As the town of Ponyville reacted with building panic and horror to the destruction of Manehatten and the on going
assault of the Capital city of Canterlot, two souls, perhaps the only two in town, were oblivious to the events transpiring outside.

Reggie and Dusty had been on their usual run, high speed freight, mostly produce, from the out lying agrarian communities to the Capitol, and then, coincidentally enough, on to Manehatten. They'd been side lined by Canterlot dispatch, a message that was as cryptic as it was terse.

"Pull off, detour, the main line is blocked by-"

The fact that the rest of the message, whatever it was, had been lost in hissing static wasn't a surprise. The radio mounted in their engine was by far the newest addition, and the new technology was questionably reliable at best. It was on the fritz more often then not. Such a short, and incomplete message didn't spark any of the fear or trepidation that the prototype tech had bled out of the dispatchers voice, just before she, her office and the entire train yard around it had been decimated by magical fire as the 'Children' cut their bloody swathe through the city.

The tremor resulting from the death of Manehatten hadn't even been noticed by Reggie, a well built earth stallion, broad across the shoulders and short of stature, seemingly built for the engineering compartment of the locomotives he spent most of his waking hours guiding from stop to stop. So used to the steady rumble of a freight locomotive beneath his hooves, the rolling quake that was the physical manifestation of Manehatten's death went past him unnoticed, even as the ancient shaded lamp over the equally ancient and worn table swayed gently on its chain, a trickle of dust cascading down onto his game of solitaire, old, hand me down cards which he brushed clean without a thought.

The game was a veneer, a mindless exercise he put no thought into, merely a way of focusing his mind on a single task, honing it back from the thousand and one things he regularly had to monitor to keep his aged locomotive running at prime. He glanced over to his firepony, Dusty, who was contentedly snoring away on one of the decades old, worn, and questionably hygienic but none the less comfortable bunks that lined the western wall stacked double high. He couldn't help but grin at the younger stallions impressively vocal emissions. It wouldn't be long before Reggie found one of the bunks for himself, his eyes already growing heavy as his mind slowly wound down. A fine afternoon nap, as welcome as it would be, was not how this day was destined to end for him, however.

His peaceful reverie was interrupted by a knock at the door leading out to the small switching yard. Not especially loud, sudden and unexpected as it was it still startled the veteran trains pony. He jolted back, nearly upturning the table in his surprise. A second knock sounded. Faintly, voices could be heard, muffled by the heavy wooden door, voices he didn't recognize and couldn't quite make out. He crossed to the door as the third knock sounded, it finally proving enough to pull Dusty from his contented slumber. He sat up slowly, with a long, drawn out yawn, his drowsy eyes blinking away the sleep as he tried to focus on Reggie.

"Whossat, whadda they want?"

As the younger stallion, still mostly asleep, scrambled to get his hooves beneath him and stand, his less then conscious state and resulting balance impairment tumbled him out of the bunk and to the plank wood floor in a jumble of legs accompanied by an impressive thud.

"...Oww..."

His voice carried with it more annoyance then pain, and Reggie couldn't help but grin.

"Hmph, graceful."

He finally opened the door, as his young compatriot righted himself. Through the portal, he came face to face with two stallions. One, white coated, gleaming eyes so pale blue they were almost blind-white stared out of a worn, weathered face like sun tanned leather. He was clad in full Lunar Guard armor a bit heavier, the plates thicker and a touch more ostentatious then was the norm for the rank and file RLG. It's grandeur smudged and dented a bit, but no less imposing for all of that.

For all his armor, his weapons, and the palpable aura of confidence and barely restrained rage in that weathered visage, the Captain, as his rank lapels identified him, wasn't near as striking as the other who stood behind him, a cobalt blue shadow in the early afternoon light.

There was something about this other that set Reggie's teeth on edge, something about his stance, his form...his eye, that set alarm bells ringing fit to burst throughout the older engineers head. The pegasus was big, for a pegasus at any rate, but his apparent strength wouldn't hold a candle to Reggie's, or even Dusty. He had no visible weapons, no armor, and yet, somehow, some primal part of the engineers brain cried out a warning at the threat belied in that sedate pose, the single, half lidded, eagle-alert eye.

Reggie wasn't afraid, but he certainly was paying attention now. He licked his lips, his throat suddenly dry. He took a moment to speak, choosing his words even more diligently then usual as Dusty stepped up to flank him. Just as he was about to speak his carefully chosen words, his young protege beat him to the verbal punch.

"Wait a second, I know you, you're...Dusk Shield, right? Captain of the Lunar Guard for the last year or so? Sergent before that an in the Celestial Guard for almost four decades before Princess Luna's return."

After a wide eyed moment of surprise, Dusk's eyes narrowed to pale, glinting slits, the right corner of his mouth drawing up in a razor thin thin line that might have been amusement...or suspicion. Those pale blue eyes focused like a rifle scope on the young firepony. As Reggie turned to stare at Dusty, his own words lost to the ether, Dusk responded slowly.

"Yes...strange, I don't know you, but you seem to know quite a bit about me. Why is that, I wonder."

Dusk's eyes narrowed, the only movement he made. A series of muted, metallic clacks were faintly heard, the most ethereal whiff of ozone as his magic engaged the recessed catches along the spine of his armor. Two dozen minuscule hatches popped open, left and right down his back. The telekinetic blades secreted within didn't make an appearance, but that could be changed in the span of a tenth of a second.

Behemoth noted all of this, the metal crescendo of clinks a familiar sound. He shifted a single leg, turning his body by scant degrees, just enough with that one motion that he wouldn't obstruct the blades flight. He showed no other sign, no emotion, but his eye had tracked from the engineer, locking now with bloody intensity on the firepony.

The subtle shift in the two warriors standing before them was completely lost on the two railroaders, neither of them aware of just how deadly, and just how quickly so the next few seconds could be. They had no idea that the next words out of their mouths could result in a swift, bloody end. It was a lucky break, one in a seemingly endless series of others fated to occur today, that no such event was written.

"Oh yeah, I keep up with the Lunar Guard. I was...uh, well, I enlisted a year an a half or so back. I washed out and-"

"I remember you. Strong, capable, followed orders. Smart enough...promising."

The young firepony swelled a bit with pride at Dusk's words, even though he'd cut him off, but looked confused none the less. Dusk carried on to answer the unspoken question.

"You were discharged because you didn't have the right...temperament. You were a kind hearted and gentle soul. It's a damn shame, but in this line of work, that's a liability."

Dusty seemed to consider this for a second, then nodded.

"Well I...yeah, I s'pose that's not wrong. I liked the training an all, but the life never was a really good fit, got into railroading, following the family tradition an all-"

For the first time, Behemoth spoke. Quietly, with an almost apologetic tone cutting through Dusty's continuing monologue, his voice silencing the young stallion not through volume or force, but masterful modulation of quiet intensity.

"You...the two of you have no idea what's going on, do you? What's just happened?"

None of the four spoke. Although they had no idea what he was speaking of, the...dread, the finality of tone in those two simple questions lent Dusty and Reggie some inkling of the severity of the days missed events. Dusty shook his head, Reggie met the steady, cold, one eyed golden gaze. Behemoth broke this heavy silence as well.

"Come with me."

He turned, hopping down from the low porch that adorned the front of the bunkhouse. He moved with a smooth grace much belied by his stature, Dusk at his side, not missing a step. Reggie and Dusty, still wrong hoofed by how quickly a lazy morning of being side tracked had shifted, took a moment to gather themselves enough to follow. The Guards were crossing the second of three track sets leading into the servicing hangars by the time the railroaders caught up, the group heading for the empty field on the other side of the tracks.

Off their flank, Reggie took note of dozens of full armored Guards, most in the livery of the Lunar Guard, but a half dozen or so in the resplendent golden plate of the Celestial Guard. They were clustered around a chain of a half dozen passenger carriages, side tracked to the line next to the fifteen cars of his load. One of them was standing in front of the rest, giving orders in a voice low enough that the words didn't carry to Reggie. He watched with curiosity, and nearly walked right into Dusty who had stopped without a word.

"Wait, what is...what...no, it's not...it can't..."

With a grunt of annoyance, Reggie turned to chastise his young firepony as Dusty spoke, a sharp retort died on Reggie's tongue as he caught sight of Dusty's countenance, mouth agape, eyes wide and wet, staring off to the north east, a mix of confusion and slowly dawning horror. His castigation left unspoken, Reggie slowly followed his younger companions gaze, a cold stone of dread dropping into his gut.

He was no rube, no simpleton. He'd seen much in his years, decades of plying the rails all throughout the Empire and even a run or two beyond. Still, with the knowledge of all he'd seen, everywhere he'd been, his mind struggled to comprehend the sight before him now. Strained to make sense of the silent punctuation of an act so vile as to be beyond sane or rational imagination.

The mushroom cloud had softened at the edges, yet the core of its distinctive, unmistakable shape remained. Mottled orange and sickly green, it spread across the sky like some great, diseased tree. Trails of smoke cascaded down from the cap, like dark creeping vines, streaks of soot marking blasted and still flaming debris jettisoned so far into the stratosphere that they were only now, many minutes later, succumbing to gravity, plummeting back to earth and streaking the sky with the soot of their dying passage.

Reggie's mind, unbidden, with the automatic industry brought by years of far spread travel rapidly ran down direction and distance, his subconscious calculations pin pointing the epicenter while his conscious mind was overwhelmed, stunned to a stupor at the sights he now beheld.

Normally unflappable, taciturn in all things, Reggie thought he'd seen it all. The good, the bad, the ugly, the magnificent, and everything in between. As tears welled up in his eyes, as the gravity of this unimagined sight sunk in, as the cascade of realization as his mind struggled to comprehend destruction and death on such a scale, he knew, deep in his soul that the world he had so contentedly taken for granted, the veneer of peace and tranquility had been annihilated along with the city. That illusion sundered as surely and swiftly as a puff of smoke in a typhoon. As surely and swiftly, as brutally, as the millions of lives within it's borders had just been snuffed out.

Nothing would ever be the same.

His mind screamed the eclipsing horror his voice would not, could not utter. The torrential scale of it washed over him. Only vaguely was he aware, as if chasing a fleeting dream in the light of dawn, of his young compatriot, frozen stock still, eyes locked and unblinking, the scope of what he was seeing too much for the young stallions mind to cope with.

Reggie felt other eyes burning into him. Sluggishly, pendulously, as if his head was encased in amber, he swung his gaze around, finally meeting the steady, relentless, one eyed gaze of the Once-Commander. Once-Captain.

That single eye was deep, bottomless, and filled with the sadness of knowledge. The knowledge that this wasn't the end of terror, the end of destruction, pain and death, but that this event, as horrific as it was, was nothing but the prelude to what was to come. Reggie saw this, and knew it for what it was. Somehow, through a bone dry throat, over a tongue that felt foreign in his mouth like some alien thing, the engineer found his voice, rasping, choked, and barely a whisper.

"How...how bad...how bad is it? How...how many..."

His voice trailed off, the words swallowed again by the Saharan dryness that had subsumed his mouth. His vision was drawn back to the cloud eating away at the horizon, pulled inexorably by an irresistible magnetic force. The cloud continued to grow as Behemoth spoke, the rumbling timber of his low voice a fitting funerary dirge.

"We don't know...judging by the size of the cloud, the strength of the magical feedback, the pressure wave that was felt even here...we can imagine, we can guess, but we don't...we just don't know-"

Dusk's attention had been drawn to the sky by a sound and motion faint in the distance, that had passed unnoticed by the others. He spoke, his parade ground, boisterous drawl subdued and drawn as Behemoths, a similarity those two had only shared once before, a long time ago, and far, far away.

"We don't know, kid, but we're about to find out."

Behemoth looked to his old friend, and then followed his gaze into the sky. His eye, lone as it was, was still as sharp as ever. He recognized the three rapidly approaching dots as they angled in, hard and fast, holding perfect formation as they twisted in from high overhead.

Three pegasi, each clad in a custom, fully sealed and heavily insulated variant of Guard flight armor. No coat, no flesh was exposed, even their wings were tightly wrapped in a flawless, insulating sheath. Thin, long, flattened cylinders vaguely reminiscent of oversized drinking flasks were strapped tightly between their wings, armored tubes leading from them to the over sized helmet-masks that engulfed the ponies entire heads in glossy black armor.

They landed heavily, without flare or ostentation. Their armor was caked in hoar frost, crackling and steaming off of their frames as it quickly melted, the ground level temperature scores of degrees warmer then the near record breaking altitudes they had just returned from. The three moved slowly, sluggishly, their motions stumbling and graceless. Dusk knew that such difficulty was not a result of the gnawing cold, or at least not entirely. He'd seen it before. He knew what the report would be before they spoke.

Slowly, fumbling the helmet release with cold numbed wings, the central form finally succeeded in pulling the heavy flight helm away as the other two followed suit. Young, almost startlingly young, and handsome enough to adorn a recruiting poster, the Lieutenant, Stratos, had his picture perfect features drawn tight and pinched by the cold, and by the news he carried. Even from within the protective confines of his helmet, the coat of his face was encrusted with ice crystals that had frozen from the vapor of his own breath, wreathing his muzzle in a shimmering beard of ice.

"It's...the city...it's gone." He swallowed heavily, an inadvertent shiver running up his spine, the autonomic motion shaking loose a cloud of ice crystals that thawed in the air before hitting the ground, vaporizing in mid fall as a fine mist.

"The detonation...happened in Central Park, as far as I can tell. The crater stretching from the west coast to the east river, dozens, hundreds of feet deep. It's...too bright to look at...blindingly bright, glowing. Burning. The core of it is still burning. The whole...the whole city is burning."

He shook his head slowly, his shoulders sagging. He suddenly looked very, very old. The Lieutenant had no way of knowing, but that core would still be a blazing inferno over a year from now.

"If...if anyone survived...I don't know how...so...so much fire..."

It was no more then what Dusk had expected. The feedback of the magical detonation had been unlike anything he'd ever experienced in his more years then he'd admit publicly. The power of it, the force of it tearing through his mind so terribly strong. He still tasted the familiar coppery tang of blood in the back of his throat from the burst capillaries, the nauseous, sea sick wavering in his gut he'd managed to control only through sheer force of will. Once he'd recovered his senses back in the library, he'd known that moment that there was no hope for survivors. The city that never slept simply wasn't there anymore.

"There was...something else, sir. Something that..."

Dusk's attention refocused on the new speaker, the Lieutenants port wing-pony. Older by two decades then his officer, Cumulus was a Celestial Guard lifer, who had transferred over to the Lunar Guard after the Changeling attack on Canterlot. The first Changeling attack, at any rate. Dusk and he had served together for many years, and, like the elder unicorn Captain, Cumulus had turned down more then his fair share of promotions, opting to serve as a recon specialist. It came as no surprise to Dusk that the veteran NCO's eyes had picked out details that his officer had missed. Cumulus continued.

"In the crater, near the epicenter there were...I don't know how to describe them...Tears. Rifts. Jagged slashes and holes of...difference."

Behemoth frowned, his head cocking to the side, to bring his good, original ear in line with the speaker, an unconscious effort to hear him as clearly as possible. As his protege showed understandable confusion, a cold stone of recognition dropped into Dusk's stomach. He knew what the Sergeant was describing, even if the Sergeant did not.

"Through them, what was beyond them, it was..."

He heaved a heavy sigh and shook his head in frustration, words failing him as he tried to explain what he had seen.

"Different. It was...like looking through a...a...window, a..."

"A door into another place. A path into a different world."

Dusk spoke, finishing Cumulus' thought. It was a struggle for him to keep his voice as level, as calm as it was when he found the words. Behemoth's attention realigned to Dusk, meeting his eye, an inquisitive brow cocked over the one that remained in silent question. Dusk answered the wordless question as the attention of those present turned to him, even the railroaders finally breaking free of their shock to listen.

"I was afraid of that, but that's a threat for another day. We've got a far more immediate issue to deal with."

Dusk nodded past those assembled around him to the city of Canterlot. Even from this distance, more then a score of miles away, fat, chugging plumes of smoke could be seen clawing slowly into the sky. The faintest, fleeting glimmers of dirty orange flames just barely flickering into visibility at the base of those meandering dark smudges.

Reggie watched as, miles away, another of the resplendent, graceful towers adorning the side of the mountain that jutted up through the center of Canterlot broke loose, its almost unfeasibly tall, narrow, needle-like form turning a graceful pirouette in the air, the point of its tall conical roof driving into the streets below like a giants spear. He could only imagine the deafening, terrible cacophony such a thing would have caused, at this distance, it happened in stark silence. Quiet and awed, the always taciturn engineer found his voice.

"Why...why are you showing me this, why come to the rail-yard at all? We...we aren't soldiers, we can't fight...we can't...we can't stop...this."

Behemoth answered him.

"No. No, you can't. To be honest, neither can we, in all probability. But we will try. Because we must. Because we, one hundred and forty eight souls, are whats left. Because we are all there is, all that stands to break this tide, and maybe, just maybe turn it back."

"We didn't come here to ask you to fight."

Behemoth turned his back to the great, burning city, facing the burly engineer.

"We came to ask you to be our Charon. To be our ferryman. To deliver us to what will, most likely, be our deaths."

Reggie had no words. He met the single golden eye, and looked from Behemoth to Dusk, to the flight of scouts, and back. The same look adorned all their faces. A stony defiance, an unwavering determination to do what must be done, and beyond that, just below the surface of that proud facade, the understanding of what such definace would cost them. An acknowledgement that what they were on a collision course with would most likely be their own mortality. An acceptance of the death they would be called upon to render on a grand, terrible scale, and, more then likely, endure themselves.

Words, never his strong suit, failed him now. He knew what Behemoth was asking, understood quite clearly. The sensation that swelled in his bosom was an odd amalgamation. Fear, trepidation...and more then a little pride at being chosen for a task such as this, at being trusted with such a brazen act of lunatic bravery as steering a locomotive into a war-zone. Dusk's voice, level and low filled the lingering void.

"We can't force the two of you into this. Ain't our way. You can say no, right now, an walk away. We'll let you go an that'll be that. Truth be told, it's probably the smart thing for you fellas to do."

The grizzled warrior looked to the young firepony, and on to the veteran engineer. He continued in a low, almost apologetic tone.

"We've got a company an a half of soldiers that need to get twenty three miles as fast as possible and be fighting fit when they get there. If you don't want a part of this, we've got battlefield engineers that can probably figure out how to get one of these big iron bastards moving...probably. But it'd be faster an a helluva lot less of a chore to pull off if you two'd take that role. If you chose it. Just know what you're getting into, one way or t'other."

Reggie shook his head slowly, walking away from the assembly. He brought a hoof to his brow, his mind racing. He was aware of words being spoken behind him, but had no comprehension of what was being said. This was all happening so quickly. Barely five minutes ago he'd been toying with the idea of a lazy afternoon nap, playing a card game and listening to the snores of his young protege, and now. Now...

His mind flashed back, running through the dank musty corridors of his past unbidden and uncontrolled, like a runaway train. Images of those he'd had. Those he'd lost. Parents, long since dead, friends lost to the ether long ago, whose fates he'd never learn...his wife and daughter, gone now, he knew not where, for almost a decade. All lost now in the past he never spoke of. The events not a one of his compatriots, not even Dusty, young, strong and dependable, could ever imagine.

Dusty.

He turned, looking back to his young charge. The closest thing he had left to a friend. To family. Out of the corner of his eye, Reggie watched the three pegasi of the scout flight take back to the air, spiraling up, and banking out of his vision in the direction of Canterlot. Dusty had chased after Reggie with his gaze as the engineer had veered away. As their eyes met now, the young fireponies thoughts were an easy to read echo of his own. This was a hell of a mess, and all unfolding far faster than either could keep up, a jumbled, tumultuous catastrophe crashing down on them both like a landslide, threatening to bury them both.

Wordlessly, they each found a reservoir of strength in the other. As overwhelmed as they both were, neither would let the other down. Dusty gave him the whisper of a nod, a barely there bow of his heavy head. It was all the dialogue they needed. Drawing on that loyalty, Reggie composed himself, pulling himself back up to his full, compact stature, and marching right up to Behemoth and Dusk.

"Ok. We're in. What's the plan?"

Dusk and Behemoth paused in mid conversation, turning to the two civilians. it was Dusk who responded.

"Glad to hear it. Lets get down to it, then. We need that engine ready to go in..."

Dusk turned, looking back towards the rail hub. Reggie followed his turn. The squad of Guards that Reggie had taken note of clustered around a string of passenger carriages had set to work. The unicorns among them were using their magic as cutting beams, slicing through the stainless steel of the car-bodies. Fat, sizzling orange drops of molten metal trickled down the sides of the once shiny and new carriages. As they watched, one such dusky orange blob, like a half rotten fruit, melted a slow, implacable trail through a wide passenger window, bisecting the glass. Earth ponies were visible in the interior of the cars, hollowing them out, casting the benches and seating out, strewing the debris into the space between the rails as the car were brutally and efficiently re-purposed. Dusk continued after appraising their progress.

"Forty minutes, give or take."

Reggie's response was immediate.

"Not possible."

Dusk, not a particular fan of that particular phrase on the best of days made no sound, no motion in response, save a glacially slow arc of the brow over his left eye. Reggie answered the unasked question.

"Our loco is cold. On the wrong track, and already hooked."

"Cold?"

It was Behemoth's turn to seek clarification.

"Fires out, no steam pressure. It'll take us just shy of three hours to get enough of a head of steam to get her rolling. Then we'll need to get our load uncoupled, get her on the right track, get those passenger cars hooked up..."

"How long?"

Reggie mulled this over for a few seconds, before answering Behemoth again.

"If we don't hit any snags, nothing crops up, four hours, start to finish before we'll be ready to roll."

Behemoth and Dusk spoke in perfect unison.

"Unacceptable."

Reggie looked from one to the other, slightly bemused.

"Well, it is what it is. Unacceptable or not, that's the best case scenario. It simply can't be done faster."

Dusk Shield strode up past the engineer, his gaze moving back and forth across the yard as he processed this latest information. Storm cloud eyes darting as he picked out the offending details that would cause such a delay. Locomotive, load, tracks...his tacticians mind churned, seeking an alternate solution.

"Ok....so...over an hour to switch loads and get us on the right track, right?"

Reggie and Dusty looked to each other, nodded in agreement, and then to Dusk, nodding again. Behemoth had seen this play out before, and kept his silence to let Dusk's mind do its work.

"Alright. Fuck that engine then, we'll use that one."

He pointed to a huge, tarp covered shape, a not inconsiderable portion of which was jutting out of one of the small yards three maintenance bays. The bay whose line had the passenger carriages that were being converted as they spoke. Reggie's eyes shot open from their usual, sedate state, and he barked out a sharp laugh.

"Well, yeah, that'll do. Assuming she'll run, and isn't under that tarp in fifty pieces, yeah, that'll save us an hour, easy."

Dusk nodded and started towards the covered shape, just shy of a trot. His sudden motion left the other three in his wake. They had to jog to catch up with him. Reggie spoke as he drew parallel.

"We'll still need a couple hours to get a head up. No way around that."

Dusk nodded again.

"Well, I have an idea about that...might be a really, really bad idea, but...Behemoth, gather up our six boneheads that are best with fire. Firestarter, Incendaria, you know the crew. Have em meet me in the hangar."

Behemoth was off without a word, angling towards the assembled Guard ranks before Dusk had even finished his sentence. He had a good idea what Dusk's plan was. A dozen seconds later, and the brisk clip that Dusk had set had led him, Reggie and Dusty into the bay, in the lee of the ponderous shape. With a sharp burst of magic and the accompanying stink of ozone, Dusk yanked the heavy duty brown tarpaulin aside, flinging it deeper into the hangar.

As the shape beneath it was exposed, Reggie let out a long, appreciative whistle. Dusty's response was somewhat more direct.

"That, is one big bitch."

And it was. Sitting there, well over a hundred feet long, steel gleaming in the afternoon sun, polished, oiled, proud, and bastardly big, was one of Equestria's only six 4-8-8-4 monsters. A bronze plaque across the nose of the great steel beast read "Leviathan". Reggie couldn't help but grin like a school colt. He'd always wanted to try his hoof at running one of these beasts, but had made his living on the smaller, (and drastically more practical), 4-6-2's. He was up and in her cab in a flash, Dusty barely a hooves breadth behind him as they checked the beast over.

"Ok, lessee...tanks are topped off, that's a good sign. Must've been planning to move er today. Dusty you find the-"

Before Reggie could even ask for it, his firepony had found and handed him the maintenance log. Dusty hopped down from the cab, and started along the side of the steel monster, his quick, precise and experienced motions too fast and efficient for Dusk to glean what, exactly, the young stallion was doing. The sound of approaching hoof-falls heralded the return of Behemoth and the Lunar Guards six best pyrokinetics. Dusk nodded his approval as the seven of them crowded around him.

"Good, good, you found them."

"Wasn't hard chief, we was doin the cuttin. The hell you want from us now, need somethin..."

He grinned, it was a cruel, lipless twist of his already ugly features.

"Or someone, lit up?"

Small, quick, and mean, with a shifty, twitchy countenance that endeared him to few, Firestarter was the unofficial spokes-pony of this particular sub-sect of the Guard. Son of a bat-pony and a unicorn, he'd inherited the fur tufts and fangs of the one, and a penchant for destructive magic from the other. A penchant that had landed him in more then a bit of legal trouble before his enlistment. Dusk had himself negotiated with the Judge, gaining the mean spirited little bastard a conditional reprieve from conviction as the result of his numerous arsons. The other five, enlisted of their own accord had gravitated to him, the ease at which he resorted to fiery violence, his cruel volatility ensuring control over this small band of miscreants.Dusk was loathe to have such a troublesome band in his company, but there was no denying their effectiveness and raw talent for flame-work. The veteran Guardspony had dealt with talented thugs before, and they could be a useful tool...providing they were kept in line. A task Dusk had never had much issue with. He turned to the engineer high in the cab of his great steel monster.

"Reggie, come on down, sir, I need your...guidance."

The engineer turned to face the veteran, his eyes bright, an unconscious bit of smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. It faded, the enthusiasm in those eyes replaced with an open caution as he caught sight of the six new faces. They often had that effect. Graceful despite his size and well practiced in the motion, Reggie hopped down from the cab in a single, casual motion.

"Sure, Captain, with what."

Dusk motioned down the flank of the slumbering steel beast, and Reggie walked with him along its length, Firestarter and his minions behind them, the ever ready one eyed vigilance of Behemoth silently bringing up the rear.

"You said it'd take almost three hours to get this thing heated up, yeah?"

"Yes. This is a newer model, she'll build pressure a sight faster, but you're still looking at two, maybe two twenty before she'll be moving."

"And that time, it'll take that long to get that much water cooking, right?"

"Yup. twenty five thousand gallons. Not a fast process."

"So I've gathered. So, my question for you is this, what if, instead of trying to warm it all up from the...oven..."

"Firebox."

Dusty, who had joined them as they walked, spoke now for the first time in this conversation, giving Dusk the proper term. Dusk nodded in silent thanks before continuing.

"Firebox. What if, instead, we had the firebox running...and were simultaneously heating the exterior of the tank at the same time. What kind of time would that save us?"

Reggie leaned back with a frown, his dark brown eyes narrowing.

"I'm not...I'm not quite sure what you're suggesting, sir, but-"

As way of clarification, with a dirty chuckle, Firestarter let loose a blast of magical flame towards the overhead steel beams of the servicing hangar. A half second later, his five minions followed suit. It lasted just a few seconds, and then was gone. The wave of heat and the stink of ozone and heated metal from the now dully orange I beams overhead the lingering and none too subtle reminder.

"That's what he means, big boy. He wants us to heat things up for your little clockwork toy here."

Reggie's eyes shot open, a mix of horror and fury the strongest emotion Dusk had seen from him all morning.

"No. No way. That's fucking insane. We're talking about twenty five fucking THOUSAND FUCKING GALLONS of pressurized fucking steam!! You overheat that, you rupture that tank, or heat it too fast, or not evenly, the blowout would flash boil every living thing in a hundred yards of this bay in about two seconds. Your coat would incinerate, your eyes would flash boil and explode in their sockets, your flesh would melt and run like wax, clogging your ears, your nostrils, your mouth. You'd die, screaming in silence, choking to death on your own melted flesh as it filled your lungs."

Silence reigned for a stretch of seconds. It was, finally, broken by Firestarter's twisted, sneering voice, although now lacking a bit of its original arrogant tone.

"Psssh, yeah right, big boy, yer talkin like you've seen-"

"I have."

The fury in Reggie's face was plain to read. Even Dusty had never seen him like this. As he'd spoke, Behemoth had moved from his place behind the Burners, recognizing the fact that the threat was no longer with them. Reggie was dense, and powerful to spite his height. The once placid and circumspect engineer had, with his blood up, just became the most dangerous thing in this hangar by a healthy margin, training and combat experience be damned. Dusk stepped in, verbally and physically, turning his decades of experience to diffusing the burgeoning situation before it got ugly.

"Which is why I want your guidance on this. You tell them where, and exactly how much heat to use. We do this smart, we do this right, and you show us how."

The rage fire in Reggie dimmed a bit, the wave of fury that had crested so suddenly abating, but just a bit. His focus had never left Dusk.

"This is a terrible idea. We screw this up, even a little bit, and we, all of us, will die. A steam explosion like that...it could vent towards the town, and Celestia only knows how many..."

Dusk stepped right up to Reggie, muzzle to muzzle, he spoke with quiet intensity, the words an intense whisper, the eyes of engineer and combat veteran locked in a mortal struggle, as much on the line with this fight as any physical conflict in Dusk's many and eventful decades.

"That won't happen, Reggie, because YOU wont let it. Listen, if we had the time, we'd do it your way, but we don't. Right now, ponies are dying. Every second we spend here, the body count in Canterlot and throughout the Empire gets higher. Every second, more ponies die in pain and terror. We can stop that. This plan...It's crude, it's ugly, and it's a terrible damned idea, I know that, but this way we might just be able to save some of those lives. YOU, might be able to save some of those lives."

Reggie held Dusk's gaze in silence. Behemoth tensed, readying himself. As experienced as Dusk was, he was a unicorn, and couldn't even dream of matching the strength, the sheer bone density and muscle mass that Reggie had so effortlessly at his control. A single blow from the engineer could crush Dusk's skull.

Reggie sighed, looking away, breaking the death glare, his imposing physique deflating, just a little. When he looked back, much of the fire in those dark almost to black eyes had faded. The fire was still there, simmering, but no longer in danger of exploding. At least not immediately. His voice was drawn, dry, raspy.

"They'll listen. Your reprobates. They'll do exactly what I say, exactly how I say it, no bullshit?"

A slow, predatory grin, spread across Dusk's face at the deescalation. He turned to face the Burners at his back.

"What do you say, you surly shits, you in a hurry to choke on your own melted faces, or're you gonna listen to the stallion here and not spend the last moments of your miserable lives as screaming meat puddles?"

After a few seconds silence, a previously unheard voice from the back of the small group chimed in.

"I uh...I vote for the first one. Not the...uhh...the one where we don't be a meat puddle."

Firestarter's head snapped around, and he shot the larger stallion a wicked glare at having the gall to speak, but said nothing himself. When he looked back, the begrudging acquiescence was plain to see in his eyes. He nodded. With that, Reggie led the six pyromaniacs off, guiding them, one by one, to the areas of the tank that were closest to the surface. The curved stretches of bare steel without any adornments or interference. Without needing to be told, Dusty clambered back up into the cab, and started stoking the fire in the more traditional, and perhaps less suicidal fashion.

Dusk and Behemoth found themselves in a not unfamiliar situation. All those around them were preparing, getting ready for the coming battle in one way or another. They knew their tasks, what was expected of them, and veterans, hooligans, and civilians alike had set about those duties. For now, for a few moments on the cusp of battle, the Commanders found themselves unneeded.

Walking together, they made their way out into the train-yard. A hundred feet to their left, the massive locomotive was slowly but surely being brought to life. A hundred feet to their right, the string of rail cars was well into being modified. They stood there alone at the center, watching the orderly preparations at their flanks.

He spoke without fear of being overheard, his voice clear and crisp, Behemoth broke the silence.

"So. What's the story, Dusk. What're our chances here?"

"I uh...I don't...I mean I haven't..."

When he spoke, here and now, when only Behemoth, the only other survivor of the journey into the Deadlands that was still breathing, the only other soul to make it off the cobbles of the Lunar Citadel courtyard over a year ago, when Behemoth was the only one who could hear him, Dusk's voice was drastically, tragically different. Far removed from the bravado and bluster, the facade he kept up in all aspects of his increasingly public life, Dusk's voice now was drawn, reserved...old. It lacked the endless, ageless vitality he had displayed to hundreds, thousands of recruits of three separate Legions over the decades. Now, no longer needing to act, no longer needing to put on a show, not for the one living soul to walk through the fire with him, over and over again, he was worn, tired, almost fragile.

It silently shocked Behemoth to see his mentor and friend like this, to realize, to really understand just how old this fellow survivor was, and the strength and effort it must take to bury it so convincingly, for so long. Behemoth spoke past that surprise.

"Don't give me that. I know you, you've been running the numbers on this since it all started. It's what you do. Give me the odds, no bullshit."

Dusk sighed heavily, a heaving exhalation that almost seemed to deflate him. His silence drug on to the point that Behemoth was about to push again when the Captain finally spoke.

"We're taking one hundred and forty eight...well, one fifty now, into a city of just shy of a million souls. We'll be cut off, outnumbered by, most conservative guesses, fifteen to one. We'll have no support, no reinforcement, no logistics. No medical support....If we break, if we're overrun, we die."

He glanced to Behemoth.

"Well, most of us will die."

Behemoth frowned, playing dumb at the implication of that statement.

"I don't...what do you mean by-"

"Oh don't give me that, take your own advice boy, no bullshit. I was at the Citadel with you. I watched the King run you through. I watched you die."

"That was...no, I was hurt, damn badly, true, but I-"

"No, Behemoth. No. You were dead. I've seen enough death to know it when I see it, it's not something that looks like anything else. They took a corpse off those cobbles, a husk."

A slight puff of magic, and a clink of metal as one of the many recessed, hidden caches along the spine of Dusks armor popped open. He telekined out a long cylinder of wax paper and a well kept but equally well used copper lighter. The brown paper was peeled back, and two cigars removed. In a well practiced display of magical precision, Dusk cut, lit, and passed one to Behemoth, keeping the other for himself. After the first slow drag, he continued.

"A hundred and fifty of us will go into that city. A hundred and forty nine will probably die there. You...I suspect that you can't die. Not anymore. I don't know what exactly was done to you, I'd hazard a guess that the Princess was involved..."

A noncommittal grunt was all that Behemoth contributed to this, at her mention.

"-but I can't imagine what, exactly. Not my field. And really, truth be told, it doesn't matter much."

He took another long, slow draw, letting the heavy, earthy smoke fill his lungs and mouth, savoring the flavor of the one vice he still allowed himself, as he did on the eve of every battle he expected not to come home from.

"If. If the tracks are intact. If we don't derail and all die on the way in. If those pyromaniacs don't blow that engine and burn us all alive. If we aren't hit and overrun before we can dismount and get organized. If the Third and Tenth are still fighting. If they aren't already dead. If the walls have held. If. If. If. If..."

He turned to face Behemoth full on, meeting his eye."

"If everything breaks our way, if every flip of the coin of fate comes up for us. If everything that can go right does, and everything that can go wrong doesn't, I give us..."

He rocked his head side to side, taking another puff.

"One chance in three."

After a moment of holding his gaze, Behemoth looked past him to the assembled rows of Guards waiting near the carriages.

"One in three."

"Yeah. Odd's get a little better for us if we manage to get to the grounds in one piece, but even then, two in five, around there somewhere. We'll have training, cohesion, and equipment at our advantage, and our backs to the Palace, that'll all help, sure...here's hoping its enough."

"Here's hoping."

They stood silent for a time, before Dusk, with a smirk, glanced over at his cobalt blue friend.

"The Princess gonna give you a hard time about that, you think?"

He smiled, nodding at the cigar clamped in the corner of Behemoths mouth. Behemoth smiled around it in turn.

"Oh, I don't think she'd give much of a damn, really. I'd hazard a guess that the stigma of tobacco wears off after the first four or five hundred years. She probably ask if you had another. Or just take mine, besides..."

He took another, long, luxurious draw.

"I doubt it'll be this kinda thing that finally kills me."

Dusk chuckled at this. Behemoth continued.

"Nah, Derpy wouldn't approve though, she'd be fourteen levels of pissed if she saw me now. She'd...harm me."

"Your little sis? Nah, she seems like a sweet heart, I'd bet she'd never hurt a fly, that one."

Behemoth shot him a wry, barely there smirk, remembering the events at what had once been the Ponyville schoolhouse, just the night before last.

"Yeah. You'd think that, wouldn't you?"

What needed saying had been said, and the two of them stood there in silence, their gaze turning back over the idyllic

little burg rolling off into the trees. Two silhouettes on the rails, smoking as their world burned down around them.

Author's Notes:

And here we are again. Reggie and Dusty, the trains-ponies, are the first guest stars of this work. They are not my creations, but solely those of http://www.fimfiction.net/user/Railroad+Brony

who was kind enough to allow me to use these fellows in my ongoing literary madness. He's been a hell of a help over the years, with information and editing that I missed. It's also thanks to him that I even found this site, as I used to only post on EPFA. Swing by his page, check out his stories and thank him, if you're so inclined, for loaning me his fellows. Hope you liked the chapter, drop a comment and let me know.