her, so Ragtag must have her held at the old school.”

“Ragtag?” I asked before lifting my left foreleg to check my PipBuck map. There was a new little tag with Southvale Elementary as the label. The seeming omniscient automap never ceased to amaze. We had made good progress, having trekked almost half the entire span of the city and were close to our goal.

“You don’t know who Ragtag is? What are you, fresh out of a Stable or something?” Hammer mocked with a chuckle. Then he looked up at me and my arched brow.

“Hey! That’s one of them Pip things!” Really, he just now noticed?

“Wow, you really must be from a Stable. I never knew there was one with griffins in it.”

“Oh yeah? And how long have you been out on your own?”

“Who me? Only about a week. Set out from home with nothin’ but my sledgehammer and a pocket full of dreams.”

Gag me.

“Here, this is supposed to be a big help, but I haven’t really stopped to read any of it.” He floated a modest book over to me. It was titled The Wasteland Survival Guide: Badlands Edition. I cracked the cover and perused the table of contents. The scent of the stew continued to waft as Hammer stirred the pot.

“There’re a few powers in the wasteland you need to watch out for.”

“Powers?” I asked without looking up.

“Yeah, ya know, factions and stuff. Really, there’re ponies that will shoot you on sight and ones that won’t. The ones that’ll shoot you are the raiders, nasty ponies who’ll kill you, eat you, and steal your stuff. If you’re lucky, they’ll keep you around to sell. There’re also Hoofington raiders that wander in from time to time. They’ll eat you, rape you, and then kill you. Slavers of course, those are pretty self-explanatory.

“But you gotta watch out for the gangs too. A step above raiders, more organized. Some do slaving, some just rape and pillage. Really, the big two you need to beware of are Red Eye and Ragtag the Jag.

“Red Eye you might hear talking on the Sprite-bots about his vision for Equestria. He gives me the creeps personally; king of the slavers pretty much if only because he’s their main source of business. He’s all the way up in Fillydelphia so we only have to deal with the slavers moving north to sell to him.” My feathers stood on particular edge at the mention of slaving.

“Ragtag though is pretty much the king of all things bad and nasty down here along the border. Drugs, slaves, and the gangs trip over themselves to gain his favor. They call him the Jaguar because he’s so slick and smooth. Ragtag the Jag.

“There’s the southern chapter of the Steel Rangers, but they keep mostly to themselves. And every now and then, you’ll even see some zebras wanderin’ about. Most of ‘em are harmless, but the ones you don’t see are the ones you gotta be careful of. They’re Remnants and they still follow the teachings of the old Caesar.”

“What about griffins?” I closed the cover to the guide to listen more attentively to his answer.

“Well, every griffin I’ve ever met has been a merc, either independent or Black Talon. Hear Red Eye’s been buying up most of them too.”

“Now wait a minute, every griffin? I mean, I understand a lot of pony cities were destroyed, but what happened to the griffin council? The city-states? The griffin kingdom? They can’t all be gone.” Hammer gave me a worried look.

“I’m not sure I should be the one to tell…” Patience was one of my strong suits and at the moment it was sorely thin.

“Tell. Me. What?” The unicorn fidgeted slightly under my intense glare.

“Have you noticed how the sky is never clear?” Up to that point I had attributed it to Ghoul City and the fires kicking up so much ash that it occluded the sun, however Hammer seemed to be suggesting there was another cause so I nodded.

“That’s the pegasi. After the war, they closed the clouds and have kept them closed ever since. There hasn’t been pegasi really living on the surface for two hundred years. And now this is just what I’ve heard but… The Grand Pegasus Enclave needed all the space they could so they… well they annexed every griffin city above the cloud line. There is no more griffin kingdom.”

Ponies… fucking ponies and their goddess damned war!

Was it not enough to destroy the world? Starving the surface of the sun, was that not enough?

No, they had to steal the skies belonging to my people. My heritage, gone because some ponies thought having feathers made them better! That’s always been the problem, ponies thinking that they know better. Ponies thinking that they should be in charge just because they had hooves, or a horn, or wings.

Incensed, inwardly fuming, I lashed out at the pony nearest to me.

“Fuck you, Hammer! Goddesses damn you and all you fucking ponies!”

“Woah there! Look, I don’t know everything, you’ll just have to find a pegasus and ask them okay?” He said, trying to placate my wrath.

“I’ll just go up and ask one then.” Anger blinded me, and I rose to my feet genuinely prepared to fly straight up and do just what I had said.

“Don’t do that! You’ll be blasted out of the sky before you can get past the stratus. One thing I do know is that they have a lot of old tech and enough guns and lightning coils seeded up there to start another war.” Simmering, I sat back down.

“Damn dude, I didn’t think you’d care that much. Most griffins don’t.”

“I guess I’m not most griffins then.”

“So what’s with the cutie mark then? Seems like you’re trying to be a pony more than anything.”

Fuck you too Hammer. Fuck you with a hammer.

“Yeah well, in the Stable I was branded. Do you understand that? I had this burned into my fucking hide okay? It’s easy for you ponies. We can’t all be lucky enough to have a magical symbol appear on our flank. Some of us actually have to search for what we’re good at instead of it being laid out on a silver fucking platter okay?” Maybe I was being a little antagonistic, but the unicorn had pissed me off.

“Just because it’s what I’m good at, doesn’t mean I like it.” He sounded genuinely hurt. Well good, it was about time somepony started to feel guilty about the injustice meted out to my race.

Though I would deny it to the end, perhaps there was just a hint of jealousy pricking my soul.

I had grown up a second class citizen, taught to worship the ground upon which ponies trod. There was pride in being a griffin, superiority in being able to fly. The desire to have been born a pony had occurred to me when I was younger while watching the unicorns performed their wondrous magic. Even the earth ponies with their natural aptitudes impressed.

For all the good my wings did me, I was just a bird in a cage.

And of course, the cutie marks. Blank flank fillies could look forward to being endowed with that special mark, denoting their place in the world and showing them their path with unfailing certainty. Hatchlings had no such luxury, no such guide or hope. A griffin could live his or her whole life and never know if they had wasted it searching for their special gift.

Cinder and I had been lucky to be good at the things we enjoyed doing.

Silence stretched between Hammer and I while I brooded and he stirred the stew.

“Do you have a radio in that thing?” He broke the quiet first and gestured to my left wrist.

“Yeah, why?”

“Could you turn on DJ Pon3? He’s got the best music.” Music? Sure, why the hell not? I fiddled with the tuning knob on my PipBuck, flicking through static. With a pop, a voice emitted from my wrist.

“…everypony doin’? Now, recall old DJ Pon3 warnin’ you about Baltimare and its horde of ghouls? Well, some weird stuff’s been goin’ on down in Ghoul City ‘cause it has gone dark. What, did somepony finally decide to throw the switch? Also, there have been startling accounts of some crazed griffin busting up the Baltimare slaver camp and then vanishing. From the Big 52 to the badlands it seems ghosts are popping up everywhere.”

Baltimare. So Ghoul City had a real name after all that had transformed with balefire.

“There must be more griffins flyin’ around huh?” Spoke Hammer.

“No, no that was me, I think.” I hadn’t meant to take credit; it had just sort of slipped out. The stallion gave me a dumbstruck look to which I just shrugged. I seemed to be doing that a lot lately.

“And my little ponies remember, when the raiders come there’s no shame in locking the doors and hidin’ under the bed shakin’ like a foal. More news at the top o’th’hour.”

“I’m as sweet as apples in august, high as a kite in the blue summer sky. No more a filly being so silly I have found me a colorful colt!”

I kept the volume low as the lyrics drifted softly in the air. Hammer hummed along with the song.

Cinder would have loved this.

I had come to expect the worst from all ponies so imagine my surprise when a bowl of thick stew telekinetically appeared in front of me. Honestly, I had just assumed the unicorn was cooking only for himself. Steam wafted from the hot concoction and I took it gratefully. A little breath to cool it and I tilted a little into my mouth straight from the dish.

It was good. More than good: it was amazing! As much as I wanted to dwell in my sadness, wallow in… whatever it was I was supposed to be wallowing in, the soup warmed my insides and soothed the ragged edges of my grief. My anger against the light blue pony faded. Too much had happened.

In a few gulps, I drained the bowl, chewing on the meat.

“You like it?” Hammer asked as he floated my empty dish and refilled it.

“Mhm.” I said around a mouthful. His face lit up like a sun talisman at my praise as I gorged myself on another helping. Soon enough we were talking amicably again.

Pain spiked through my skull, right under my left eye. I checked and found no blood. It was just a searing spear of discomfort.

Stripes.

What the-

Cloaked stripes staring down through a scope.

Level up.

Perk Gained: Iron Talon Rank 1 - Years of training have hardened your claws into deadly weapons. +5 unarmed damage.

(Author’s notes: Alright, I know I said it would be out yesterday but there was a huge storm, power outage, all that jazz. So here it is now! This is the first all new chapter, the first five having been written, just needing revision. Questions? Comments? Flame?)

(Note: Vanilla Milkshake. That is all.)