“Sorry, was just readying my next weapon, but to answer your question about my shooting, I had the help of about fifteen vials of Dash.” Backlash gave me a weak smile, but it explained why the fat bastard looked like he was about to blow out an artery.

My head fucking pounded from Backlash’s little SATS trick, but nothing was going to stop me now. He was all out of ammo, and all out of chances. Now I just have to wait to see what pathetic attempt he can pull out to stop me before he kills himself. Well, whatever he tries, I’m getting in the last shot. His party ends when I say so, not before.

He pulled a small glass jar from his bags, and for once it caused me pause. He spoke up, “This pipbuck you gave me has really helped a ton with doing stuff as well, you know that?”

“Fifteen? That’s suicide. Your heart will explode before you get a chance to give me whatever... that is you think will save you. What are you going to do with that jar anyway, season me to death?” I just didn’t really care anymore. I had seen all of this being so fun in my vision, but I guess that’s the downside of it? It’s like going through it a second time, and it’s all so… boring.

“I’m not giving you seasoning.” He strained to even lift the blue jar, giving it only a meager toss that I easily thwarted with a quick shot from my portable six shot life eliminator!. Though the flaky substance rained down from the air, I smelled just the slightest hint of familiar magic from it. He attempted to follow up with a witty remark, “I’m assaulting you with it.”

It came back to me in a flash, the smell being one from Pinkie’s distant memory of a prank against her. This must be killing joke, the lethal variant of the plant that bitch dealt with so long ago. I licked a few flakes from my muzzle, finding that they tasted like a rich and creamy chocolate.

“Guess it was really safe.” He groaned, clutching at his chest like he was in pain. Heh, pain. What the hell would he know of true pain. I’d show him, I’d show ALL of them how much fun real pain can be.

“Really Backlash, did you even think this through?” I sighed, feeling nothing but disappointed for our epic and final showdown. This was the one point in the timeline when he could have changed it in his favor, but as I expected, he failed yet again. As he collapsed to the snow, it was cute that he almost looked sad that it didn’t work. I wish I could keep that face, frozen in a sad look as he accepted the fact that I had won, and he had lost.

Oh, wait, I could keep it that way!

With a flick of my hoof, I raised and fired my revolver, drilling a nice hole in Backlash’s split coated forehead, and blowing his bothersome brains all over the snow. His dim eyes were even sadder than before with the light of life removed from them, but it was a goddess damned kodak moment! Oh why did I have to forget my camera back in the Manehatten Orchard?

I shuddered as the block on my pinkie sense lifted, and I could once again see what was to come. The images of me melting his mare friend in the pond machine’s taint, were downright ecstasy in my perfect brain. Next, that griffin fillyfooler and pegasi bitch would come in. The best thing about it is that Carlotta’s curse would take care of her for me, as the door panel I shot on in my moment of crisis before running out here, would die and drop that 2 ton slab right on her. Even cut in half she’d live long enough to watch in tears as I melted Skyline’s precious head against the ministry shield.

With the pool in my hooves, and the only ponies standing in my way dead, there was literally nothing that could go wrong. Oh this plan was so perfect, I might just make love to it later. Though, I’m not sure I’d have the time, seeing as it’s a wild wasteland out there, and it’s about time somepony painted it pink.

Stepping over the corpse of Backlash, I lifted the briefcase with the megaspell in it and entered 0000 to shut it off. Hey, Twilight doesn’t get all the glory when I can be ingeniously simplistic as well! I tossed it aside and reached out for Backlash’s corpse, knowing that family was his thing and he would want them to die by his side. I felt the suction against my hoof that everything that belonged to me gave, his body easily being drug through the snow onto the platform.

I got myself comfortable on the transport pad and hit the down button. In a flash I reappeared, finding myself just where I wanted. My eyes lit up and my mane poofed back up to where it belongs as I was met with the delightfully pain filled eyes of Longbow. Stepping through the pink shield with a roll of my neck, it was time to get down to business.

“Long live the queen.”

“Sorry, was just readying my next weapon, but to answer your question about my shooting, I had the help of about fifteen vials of Dash.” My heart pounded against my chest as the pressure inside my body increased. The small glass jar I brought out in my hoof was the only thing capable of stopping her now.

Wait, did I really just think that? Has it really come to me leaving the fate of equestria down to the chance that dried poison joke could kill her? I couldn’t help but let a chuckle slip through my muzzle at the hilarious realization of how ridiculous this whole fucked up fight was. I know I should be trying to win, but now I couldn’t stop laughing. Funny thing is, neither could 42.

Letting the jar roll from my hooves as I doubled over, flopping into the snow while my head spun. 42 let out all sorts of gigglesnorts as she rolled about with me. In ten seconds flat, the months of agony, death, and chaos my life had become, all seemed insignificant up here on this mountain top. I don’t know if it was the drugs threatening to stop my heart, or if I finally just snapped and lost my sanity, but I just couldn’t bring myself to continue fighting.

It must have only been minutes, but it felt like hours that we both just sat and laughed. Every time we would try to compose ourselves, one of us would crack and we’d start the process all over again. Of course, being the better pony, 42 was the first to actually compose herself. Here walking over to me was a fairly sharp reminder that I needed to cut it out, giving me the push to finally contain myself. As I sat up, there was a thought that went through my mind, making my head ebb in pain as it rushed out through my muzzle.

“Why are we fighting anymore, 42?” Shaking my head, the pain in my chest started to grow, hurting more with each breath. “You have such potential to help everypony, to help rebuild the Equestria that once was.”

“Why do I continue to fight? Because everypony didn’t want me to be the way I am. I fight because to them, I was only supposed to be cannon fodder.” She growled out her animosity, but it wasn’t placed toward me. “They saw me as nothing more than a clone.” She glared at me, her bloodied mane deflating and falling flat. ”But I am a pony, and the second I stop fighting, I risk becoming only what the wanted me to be. With fighting, I have the purpose that I know I control my own destiny.”

I couldn’t help but laugh again as I’d heard a waiver in her voice. “If that’s how you think this life works, you’ve been had.” My chest flared in pain as my earlier actions came back to remind me how stupid this had all been. “Yes, destiny is what you make of it, and you can change it if you really want to, but I don’t think that’s what you’re really afraid of. If you say that they saw you as nothing but a clone, and you are actually a pony like you say, then you have had every right to ignore what they thought and move on. Dwelling on it only says that some part of you deep down is scared that they’re right.”

42 just stood there silently as I continued. “Everything that you’ve done, as horrible as it’s been, doesn’t make you evil. The ponies who made the wasteland in the first place weren’t evil, they were just trying to make a better world. I know that there is good in you somewhere, 42. Deep down inside, some part of you knows that you could be using your abilities to help instead of harm. I urge you, please, listen to that voice. Don’t be the monster we’ve made you out to be, you can do better than that.”

My legs faltered under me, giving out and dropping them into the snow. With my heart racing in my chest, I tried to take slow, deliberate breaths. The altered vision my pipbuck gave flickered and faded as it shot a spark out from the overused archanotech device. As the wind picked up, and the only thing that filled my vision was the hung head of 42, I couldn’t help but wonder what would become of everything I’ve done.

“Do… do you really think that?” The walls of 42’s mind were breaking down, I could hear it in her voice. “Before I knew… all I wanted to do was to be liked by everypony, to be their friend. But they turned on me, isolating and studying me like I was just a thing.” She was crying now, and the soft thud of her revolver hitting the snow was music to my ears. “I was so alone… I just, lashed out in the only way that made sense to me.”

I knew what I needed to do. I knew how I could be better than the ponies of before, and it was only because I made the mistake of releasing her, that I realized just how much it could change my life. Friends have been something I relied on, so maybe it was time to give her one of her own.

“I… forgive you.” I gasped out, looking up to her as I struggled to keep my vision focused. “For everything, 42.” They were the hardest words I’d ever have to utter in my life, but seeking solace for my mistakes in the ponies (and griffon!) around me, was the only way I’d made it this far at all. My need to kill 42 was based off our wasteland’s idea’s of good and evil, but who’s to say that I can’t change it?

“You… forgive me?” She sniffled, a confused look running across her face as she took a few steps forward. “Even with what I’ve done? With how far this has all gone?” She kneeled down as she reached me, tears dripping from her muzzle to the snow by my head.

“I... do.” I gasped, feeling a numbing pull through my extremities. “We have to be better than we’ve been, or history will repeat itself. As a pony, it’s your responsibility to work for a better future.” As soon as I’d finished, I lost control of my lungs. I needed to hold on, just a bit longer.

“I’m so sorry…” 42 leaned forward and wrapped her hooves around my chest, pulling me into a hug as she finally let loose. “How do I repent? How can I live knowing what I’ve done? I don’t know what to do, Backlash.” She laughed and sniffled against my neck. “But it’s ok, right? You’ll teach me how to be better, won’t you?”

“Live like every… other pony.” My eyes were getting heavy, and I could feel my strength leaving me. “Help them… with the knowledge…” I couldn’t take full breaths anymore, and my eyes dropped shut for the last time. “It’ll never be... enough.”

With that, my heart stopped.

I died up on that mountain top, in the arms of the pony who had wanted me dead the most. Though now, she truly knew what it meant to be a pony. 42 stopped the megaspell’s timer and took my body in her hooves, teleporting back down to the others in order to explain what had happened. How all of our actions this last month and a half finally wore away the years of hatred and jealousy. She told them that when I forgave her, she had been freed of it once and for all.

It took hours of grieving, arguing, and eventually a huge leap of faith to even consider that she was being truthful. Longbow was the first to accept this possibility, and with her special talent, she was able to watch the memories of our final battle through 42’s mind. 42’s words had been authenticated, and only then, did Skyline and Carlotta relent to the final truth.

42 was no longer a threat. She now lived only to make what horrors she’d committed right, and though many called for her death, it was the words of the surviving crusaders that kept those actions from happening. DJ Pon3 broadcasted out to the wastes the story of what had happened on that mountain, calling out to the others to be better than we’d been, and to forgive her as I had done.

With her help, 42 opened numerous pre-war caches of medical supplies. Her strength, speed, and intelligence were utilized in helping out in construction and defence around the small towns that sprung up around these new supplies. Trade restabilized as she helped to rebuild both Futura and Ponyville as safe and profitable townships. The research gained by the Steel Rangers that she provided to them from the other Orchards that she found and opened, helped to restart the industry once lost in the war, and the factories that produced medicine and building materials were restarted. In mere months, she had helped the eastern seaboard of Equestria rebuild itself more than it had in the last century, and she was only getting started.

Between helping to rebuild and repair the damage, 42 found the time to start at least one project she had promised before my death. Out of the ruins and junkpiles of the Pool, a latticework of steel girders and sheet metal was constructed, slowly taking the shape of a pair of ponies. Five years after my death, the crusaders memorial was completed, the fifty foot statues of Brass Tacks and I stood as a reminder to all of the sacrifices we’d made to make the wasteland a better place for all.

When she finally died, 42 wasn’t remembered for her actions before Foal mountain, rather for what she had accomplished because of them. She was mourned for the pony she was, and the friends she left behind went on to better not only themselves, but countless others around them. As the years went by and society recovered, the merchants of hope were nothing but a footnote in the beginning of her story. It didn’t bother me, because she had lived up to what Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie had originally hoped she would do, albeit in a little different way.

42 had saved the wasteland.

Author's Notes:

So. One year ago today I put up the first chapter of Merchants of Hope. I took a leap of faith that day in posting something that I'd been proud to write, claiming my own section of the Wasteland as my own. Since that day, it's grown far greater than I could have imagined, and spawned quite a few other stories. None of it would have happened without you. You all have been the most amazing, supportive, and generally fantastic group of ponies I've ever had the pleasure of being around. Thank you for all of your patience and help along the way, and I hope that you all haven't been let down. As always, there will be more to come in the future, and I hope you'll stick around for it. For now, thank you all.