The day broke quickly, the sun was already outshining the moon’s glow. Graphite was still fast asleep, but Olive had left his side a few moments ago; he was used to breakfast being prepared at about this time in the morning. Olive woke and was already waiting out in the main room of the pharmacy; Mayflower had cracked open a few cans of peaches for the foals. She had a three wooden bowls left over, but she had the only thing left over to hold the peaches were unwashed plates - one of them chipped. The next wave of fillies and colts came into the Pharmacy; after Olive came Angel Eyes, then Gumdrop right after her.

Gumdrop was a very upbeat pony to say the least - even being soaked down in the black rains couldn’t kill her cheery disposition. She had a very thin, black mane - the rains caused the hair in her mane to fall out, and in her tail, it only stopped coming out after a rinse in concentrated potion - her coat was also blackened by the rains, but only at the top, the rest was a stained pink. Her voice was very high pitched and loud, and she let everyone hear it often. Gumdrop was bounding just beside Mayflower as she opened the cans.

After Gumdrop came Hot-Sauce, who was dragging Blankey away from the back room as she held a tight hold onto her blanket. She was a tiny little, dark blue filly with a relaxing yellow mane that lay straight. She was holding her blanket in one hoof; the blanket was an old blanket and was a very discoloured gray and had numbers among numbers of brown and blue patches to stitch the holes in the blanket together. Her eyes were half closed and her free hoof was used to rub her groggy eyes awake. Hot-Sauce had her by the arm, helping her into the pharmacy by dragging her there. She didn’t seem to mind, but she didn’t seem awake enough to notice. Aside from the other foals who have lost family members, Blankey was the only one to not experience family life - she was an orphan for what seemed to be forever. When Mayflower and Rotten came across the abandoned filly some time after escaping the slaver camp, she was deep asleep and only had her blanket to keep her company. That was Blankey’s special talent - sleeping, and she practiced often.

All the fillies and all the colts finally arrived at the main room of the pharmacy, all of them gathering around Mayflower as she popped open the final can of peaches.

“Everyone ready for breakfast?” Mayflower playfully asked, bring about the dishes full of peaches in her telekinesis spell.

Hot-Sauce, Angel Eyes, and Gumdrops all exclaimed a hardy, “Yes!” Especially Gumdrops; Olive and Blankey, on the other hoof, were a little less excitable - in that, they didn’t say a word.

Only when the word ‘breakfast’ came echoing through the back room, would Graphite stir. His ears perked at the word, he brought up his head and yawned a yawn. He outstretched his body from hoof to hoof, arching his back and straining to pop the joints back to place. With a few crackles, he got up, heading for the exit for the back room. The group of children sat in a circle with Mayflower as they biggest point in this collection.

“Did someone say breakfast?” Graphite opened up, getting the last few stretches out.

Mayflower turned her head to see Graphite, the kids were to busy eating to notice him, “Yeah, we’re having can peaches. I might have just enough for you if you’re feeling hungry, Graphite.” Mayflower stated with a mouthful of peaches.

“Alright, I can get that myself if you show me where they are-”

“-No,” Mayflower interceded, “I’ll get it for you. I found our storage space was unlocked; so I’m not going to let anyone near the food except for myself.”

Graphite tried to hide his worry with a fake smile, hoping Mayflower didn’t know that he was the one digging through their storage space.

Mayflower trotted to the food storage for the spare peaches. In the mean while, Graphite sat down and watched how rest of the children were eating their breakfast. Most of them ate the food as quick as they could, almost like someone was going to take it away from them. They even stuffed their whole snout in their bowls to dig the peaches out. That was accept for Blankey. She sat there on the ground, covered up in her blanket and nibbled each bit of the peach in her mouth before eating it, like if she was checking it if it was edible or not.

Graphite looked at Blankey for a while. She looked so peaceful, almost like she didn’t know what kind of a hell the world around her had turned into - or even the rudeness of the family around her. He even gave her a little smile, which she didn’t notice of course.

There was a loud clanking from the back room, Rotten must be climbing down the ladder again; the clangs turned into hurried stomps. Graphite’s once calm moment was now interrupted by Rotten’s shouting, “Hey, Graphite - I’ve got something! Get your ass upstairs and bring your rifle!”

Rotten made it seem like this was something important, so Graphite went up to check it out and went to the back room for his rifle, then got on the roof where Rotten was lying. He was surveying the territory beyond the city.

The roof was Rotten’s territory, and he guarded it daily. No one but Mayflower dared to enter it because of how defensive he got when they did. Rotten had set up himself makeshift bed our of a cardboard box. Next to it lied a few empty cans of peaches and a few boxes of ammo.

“Quit fucking around and come see this!” Rotten ordered Graphite as soon as he got on the rooftop.

Graphite went up to the edge of the roof and placed his rifle on a wall, checking to make sure it was sturdy. He looked down the scope and saw a group of grungy ponies with homestyle rifles accompanied by three griffons that were packing bigger firepower. They all looked ready for a fight and they definitely had seen some combat before, they were decorated with scars and scraps. One of the griffons even had a suit of black combat armour with a decal of an eagle talon painted in big on the chest.

“I hate griffons,” Graphite mumbled as he looked down the scope.

“Griffons...? Lemme see,” Rotten demanded as he pushed Graphite aside from his rifle scope, “Well, shit. Those are the slavers... and they’ve brought some company.”

He got up and dashed over to grab his submachinegun, “You stay here and play sniper for a while, I’ll go and warn the others,” Rotten dropped down the ladder opening and landed down in the back room.

“I’m a sharpshooter, not a sniper,” Graphite mumbled while he looked down his rifle’s scope again and continued to observe the situation.

The group of slavers slowly moved down the street, they had a small conversation going on; what it was about, Graphite didn’t want to know. The kids went inside the buildings along the street in which they had punched some holes in the walls so that they could easily connect them to each other. He could see Hot-Sauce getting on the top floor of a building with a bag full of her home made firebombs and a pistol. Rotten, Angel Eyes and Gumdrop soon went into another building nearby, each equipped with a submachinegun. Graphite could hear Mayflower and the two other foals doing something downstairs, but he couldn’t tell exactly what.

Mayflower and Blankey were huddling inside the pharmacy, preparing for the oncoming onslaught. Rotten was heading out of the pharmacy with Hot-Sauce, Angel Eyes, and Gumdrops. Rotten’s group was heading for the apartments just across the street.

The slavers neared the pharmacy, they obviously knew that the kids had to be there waiting for them if they had to bring all their firepower. Graphite was going to put his sharpshooter’s training to work, getting a good view on the head of what seemed to be the slaver lead. The leader was a griffon -- of course -- it was easy to tell since her black armour suit had thicker steel plates and the biggest painting of a talon on her chest-plate. Her feathers were ruffled and dirty, the ones on her head were styled up in some sort of mohawk. Her mohawk was dyed at the tips of the feathers, changed to a crimson red - possibly blood from all the ponies she’s dealt with in the past. The rest of her posse were in clear view behind him. The ponies that tagged along were equipped with make-shift rifles and spoiled in tape and extra parts. The griffons were on either side of the leader, they were wearing the same black armour suit, but their suits weren’t as decorated.

Graphite took in a breath and tunneled his vision down the scope of his rifle, but his aim was thrown off by a series of loud bangs from the first floor of the pharmacy. He didn’t even get to blink as there already a volley of three missiles flying for the centre of the group. The griffon leader swooped up into the air to where Graphite couldn’t catch her in his scope again.

As soon as the rockets reached the group, they collided with the road and burst into a loud a boom. The explosion sent up a big cloud of smoke into the atmosphere along with some limbs flying off the carcasses of the ponies.

Hot-Sauce threw in one of her home style firebombs from the rooftops. The bottle shattered and lit up two remaining griffons at the end of the group who couldn’t get their thoughts together to react to the surprise. They screamed as their feathers now soaked in a mixture of petrol and alcohol caught on fire. The griffons tried to drop down on the ground to put the fires out, but the petrol kept the fire going and they both died in a slow, fiery death. The dying cries of the griffons made Graphite’s blood curdle; the unnatural whelps of suffering was scraping against Graphite’s ears. Hot-Sauce didn’t see or hear any of this as she threw down some more flaming bottles down behind the group, lighting up the ground behind them on fire and cutting off their path of retreat. When Hot-Sauce ran out of fire bombs she left the rooftop and headed for where Rotten and two of the foals had taken up position.

With no path of retreat, the rest of the slavers continued to scatter down the street. They continued to move up to the pharmacy as they saw that the rocket had came from there - and that meant the kids were in there too. As they ran down the street, the group of foals popped out from windows of the first floor of what used to be an apartment building. The group opened up on the slavers and with a hail of bullets took down four slavers.

Two more slavers remained. They were pinned down across the street behind a bench and the mail dropbox next to it. They ducked down as far as they could to avoid the flying bullets but, the slavers didn’t have any cover from Graphite’s line of fire.

Graphite took aim once again and carefully set his sights for the back of the neck of the pony who sat behind the bench. He steadied his aim to an almost pinpoint accuracy, he planned on taking down the pony in a way which would be as swift a death as possible. He squeezed the trigger and the bullet spiraled out of the barrel, flying amongst the popping of the pistol and submachinegun fire made by the group of foals. The bullet went through the back of the slavers neck and into his skull, killing him in less time than it took for the bullet to get there.

Graphite hesitated on taking the shot on the slaver who was behind the dropbox. The light gray mare had dropped her rifle on the ground and was to terrified to pop-out from the cover. Her hooves were holding her head down close to her body, her whole body was quaking in fear. Graphite looked down on the mare with his rifle scope and saw the look on her face. It seemed like the whole her life was flashing before her eyes. He probably had the same look on his face when the children opened up fire on him.

Graphite's thoughts were interrupted as he heard some clinking sounds from behind him. It was as if someone was climbing the ladder to the roof. He turned around and saw the griffon which had escaped his view earlier with a short steel wire and too wooden handles on each end. She held the wire in her talons with a tight grip and didn’t think twice to tackle Graphite and attempt it get around his neck.

Graphite stopped the wire right as it came down, but she pulled it back and the wire pulled his hoof against his own neck. The griffon tugged and tugged, getting the wire tighter against his hoof and neck. In a last ditch effort, Graphite tumbled over, getting the griffon right underneath him. He used his magic to grab the knife from its sheath and flung it towards her head - but missed the mark, and only sliced a feather from her head.

The griffon eased off then quickly pulled again - even stronger than before. The pressure from his own hoof was strangling him, he was started to fade as the air slowly escaped his lungs. Graphite cringed; like a movie, he started to fade out and was going to cut to his final credits - but then the pain released in an instance.

Graphite gasped, taking back in all the air he lost and then some. The wire slid off his hoof and unto the floor; Graphite looked ahead of him as he got off the griffon’s body. Standing there with a pistol in mouth, was Olive - he came up without a sound as usual.

Whether by stroke of luck, or true valor, Olive had arrived just in time to save Graphite’s life. The was a weapon in Olive’s mouth, a small pistol no bigger than him. With one bullet, Olive took down the slaver and asked nothing in return.

Graphite shook the blood and dust off his body, then went over to grab his rifle. He turned to Olive, who was just standing there in his usual innocence, and told him, “Thank you, Olive.”

Olive responded with a single blink, and a leave as he climbed down the ladder of the pharmacy. Graphite smiled at his gesture - his very simple gesture. He brought the rifle around his shoulder and climbed down the ladder with Olive.

Graphite and Olive walked outside of the pharmacy. The firing had stopped and Rotten, with his group, stood near the mailbox; all were pointing their guns down on the gray mare. She was still lying down by the dropbox, shivering and tears rolling down her cheeks. The mare had some fresh bruises and flesh wounds, probably from the hail of projectiles recently.

“What’s going on here?” Graphite interrogated as he was approaching the mare.

“What the fuck does it look like? We’ve got ourselves a prisoner!” Rotten said and kicked the mare in the stomach, “Ain’t that right you bi-”

“-Stop it!” Graphite pushed Rotten aside with both hooves.

“The fuck are you trying to do?” Rotten pushed him back and glared at him, “These bastards killed our families and now they came here to kill us! Don’t you try and tell me that they don’t deserve it!”

“Alright, tell me this - how are you better than them if you’re beating a defenseless mare?”

“Defenseless? Fuck you!” Rotten shouted and grabbed one of the pistols from the foals. He was about to shoot the gray mare, but Graphite stopped him. He charged and pushed Rotten into the wall, making him drop his pistol.

“We’re not going to kill her! If you do, I’ll throw you out in the wastes with four broken legs and let you really become rotten!” Graphite said through the skin of his teeth as he was holding down Rotten with the mass of his body and his face against the wall with his hoof, “Did you understand that?”

Rotten nodded nervously. The glow in his eyes had turned from rage into one of shock and terror, his whole body began shake and shiver with chills of fear.

“Good...” Graphite released Rotten and walked back to the downed mare. He looked down on her. Though he had made it clear that they won’t kill her, the mare still looked at Graphite as if he would be her executor.

Graphite asked her, “What’s your name, ma’am?”

“R-r-ricochet,” The mare answered in a trembling voice.

“Ricochet, it looks like you’ve been wounded. Would you mind if we help you?” He asked her in a kind voice.

“Umm, I-i-i guess not...” The mare’s voice now had a sense of confusion to it. She probably couldn’t understand why would ponies who attacked her just moments ago would be so kind to her now.

Graphite took out his yellow first aid kit from the inside of his duster. He then used his magic to take out one of the purple syringes and remove the safety cap, “This might sting a bit, so please hold still.”

Ricochet closed here eyes and bit her teeth together. She jumped a bit when Graphite injected her with the potion. The potion coursed through the needle and through her body. It regenerated the beaten flesh and pulled together the scratches and scrapes.

Ricochet opened her eyes, all the wounds and bruises had healed. She patted on her rump and her arms to see if everything had really healed, “How did you do that?” She wondered still checking herself, sniffling the last few tears away.

“It’s the potions healing -- kinda like magic. You’ll feel numb, but everything is there,” Graphite tried to assure to make the mare feel better. He knelt down so the mare could wrap her arm around his shoulder and he could pick her up and get her back to her hooves.

Graphite helped the mare over to the pharmacy; Mayflower and Blankey were waiting inside, watching as Graphite help the slaver into their building. They watched as they saw their potential kidnapper hobble inside their home with the help of the stallion that was ready to kill her. Graphite came inside the pharmacy, the mare in tow, the rest of the kids followed close behind - Rotten still had his gun in his hoof at the ready.

“You think you can set out a place for her to rest, Mayflower?” Graphite requested.

“Yeah, I can set out a blanket in the back r-”

“-The mare stays in the main room,” Rotten interrupted Mayflower, “Graphite, you can be the one to watch the bitch since ya’ love her so much.”

Graphite wasn’t in the mood to start up another fracas, so he responded back in a low, “Fine.”

Mayflower didn’t say anything either, she went ahead to the back room to grab an extra blanket for their new guest. Rotten was no different than his usual grumpy attitude, and his seeming urge to storm up back to the roof of the pharmacy. Mayflower came from the room with one of the blankets Graphite used to sleep on. Rotten was going into the room just as she was leaving, nudging her aside to get through. Mayflower ignored it, most likely use to that kind of brash demeanor. She shook the blanket out, then laid it on the floor just aside the food storage, “This is all I have for you, Ricochet,” Mayflower regretted to say.

“That’ll be fine... t-thank you, so much-” Ricochet started have a choke in her voice; no longer fear, but of shear thankfulness. To be spared your life is definitely something to be thankful for.

“It’s not a problem,” Mayflower answered.

Graphite let her lean on him just a little longer until they reached the blanket; he let her down slowly and carefully, and fixed the blanket as it folded when she lied down. She laid her head down on her arms, curling up to fit as much of her body on the small blanket as she could get. She looked back up one last time, and from the corner of her eye, she a band of angels watching over her - two of them - her guardians.

She closed her eyes, taking her rest and letting the wounds heal and for the numbness to subside. Mayflower let her rest, not saying a peep. She guided the foals back into their rooms, patting Graphite on his shoulder as she went away. Graphite stood by, guarding over the mare just as he was ordered to do.