The sharp report of a shotgun blast echoed through the streets, and ponies screamed as they ran from the human in their midst.

Toting an almost comically undersized shotgun, the human went about his work, muttering inaudibly over the echoes of shotgun blasts. All around him, ponies lay wounded and dying, and red shells littered the ground.

One unicorn mare staggered around a corner into an alleyway, and squeaked when she ran into hard metal.

“Are you okay?” the white guardsmare asked as the unicorn bounced off her breastplate.

“I’m fine,” the mare gasped, slipping around behind the guardsmare. “I just got clipped a little.”

“Nothing broken?”

“Nothing major,” the mare whispered. “Not like Stonehammer. That human... he shot his legs out from under him, broke his legs...”

“Shh,” the guardsmare whispered, poking her head around the corner to see the human. “Go, hide. I’ll see what I can do, okay?”

The mare nodded. “Celestia bless you.”

The guardsmare pursed her lips. “Bless nothing. This is my job.”

“Doesn’t matter,” the mare whispered, breaking into a limping run as she made for cover.

The guardsmare watched the mare run, and stepped out. Blood liberally coated the cobblestone streets, trails forming where ponies had dragged themselves behind pillars and planters to lie there, gasping for breath.

In the middle of the carnage, the faintly-purple-armored human stood, his armored carapace splattered with blood that rapidly dried, while shoving more shells into his shotgun with a thick thumb. Under his boot, a shape that looked identical to himself lay sprawled on the ground, a crater blown out of its’ chest, exposing tell-tale flesh. Around him, guardsponies circled warily.

“Leave him!” the guardsmare declared, yelling at the guardsponies. “Help the civilians, he’s mine!”

“Yes, Sergeant!” the guardsponies said as they recognized her rank, and with a swift motion, took off, and grabbed as many ponies as they could before flying over the buildings and out of immediate danger. The human regarded the guardsmare with interest, not slowing his reload.

The guardsmare sat down, and took her helmet off, breaking the camoflage spell that gave the Guard it’s uniform appearance. White coat gave way to charcoal black, and a blue mane became a shade of sea green.

“I see you still carry my shotgun,” the guardsmare stated, getting the attention of the human, who froze, and looked at her more carefully.

“Shirley’s shotgun,” he said coldly, loading the last shell in without looking, and racking up a new shell as he began to advance. “She’s long gone.”

“Not as gone as you think,” the guardsmare said, standing up and unfurling her wings. “And it’s Ridgeback these days.”

“Doesn’t matter,” the human said, going into a slow circle as Ridgeback did the same. “My daughter died the moment she got caught in that potion bombing.”

“I suppose, if I’m no longer your daughter,” Ridgeback guessed, “Then I should just call you Richard, huh, Dad?”

Without warning, Richard fired the shotgun, and Ridgeback dived for cover behind a waste bin, flinching as buckshot cascaded off the public convenience.

“Why don’t you get it?” Ridgeback shouted. “Ponification isn’t a bad thing!”

“It changes people!” yelled Richard, firing another shotgun blast as he advanced on Ridgeback’s position slowly. “You used to be against ponification, humanus pro vita! Now look at you! You support the tyrant with your own body and life!”

“Because I finally saw the truth!” Ridgeback yelled, running for new cover as the bin disintegrated into bagel wrappers and milkshake cups. “What about you? You ride into a peaceful nation, in a machine named “Tyrant”, to bring war on the innocent, those who never did you anything but good! How can you call Celestia a tyrant?”

“Because I am right,” Richard yelled. “You’ve been brainwashed, there should never be a single ruler! And this is a nation founded on a fear of God!”

“It’s not fear!” Ridgeback shot back, rolling behind a convenient bench. “It’s respect!”

“Respect for what?” Richard yelled, firing another shot. “Your Princesses do nothing but sit on their throne, and do a job that nature should do itself! What is there to respect in sloth?”

Ridgeback grunted as a pellet of buckshot carved a gouge through her unarmored shoulder, and rolled it experimentally. “The Princesses can do so much more than that! They can fix any problem, lead us through any trouble! They are gods, Dad!”

“How do they do anything that a human cannot?” Richard demanded, firing his thrusters to leap into the air and draw a bead on Shirley, who had no cover against attacks from above. “If they are gods, why do they not do godlike things?!”

Ridgeback dashed for new cover as pellets punched a shallow crater in the ground. “Because we need to learn for ourselves!” she shouted back. “If your father does everything for you, however will you learn?! You taught me that!”

Richard paused. “I did, didn’t I?” He raised his shotgun again, drawing a new bead. “I guess that’s a lesson that backfired on me, now, isn’t it?”

Ridgeback spun behind a pillar, rearing up as she pressed against it to avoid the hail of lead that sought her out, and bent her neck sideways to grip the handle of her knife, strapped to the collar of her armor. With a tug, she pulled the blade free, and the weapon’s seven-inch blade glinted in the sunlight with a magical sheen. The venerable weapon had gotten a few upgrades since she’d first received it, such as a magically sharp cutting edge. It cut through metal like a hot knife through butter, it should work on her dear old father’s armor.

She spun out of cover, and broke into a run as Richard touched back down on the ground, squared his posture, and pulled the trigger on the shotgun.

Click

Ridgeback knew her old weapon better than anyone else. The heft of it in a palm. The way the butt was worn from being pressed against her own shoulder, once upon a time. How it hated flechette rounds, and liked to send slug rounds off on funny tangents.

How it only had five shells after a reload, not counting the chamber.

Richard snorted, and cast the weapon aside, drawing his own knife. Ridgeback saw the glitter of energy that followed it, and knew that around the blade, a subatomic edge was formed by transparent, invisible fields of energy. As sharp as her own. She didn’t slow down. The first rule of fighting with knives, don’t be afraid to get cut. Another lesson.

The bloodstained cobbles passed by underneath her hooves as she ran, and the heavy stamp of metal pistons and rubber answered in response as Richard charged her in return. Ridgeback beat her wings for extra speed, gritted her teeth, and the moment they got within arm’s reach, they attacked.

Two knives swung, glints of deadly light in the street, and the two combatants slid to a halt five steps apart, facing away from each other.

The few conscious ponies that remained saw the event, and through hazes of pain, struggled to identify what they’d seen. Who had actually landed a hit?

Ridgeback gave in first, her leg shuddering as she collapsed to one knee, the wet thap of flesh falling to the ground as her wing fell free of it’s long-time home, spots of red tricking from the clean-cut wound to fall to the soot-and-blood-stained street. Her knife fell from her mouth and landed point-first in the street, sinking up to it’s hilt in the stone easily.

“That’s my knife,” Richard whispered. “You kept it.”

“Of course,” Ridgeback grunted. “My father gave it to me when we were finally reunited. Always said a knife was the handiest thing you could have around. Never let it leave my side.”

Richard sheathed his blade, and turned around. “Your father sounds like a wise man. I’d like to meet him, learn his wisdom.”

Richard groaned, and sank to his knees, clutching his side. A thin slash had been cut straight through the armor; it didn’t penetrate the internal armor, but it was enough. Purple flames licked at the edges of the cut, despite Richard covering it, and he screamed as thaumic radiation found it’s way through, and began to burn him.

“I think you already know him,” Ridgeback said, looking her father in the visor, as the man screamed inside his armor. Purple flames began to escape his armor seams, and blinking LEDs on his armor began to go dark. The visor flickered, and the opacity circuits burnt out, revealing the pained gaze of Richard, staring back at his daughter.

There were no more words, even the screaming had stopped. Richard’s gaze never faltered, even as his flesh turned black. Steam escaped the armor, and it began to collapse on itself, melting into a pile of slag.

It didn’t take long. In times long past, scientists worked out that on the edges of Equestria, where thaumic radiation was weakest, death would occur in thirty seconds. Here in the heart of Equestria, where it was much stronger...

The helmet fell inside the cuirass, and a thin purple fluid began to trickle out of the armor in rivulets. Soon, all that remained was a shell of the purplish, magic-resistant metal.

Guardsponies arrived, descending to help the wounded. One of them readied a healing spell, and fired it at Ridgeback. The spell was a rough one, grabbing flesh and sealing wounds crudely and quickly to stop bleeding.

It was far from painless, but that wasn’t why Ridgeback was crying.