Chapter 16: Thunderstorms don't always need clouds or rain
"When you’ve lived as long as I have, why bother caring anymore?"

The cleaver slammed into the table with a hollow thunk, causing me to tilt my head in confusion. RJ used her magic to pull open a nearby drawer and rummaged through it while mumbling, "I can't do this. She's too drunk to even think clearly, let alone understand we were just fucking with her."

Pepper sighed deeply, looking at the cleaver half buried in the wood. "Well I thought it was funny."

"I don't understand..." I hiccuped, tasting bile in my mouth. Slowly, I looked at the cleaver and wondered why she hadn't chopped into my leg yet. RJ turned her head to look at the drawer and I frowned some.

"Where’s that tool at?!" she hissed.

"Well," Pepper began with a shrug. "How often do we even come across Stable ponies?"

"Not often I’d imagine," RJ grunted.

"Check the left drawer. The one marked Stable-Tech manuals."

I gripped the meat cleaver in my green magic and, with some effort, pulled it out. The pony reflecting back at me was a slightly red faced green alicorn with half her faced bandaged. She looked alien to me, and a hideous creature. Not a beautiful princess of love.

'Perhaps you're not meant to ever find love,' a voice whispered in the back of my mind, causing me to blink in confusion. ’You're hideous now. The Goddess would reject you for your looks! You’re an outcast, a reject of the Goddess! She despised you. You were the worst and dumbest mistake she ever made!'

I hissed at the voice and reflection. They were both wrong. The Goddess loved all of her children and would help me find my way back to perfection. She, the mare in the reflection, was an old and wise pony.

"Done!" RJ exclaimed excitedly, drawing my attention down to my leg. The matted fur felt odd and the scars had a slight green fuzz indicating the fur was regrowing. RJ set the Pipbuck down and hooked something up to it.

This caused my eyes to slowly narrow in anger. "You," I hissed a bit drunkenly. "You were going to cut my," I hiccuped. "My leg off when you had tools?!"

Slowly, my glare rose up and locked on RJ's frightened face, causing her ears to droop. "Shock, just listen-"

"No!" I flipped the cleaver around, brandishing it towards the two purple alicorns that had appeared. "What kind of sick pony are you?!"

"It was a joke, okay?!" RJ shouted. "A cruel joke. We were never going to actually cut your leg off!"

"Liar! You're... you're a traitor to the Goddess! She would-" I hiccuped again, but instead of tasting bile, I felt an odd feeling rise up in my throat that caused me to gag. RJ's eyes widened as she scrambled back into some empty jars.

As I dropped the cleaver from my magic, I tried covering my mouth with my hooves as the gagging feeling grew even worse. That prevented none of the alcohol and fruit from coming back up as I heaved it all out onto the table. I was about to say something, but more liquid vomit came out, causing my throat to turn raw and my stomach to flare in pain.

"Shock, just breathe, okay?" RJ said quietly as my eye shut. And as I followed her instructions, I found myself drifting off to sleep as my body began to fall sideways.

*** ***

My eye snapped open and quickly shut as a thousand needles stabbed at the eye socket. Instead of torturing myself further with daylight, I decided to lay there and let my brain explode through the left side of my skull, or try to anyway. The headache was bad, bad enough that I felt as if it reminded me of that time with Bucky.

Then again, a quick check of my surroundings with a forehoof revealed that I was thankfully alone. My bed gently rocked as a rhythmic pounding beat at my ears, nearly matching my heart beat and the throbbing headache. As I laid there, I tried to think back to the day before to figure out what had happened. I remembered arriving on the Rum Runner ship and bartering a deal; my Pipbuck for passage to Blur Water Marina. Then I remembered having to get my foreleg cut off to remove the Pipbuck, yet... The appendage did not feel like it was needing to be healed. Nor did I feel the telltale signs that there was a scar, which would be a faint pain under the skin. Everything after I started drinking was one big blur to me.

With a deep sigh of frustration, I braced myself and slowly opened my eye, revealing me to be staring up at the ceiling. I slowly brought my left foreleg into view and stared at it. There was no mark where the leg had been removed, which I found odd. The temperature in the room was oddly cool and that caused me to smile a little.

I tried to distract myself with thoughts of that orange alicorn stallion. He was just as strange as everything else I had encountered, but he seemed... fake. I could not contact him like I could the other alicorns. His face, from what I remembered, was handsome and he had a nearly perfect flank. He would have made a very fine husband, if he were real.

I hissed at the ceiling out of annoyance for the fake world. However... I just stared up at it and tried to think of what to do. But, after a long while, a rusty creak nearby told me a door was being opened by somepony. My eyes widened as I nearly leapt out of bed in shock. I quickly pulled the sheet over me and looked at the door.

In darted a strange ice blue stallion. He slammed the door shut without saying anything and darted toward an adjacent door. Curiosity got the better of me, causing me to just observe him. When he flung the other door open, he frowned.

Inside of the door was a small closet that held a set of bags, a familiar jacket, and a rifle; my equipment.

The icy stallion's pause allowed me to take a look at both him and the room. Bright wood ran the length of the floor with a plush, red carpet covering the area around my bed. Standard steel grey walls were adorned with ornately framed pictures of the ship in various ports. The stallion on the other hoof, was a simple and hardy earth pony wearing a dark green duster. His icy blue coat was a stark contrast with his pink mane and eyes. My one eyed gaze wandered down to his covered flank and I wondered what his cutie mark was.

But before I could even open my mouth, there was a loud knock on the door that felt like a pony was hammering against my skull. "Trigger! Are you in there?" a mare shouted in a voice like needles, each syllable attempting to stab at the back of my eye socket.

"Please don't shout," I whined painfully as even my own voice hurt my head and made it throb more.

"Miss Shock, are you alone?" she opened the door without waiting for a response. The unicorn stuck her head in and slowly looked around, sniffing quietly. "Hm..."

"My name... is Dog," I corrected her with some effort.

"I like Shock better. It sounds..." she grinned. "Shocking."

I rolled my eyes and regretted it instantly as I happened to glance at the window where the sun was. Pain exploded inside of my eye, causing me to shut it and clutch my head. "What happened? Did you cut my leg off?" I whispered with my mouth.

"You do not remember?"

I thought of shaking my head, but decided against it. "No,” I sighed quietly. “It is fuzzy and strange."

"Well, after you drank for the three of us, we removed the Pipbuck and you passed out. Really, a pony should not drink that much moonshine in one sitting like you did. We weren't sure if you were going to live or not for the first day."

"First... day? How long was I out?" I slowly opened my eye again. Thankfully I happened to not be looking at the window.

"Three days," Pepper said, causing my ears to droop. "Day one consisted of you just laying there and day two, your zebra friend had an idea with radiation. How you seen Trigger? He's a pale blue stallion with a shotgun for a cutie mark."

"No, I have not," I replied with a faint smile. "But if I see him, I shall inform you immediately."

"Alright thanks anyway. There's an eye patch on the table next to you."

Slowly, Pepper left the room and closed the door. I got out of the bed as best I could without causing my hangover to kill me. And slowly, but surely, made my way across the wood floor to the door. That was when I noticed the lack of pain in my hind leg and the fact that there were no bandages on my muzzle. My right half of my vision was a complete blur of grey-white.

Pressing my ear against the door produced a strange reaction. The rhythmic thumping of the steam engine grew even louder to where it felt like I was being sledgehammered in the head, causing me to pull away from the door and hiss in annoyance. Instead of trying it again and hurting myself more, I felt out with my telepathy.

Pepper was standing on the other side of the door, but it felt like she was starting to move away. I stood there, contemplating why I had helped the pony named Trigger when he wanted to shoot at me. Then again... lots of ponies want to shoot me, so it was no big deal to be threatened or even shot at.

After an agonizing amount of time, and when I was sure Pepper was really gone and not faking it. I took a deep breath and walked away from the door as I let the spell drop. Slowly, I made my way to the table and pulled the eyepatch on with magic. Which caused the right side of my vision to go completely black, but it was better than seeing a complete blur that made it hard to focus.

"You can come out now," I said with my mind to the pony hiding in the closet. "She is long gone and I will not hurt you."

A few long moments went by, long enough that I thought the pony and the mare were a figment of my imagination. Even longer moments crept by, causing my ear to twitch towards the window as strange sounds filtered in like ponies outside moving around.

I took a deep breath and slowly made my way over to the closet. My ear gently pressed against it in an effort to hear anything to indicate a pony was there, yet I heard nothing. However, the handle of the closet door slowly started moving with a faint squeak. I winced, pulling my head away from the door and stepping back. The door was slowly pushed open by an icy blue hoof. My horn glowed a soft green as I grabbed the handle and yanked on it, nearly tearing the door of its hinges. In a cry of surprise, the now wide eyed stallion began to fall forward.

But, because I had let the door go from my magic, it bounced at the edge of its travel and slammed into the stallion's nose.

*** ***

A bloody nosed Trigger sat on the messy bed with a steadily melting ice pack on his face. I was sitting on the floor with my black socks on and a small mirror floating nearby. Trigger pulled the ice pack off his face and looked at himself from various angles.

It was then that I noticed, despite the dried blood I had caused, he did not look that bad. Trigger, for the lack of a better word, was cute to me despite him not having claws. He belonged to a race of ponies that were hardy and resilient in the face of hell. If you could not do magic, then the wasteland was cruel and yet earth ponies appeared more numerous than unicorns and definitely more numerous than pegasi.

"You broke my nose," Trigger drawled out with an odd tone due to his current situation.

"I fixed it though," I replied in his mind with a smile.

He frowned some, turning his head to the side. "I don't know... One side looks different."

"Shall I adjust it?" my head tilted. "I'll be gentle this time."

"No!" his eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. "It's fine. I don't think I can go through havin' my nose broken and adjusted again."

"Trigger," I began quietly in his head. "You have not told me why you are hiding from your boss. I could be in trouble for helping you."

The icy stallion looked down, sighing deeply as his ears drooped to the side of his face. "Promise you won't tell anypony?"

I nodded slowly and said nothing. The thought that he could have killed a pony crossed my mind, but... in the wasteland. No pony is innocent and everyone is a killer. Even the young. It was a sad but true fact.

"I don't want to do this anymore," Trigger muttered quietly, but I heard it from his mind as well. The sad tone of his voice told me that he really did mean it. "I want off this ship, and I don't want to take anymore orders from Miss Pepper."

"Hm..." I scratched my chin in thought with a clipped wing. Something deep down, possibly my old training, was screaming at me to berate this pony for dereliction of duty. However, I ignored it because I had long ago given up that life. Instead I listened to a side of me that was better and less strict.

"Trigger," I grinned. "I have a plan."

"What?" he tilted his head.

I placed a hoof to my chest and nodded with a proud expression. "Simple, you climb on my back. I'll carry you to Zakiya's boat and cover you with blankets before coming back here. She then sails away with you onboard and you'll never have to come back here again."

"How will you get past the guards? They'll see me and that'll be that."

"Ah," I held my leg up a bit as I shut my eyes and turned my nose up some. "Fortunately, Shock can turn invisible. It's a simple and brilliant plan by The Great and Powerful Shell Shock!"

My eyes went wide and I slowly brought a hoof to my mouth at what I had said, because it sounded like something The Goddess might say.

"Uh... okay...?" Trigger tilted his head. "Tell me you don't always talk like that."

I just sat there blinking in complete shock and at a complete loss for words. There was no reasoning for why I had said that beyond having heard it countless times.

"I'm going to guess by your reaction, that you don't. Okay, look. Miss Shell Shock, we should do this now before your zebra friend leaves."

With an audible gulp, I slowly nodded. "Yes, we should," I replied in his mind. "However I would like payment for helping you."

"Does it look like I have anything to trade?" the icy blue earth pony replied with a wave of his hoof. "All I have is this jacket and a blade."

A faint smile crept across my face that turned into a smirk when I remembered the captain's words. "There is always something to trade, and a mare has needs. Needs that a stallion could help with."

Slowly, it dawned on him and his expression changed from neutral to complete wide eyed shock in an instant. "Oh no!" Trigger roared as he scrambled back. "I won't fuck you just like that!"

"You could use your hoof?" I half-shrugged and wondered if Raul felt the way I felt when talking with this pony. It felt... strange and awkward to even bring the subject up with a random pony, but he did bring it on himself.

"I..." his eyes darted around the room. "I... Uh, I like m-stallions," Trigger grinned a grin that looked forced. Even I could see the sweat forming on his face and knew he was lying.

But, I sighed with a nod and let my ears slowly droop. "I am sorry to push it on you, but you must put yourself in my position: You're pleasuring yourself and a stallion barges into the room. What do you do?"

"Uh..." he blushed deeply, which made him look even cuter to me. "I... Uh, um... I..." he looked away, gulping. "I a-ask if he w-wants to... to join...?"

"Yes," I bowed my head some. "But if you will not help with that, then I ask what can you offer?"

"Advice; don't let them make you stay longer than you need to. If they ask if you want to join, say no. Do what you came to do and get out."

"Why?" I tilted my head. "They seemed nice and this ship is obviously well cared for."

"They say you can leave whenever you want, but you can't because you need to pay them back before you can. Everything they give you has a price you have to work off, even food, and you'll never work it off. In short, they're nice slavers that turn mean when you try to leave."

With a quiet hum, I scratched my chin again with my clipped wing. If the information was accurate, then it would come in handy and save me. But I had no way to tell if it was beyond the stallion's words.

So, I stuck my hoof out with a nod and a grin. "That is adequate."

*** ***

An invisible outline slowly made its way through the ship as silently as it could. My hoofsocks did an okay job of muffling my hooves, but I still did not move when a pony was nearby. Trigger stayed silent like I had told him to and there were no... accidental odd feelings on my back.

As I looked around the deck outside the area with the rooms, I made sure there were no ponies nearby that would see the door move. After a few moments of searching I found none, so I gently shut the door and locked it. Another glance showed the ship was moving along the river in a heavily forested area. The jungle canopy nearly reached to the center of the river and I wondered how wide it was.

"That was scary," Trigger finally whispered. "I thought for sure Fabric saw us."

"Why is she called Fabric?" I replied with a quiet whisper as I began walking towards where I remembered where Zakiya's boat should be.

"Because she makes our jackets and all of the cloth items you've seen on the ship."

"So ponies here are named after their jobs on the ship?" I asked.

"Only the 'workers' are," he mumbled as we passed by a gun turret that was thankfully empty.

I stopped walking and slowly backed up. As I looked at the weapon, I felt Trigger's forelegs wrap around my neck. He, obviously, could not see me staring intently at the M-2 .50 caliber heavy machinegun behind a thin sheet of armor. It appeared well taken care of, which was not surprising. But, sadly, there was no ammo.

I glanced up and down the deck, my gaze lingering on one of the paddle wheels as it slowly propelled the ship along the river. "How many are on this ship?"

"Ponies?"

I rolled my eyes at his remark. "No, diamond dogs. Of course ponies!"

"Um... about two hundred ponies and twenty gryphons."

With a sigh of frustration, I resumed walking aft towards where I thought Zakiya's boat was.

The zebra's boat was indeed still attached to the ship by two very long and thick ropes that stretched out some distance. Zakiya herself was not aboard and its boiler appeared to be quiet. Regardless of what I thought about it, I had promised to help Trigger and I would see it through to the end.

Slowly, I took quite a few steps back and lined up with the boat. "What are you doing?" Trigger asked quietly.

"This," I replied as I broke into a gallop, my hooves slamming into the wood deck and alerting anypony nearby. As I closed in on the railing, I spread my wings and gave them a few hard flaps, propelling the both of us into the air.

I smiled at sailing through the air like I was flying, but my eyes widened in shock when I began falling over the boat. We were coming in at too shallow of an angle and overshot it, slamming into the water with a loud splash. As quickly as I could, I kicked my way to the surface.

A visible Trigger was already there thrashing about like panicked foal. His hooves flailed about, slamming into the water and spraying it everywhere. I let my invisibility spell drop so he could see me, and the icy blue stallion immediately wrapped my neck in a hug that began cutting off my windpipe.

As my vision slowly started darkening, I tried to stay afloat by paddling. "Trigger... I... can't breathe!" I gasped.

His grip immediately loosened but he stayed there hugging my neck, and it took me a few moments to realize something; he could not swim. It was the only thing that made sense for why he acted like that.

Slowly, my one-eyed gaze went down river where the two boats were steadily steaming towards a bend. The river's current gently pushed us along after the boats, but there was no way I could swim fast enough to catch them. And there was no way I could fly.

But the ponies there would surely put two and two together, and come to the correct conclusion. I only wondered what was going to happen to Zakiya once it was found out that I had helped Trigger.

With nothing else to be done, I swam to the edge of the river.

*** ***

The dense and steaming hot jungle seemed to stretch on forever as I walked alongside of Trigger, with my now loaded IF-12 just to the right of my vision. That way I could quickly aim down it and fire if need be. On my left was a foot long blade. Trigger settled with using my 10mm pistol, Sister, as he had no other weapon.

Our progress was slow no thanks to the lush green jungle all around us with thick brush, nor did the oppressive and sticky heat help any. Sweat practically poured down my face, causing me to wonder how in The Goddess's name did I go so long with my original mane? It was huge and dragged along the ground if I did not have any radiation flowing within me. Not to mention it felt only a little cooler with all of it gone.

Regardless of my feelings about the heat and my old mane, I pressed on and so did Trigger. Sadly, the icy blue pony could not use a pistol and blade, so that left me to hack at the bushes with his blade.

As I brought the weapon down on a large leaf, slicing it half way through, I frowned. "Trigger, this blade is dull," I said with my mind."

"I sharen ih dis 'ornin'," he managed to mumble around the pistol's trigger. But I heard what he said in his mind, "I sharpened it this morning."

With a roll of my eye, I pulled the blade out and hacked at the leaf again, cutting it all the way. "Then why am I failing to cut these, hm? If you sharpened it this morning, I should be cutting through these much easier."

"But I did!" he whined in his mind, I ignored his nasty slobbery speak. "I sharpened it after breakfast."

"It's dull!" I hissed, bringing the blunt weapon down on a branch. It snapped partly, so I used my magic and broke it off. "How much farther to town?"

"Uh, about... five miles?"

And ahead of us laid thick brush with no path, forcing us to make our own.

"That'll take all day." With an annoyed grunt, I pressed forward. Hacking and slashing at the bushes with a magically assisted blade. My ears swiveled left and right as I listened for anything out of the ordinary, but all of the noise I was making made it hard to hear. A pony or zebra could be only a few feet behind or to our sides and we'd never know it. I dared not look up for fear of seeing a sniper in the trees that was not there.

As I was pushing the latest broken leaf aside, I noticed movement out of the top of my vision. And before I knew it. An eight legged freak the size of my face filled my entire view.

In a split second, I jumped back as my wings flared up, screaming, "Goddess, that thing is huge!" both the rifle and and blade fell to the floor as my magic field exploded with a pop.

The eight legged freak landed on the ground and began scurrying towards a tree. Trigger galloped over and stomped the demon spawn with a hoof. I, however, chose to be a dignified mare and kept screaming my head off as I pranced in place. "Kill it! kill it! Burn the fucking thing to make sure it's dead!"

Trigger stomped on the demon spawn again and twisted his hoof before pulling it along the ground. "It's dead! Will you shut up?!" he shouted.

I gulped, quickly dragging my dropped items back with magic. As I lifted the IF-12 off the undergrowth, a shaky hoof brushed off the invisible spiderweb from the weapon. "That... That thing. It was as big as my face!"

"Was not," Trigger walked back over with a smirk. "You're afraid of spiders?"

"Am not." I lifted the blade up and wiped it off, then turned to my right and began to carve a new path. "It startled me was all."

I shuddered a bit because I could just feel its web on my face. Like... like a strand of my mane, but not. It was there and sticky, but couldn’t be removed even after I waved my hoof!

"You know the town is in the other direction, right?" asked Trigger with a hint of annoyance or arrogance. I nodded as I brought the blade down on a plant. "So why are we going this way?"

As it was snapped and dropped, I glanced up before moving forward. "There might be treasure this way. We'll circle around and come back to this path."

"You're afraid of spiders."

"Am not," I huffed, fluffing up my feathers.

"Are too," he nudged my flank, causing me to start in surprise. "Admit it."

"I am not afraid of spiders!" I hissed inside his mind. "If... If you don't shut up," I turned around and aimed the IF-12 at his head as I dropped the safety, "I'll shoot you!"

He gulped and nodded slowly.

*** ***

The sun was slowly setting and set the sky ablaze in various hues that centered on red. Making the path ahead of us annoying to see due to the canopy that cast dark shadows everywhere. Despite the time of day, it was still annoyingly hot and sticky, causing Sister's jacket to stick to my body. Trigger was following a faint path through the jungle that was more like a single hoof track than a path. And neither of us had said anything since the last rest stop.

My one eyed gaze steadily wandered down to his flank and tail. Like Pepper, Trigger wore what looked like barding underneath, except his appeared to be made of a cloth with thick pads as armor, not plate. His tail was cropped short, yet still managed to cover his stallionhood. As he flicked the tail in the direction of a fly, I smiled a little bit and waited for him to do it again.

"You're staring," Trigger said, causing my cheeks to burn in a deep blush as I quickly looked at a passing tree.

"No-yes." I sighed deeply. "Sorry. It's just..." I looked over at him and noticed that he was looking back at me while walking slow. "I want a foal."

"A foal huh?" he mumbled around his pistol, but I heard it clearly from his mind. Trigger stumbled on a tree limb and quickly picked himself up, returning his attention to walking.

"It's something simple, but not so simple. I had one once, but she vanished and I'm going to look for her again."

"How are you going to do that?"

I slowly glanced around the dark jungle and sighed. "She's on this island. A small brown ghoul filly with red eyes, but isn't feral."

Trigger stopped, slowly looking back at me. "I've heard about a ghoul like that."

"Well, it would be helpful for me to know what has become of her. I worry for her safety."

"I only heard rumours because I was mostly on the ship, but... they aren't good. They say she and-aah fuck!" Trigger cried out in pain, dropping the pistol from his mouth, at the same time a rifle report shattered the jungle's relative silence.

Without wasting a breath, I aimed in the direction the shot had come from and ducked behind a thin looking tree that would not protect from much. Trigger was rolling around in pain on the ground as a second shot slammed into his chest, causing him to scream. Despite my gaze being in the direction of the shooting, I could not see the muzzle flash or the pony. My magic began dragging the squirming earth pony towards me by his hoof.

Splinters flew at my face as a third shot tore a chunk of wood from the tree next to my glowing horn. I turned my head slightly and covered my face with a hoof. Never letting up on the magical pull until Trigger was next to me.

"It's burning my skin!" he moaned in pain through the clenched teeth and rolled onto his back. There were two holes in his jacket and chest plate, yet the padded portion held two smoking bullets. They were quickly tossed to the side, causing him to gasp in relief.

"Thanks," Trigger panted as he removed a metal plate with two dents in it from his chest. "Luckily they hit my armor and not my face." The icy blue stallion glanced ahead and bobbed his head around. After a few moments of looking like a bird, he shook his head. "Can't see anything, can you?"

I ever so slowly slowly looked around the tree with half my face and waited. The jungle was eerily quiet. No animals made any noise, and neither could I hear any wind blowing through the trees. The only noise I could hear over my own thundering heartbeat sounded like very faint surf pounding against rocks.

The dark jungle ahead was static. No movement could be seen coming from our wayward shooter. So I sat there motionless for a very long time and still could not spot them.

"What are you doing?" Trigger barely whispered above his own breath.

"Watch my back, okay?" I asked with my mind as I hoofed the IF-12 to him along with my saddlebags. After I slowly took my jacket off, I folded it up and placed it inside the bags that I also gave to him. "I'm going to get my gun back."

"What?!" his eyes went wide in shock.

I crouched really low and took one agonizingly slow step after the other towards the faintly glinting gun. And yet, the hostile did not fire for some odd reason, which I was hoped was because they could not see me. The pistol was not that far away and I had it in my mouth in no time.

As I turned my head to the right to glance in that direction. Something slammed into the pistol and tore it from my not-so tight grip in a shower of sparks. I quickly glanced around as the pistol bounced off the nearby tree, hitting me in the side. A second, louder, shot rang out from behind me, followed by a white cloud of smoke. The bullet struck a tree ahead of me at the same time I heard the mechanical bolt being run through the motions.

Yet, I saw nothing that indicated there were ponies. For all I knew they could have been zebras with stealth cloaks or something like that. It took me a few more moments to realize that they were not shooting directly at me, but at Trigger. This fact caused me to glance at the icy blue stallion and see that he was covering me like I instructed. I had no illusions that he would not hesitate to turn that rifle on me if a favorable situation presented itself.

With a quiet sigh and the faintest of nods, I looked forward again. That was when I saw it, a structure built into a tree almost sixty yards ahead. It was camouflaged in such a way that it would be nearly impossible to detect in the daytime, but somepony had neglected to tell the builders that trees did not have large viewing slits cut into them.

"Bunker, fifty to sixty yards ahead," I whispered inside Trigger's mind.

"What are you going to do?" he whispered back. "I don't have a grenade or rocket hidden up my ass."

I laid there contemplating on what to do. There were a few options; I could have yelled at them, used my mind to trick them, or a combo of both. However, I elected to observe them and see if my quarry was a good shot or not, which would tell me if I needed the shield.

"You're surrounded!" Trigger shouted from behind a tree, choosing my choice for me. "We got five ponies over here and more flanking you! Give up now!"

I wanted to facehoof, but I chose not to incase they had a scope trained on my skull.

There was silence for a long while. Long enough that I thought they had gone. But eventually a shot landed near the tree Trigger was using for cover. "Bullshit!" a mare shouted from ahead of me. "Why don't you and your pinned unicorn friend give up? We'll treat you nice and easy."

"That you, Topper?" Trigger shouted, still hiding behind the tree. "I thought we were friends?!"

"Friends don't level towns!" another pony shouted, confirming my thought that there were two. "Your boss is trying to level Blue Water!"

"What?!" Trigger shouted in pure shock. "You're lying! They would nev-"

"Trigger," I whispered with my mouth, interrupting him. "In my bags should be a very large shell. Slide it out, don't roll it."

"Liar! You're their scout ain't'cha?" Topper yelled. "Here to sneak into the town and steal stuff!"

“What’s a seashell going to do?” Trigger asked, causing me to facehoof.

“It’s a big bullet, you can’t miss it!” I hissed in his mind.

After a few moments of quiet digging, the 105mm HE shell was slid out onto the path. I grabbed it with my magic and dragged it over as another shot landed near my hooves, throwing dirt into my face.

"No fancy tricks, unicorn!" the second pony shouted. "No magic and you'll stay alive."

Their threat caused me to roll my eye. I continued to quickly drag the shell over until it was near my head. Then I brought the broken 10mm pistol over and placed it against the side of the warhead. "Alright," I yelled with my mouth loud enough for them to hear. "I've got a Balefire Egg and I'll blow us all up if you don't lay your weapons down and come on out!"

"That's not a Balefire Egg!" the second pony shouted. "That's just a tube with a cap on it."

"You know the Rum Runners have a pair of Egg Launchers," Trigger shouted. "So do as she says!"

As the jungle darkened further from the setting sun, my ears swiveled around and heard... whispering nearby as the pounding in my head grew. Faint, almost imperceptible and incoherent whispering that I heard many times before.

"Last warning." I shouted, ignoring the voices. "Put your weapons down and come on out!"

"You're not suicidal," the second pony shouted. "If you do that, you'll die too!"

I frowned at their ability to see through my ruse and wondered of they had better scopes than I had initially thought. Even though Trigger had tried to convince them as well.

With a deep sigh, I set my pistol down along with the 105mm shell. Slowly, I began to stand up to my full height as I shouted. "Alright! You win. It's just a round tube and a cap. But I'm warning you, put the weapons down and come on out!"

"Or else what?" the pony named Topper shouted.

I rolled my eye and stood on my hind legs, holding a hoof high as I spread my glorious clipped wings. Before they could even begin to comprehend the beautiful alicorn before them, I quickly cast my shield and surrounded myself in the jade green bubble. "Or you will be doomed!" I telepathically boomed in their minds. “The Goddess does not take kindly to-”

But suddenly, there was a bright flash from their hidey hole as a large weapon shattered the air like a clap of thunder. To my horror, and complete shock, I felt the large bullet penetrate my shield and smash through one of my feathers on the left wing. My eye went to the size of a pie plate as my jaw dropped in complete shock.

"Fuck, fuck, load it faster!" the second pony said in my mind, having left the telepathy open.

"Trigger," I nearly shouted in his mind as I lowered my horn and began charging them with the shield up. "Give me covering fire on that bunker. I'm going in!"

*** **

Death. It comes for us all one way or the other, even the princesses and The Goddess found that death is the thing that makes all ponies and equal, even the 'evil' zebra. We all die. But... something deep down inside me told me to spare Topper and her accomplice. Well, that and Trigger screaming in my ear to put the knife down and not cut the skin from their bones.

Topper and her pal were bound together half a mile or so behind us. The rope was easy to get out of if you knew what you were doing, but I doubted that they could get out of it in a reasonable time frame.

As for what made me think of death? The stench of it; that sweet, repugnant, smell every wastelander knows but ignores. It, along with a charcoal smell of burning wood and something I couldn't place, drifted inland on the stiff ocean breeze. Through my new scope, I watched a set of lights slowly sail on the ocean. The full moon and clear night sky would have been serene had it not been for the thick smoke clouds that steadily rose skyward from below us.

"They...?" Trigger whispered to himself as he collapsed. "The town... A whole town?!"

I slowly lowered the massive scoped pipe rifle from my vision and looked down at him. Genuine tears were in his eyes at the sight of the burning town below. With nothing else to do, I brought the rifle up to my eye and slowly scanned the area while listening for anything other than the ocean or Trigger's sobbing, which I tried to block out.

As I slowly panned the scope with my magic, I spotted quite a few craters mixed in with the burning rubble indicating they used large shipboard guns to assault the town. Dark pony shapes darted this way and that as they frantically galloped around the town in an effort to combat the blaze. There was nothing I could do for them other than watch. But... as I scanned the town again, I spotted ponies dragging the corpses of a few Rum Runner ponies, their jackets made them obvious.

"Trigger, what was the purpose of the visit to this town?"

"To trade!" he sobbed. "It's all we do on the route... Trade alcohol and ammo for caps, and supplies. We... go on a route around the island every month. This wasn't supposed to happen."

"Trigger!" I snapped, looking down at him. "I suggest you take that jacket off right now."

He was staring at the cuff of his jacket that covered his forelegs. "This wasn't supposed to happen," he whispered over and over.

----------------

Shell Shock: Level up!

New perk - Ghost of the Jungle.(Rank I) You can now sneak around slightly better as long as no pony hears your hoofsteps or sees you moving quickly. +5 to stealth when your coat color matches the shrubbery. Just don’t do magic, the glow gives you away.